Just finished a very mixed session of poker. Mixed in that I played both online and offline, both using the same strategies (at least initially for the offline play) and ended up with extremely different results, the strategy used being BSS. I made a significant loss in the live games, while enjoying a significant profit in the online counterpart.
Lesson learnt (that I realized much earlier, but apparently needed a refresher); Online poker and live poker are extremely, and I mean extremely different. Maybe it’s just because of my personality; a little hot tempered, and very impatient. These are two traits that are very bad for a poker player, simply because they are the exact formula for tilt. Suck-outs and bad play make me lose my temper, the latter being targeted at myself. Bad hands or flops, slow dealing and lengthy hands make me impatient. And together, both make me lose due to tilt plays.
My live game losses were only due to two major hands, both of which could be avoided. I was not getting any hands for about 3 orbits, and finally caught KJo, but was in early position. The BSS dictates that this hand should be folded, but I had gotten impatient after getting no hands, and decided to limp to see the flop. As usual, another 5 limpers called behind and the blinds checked. The flop came KQ6, two clubs, and small blind checks. Big blind over-bets the pot and action was on me. I frequently play with Big Blind, who’s a regular in the live games I play, and he has a tendency to play draws very strongly. I decide to raise with my Kings, and 3 bet him for 3.5 times his raise. Everyone else folded, and Big Blind says he’s all in.
I made several significant mistakes here. First of all, I failed to observe his stack, the remnant of which was smaller than my raise if he called. Secondly, his position as Big Blind gives me almost no information on his hand, him having checked, and thus could be holding almost any two cards, including K6 or Q6, both of which have me crushed. I then compounded both errors by thinking I was committed to the pot by calling the all-in, forgetting that in previous encounters, he hardly ever moves all in with a weak hand. I lost 3/4ths of my stack to Q6.
The second loss was when I had AQs in middle position. I raised and the guy to my immediate left raised 3x my initial raise. He’s generally a loose player, playing almost any two suited cards from any position but only aggressive when he does have a hand. I should have folded the AQs, being out of position and likely dominated, but once again, I have had very few hands, and the earlier bad play I made was making me impatient to win a big pot. I called. The flop came 554, two diamonds, which gave me 2 overs and a flush draw. I decided to play this slowly to gain more information, and checked. He bet half the pot, and I decided to 3 bet him to see if he had a pair or was simply betting with AK. He went all-in, and I snap-called, a huge mistake. The pot was barely giving me 1 to 1 odds, and I was 50/50 at best against a pair under Q, and a huge underdog with any other higher pair that he would make that move with. He had Jacks, which held up to take my entire stack.
Rebuilt my stack somewhat later on when I loosened up and played more hands, but made money on good plays and reads. The last hand of the day was an extreme cooler hand where I had straddled, and the guy on my left double straddled. I caught Kings, but the guy on my left had Aces and I lost a large pot (though not as large as it could have been).
Heading home feeling very frustrated, but aware of my mistakes, I decided to continue grinding it out online. I profited 4 buy-ins in 2 hours, playing 21 tables of NL50 using BSS, and that was even though I encountered 3 huge cooler hands which involved set over sets. That’s a BB/100 of about 10 for this session alone!
Fact is, BSS doesn’t work with live games. Playing too tightly gives you no action when you have monsters, and makes you lose a lot on beats, suck-outs and bad plays. Online games differ simply because you see so many more hands online, up to several hundred times more in my case, and thus, you make a decent profit just by winning blinds alone. Live games are so slow that you barely see 25 hands per hour, and you typically need to make money in that 25 hands or you’re just wasting a lot of time. You’d be better off waiting tables to make a living. This means that you have to loosen up, play more aggressively and read more accurately. This also leads me to believe that a profitable live game player is very much more skilled than his online counterpart, since it requires looser play (high margin for error) and accurate reads.
I learnt many lessons today. Seems like everyday I play poker brings new lessons to learn, some really expensive ones. I guess the key is not to have to learn the lesson twice.
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