Live games are always very different from online games. Online games takes advantage of the fact that you can manage multiple tables at the same time, increasing your win rate through data-mining and pushing your edges. With live games, you rarely have that luxury, seeing much lesser hands than when online, and thus making it necessary for you to loosen up and play more hands than you would generally play.
It’s in live cash games that you get caught in more cooler hands than you would care to be in, simply because hitting the flop strongly isn’t a common occurrence, and thus, you would tend to over-play hands that would be considered “moderate strength” hands in online play. Take for example this hand I played in a live cash game yesterday. I held AcTc pre-flop in middle position, with a very healthy chip stack, over-stacking all the players at the table. Action was folded to me, and I made the usual opening raise of 4xBB. I got three callers, including the blinds, and we went 4 way to the flop, which was Ad8s3d. Small blind (a slightly loose player) went all in with a pretty deep stack, over-betting the pot 3x. Big blind folded and action was on me. AcTc on this board beats many hands that my opponent would have shoved with, so I made the call, and he showed me AJo, which held up to take the pot.
Admittedly, his play was extremely unconventional, as he would only get value from a hand like the one I held, while forcing many other hands to fold, and reducing value, but this is the kind of play you can expect at live games. Hands like these increase the variance of playing lives games, so you will need to maximize value in pots that you win in order to overcome the losses you incur through coolers, bad beats and the inevitable mistakes.
As mentioned in an earlier article, bluffing is an integral part of maximizing value for your made hands. On that very same night, I was caught up in a three way pot with pocket queens on the cutoff. Action was folded over to the hi-jack, who raised 5xBB. I decided to slow-play my pair, and flatted, which resulted in the button also making a call. The flop was all under Q, with a flush draw and no cards above 9. Hi-jack makes a continuation bet, and I decide the flush draw was too dangerous to allow for further slow-play. I raised 3.5x his raise, and to my surprise, button flatted. Hi-jack folded after much hemming and hawing. Turn throws a T on to the board, which would also have completed any flush draw. I had already invested about one third of my stack, and decided to bet another one third of my stack to see if he had the flush (he would raise me if he had, since my bet was so strong). He flat called, and the turn put yet another card of the same suit on the table (none of my Qs were of the same suit). I decided to go for it and went all in with the remainder of my stack, which was about 3/4ths of the pot. He folded.
I later discovered that he actually made a straight on the turn, but didn’t raise due to the possible flush. The last card was enough of a scare card to weaken his resolve and allow me to bluff him off the best hand. This illustrates the fact that huge bluffs are often successful if you make them when situations are favorable to your bluffs. Some players attempt to “bluff” by making random big bets, and hoping their opponent folds, when the board isn’t conducive to a bluff. These are the times when you stand to lose your entire stack on a badly timed bluff, something I’ve been guilty of a lot in the past. That very night, I saw a player who had quadrupled his stack lose it all in a badly timed bluff that got called by his opponent who only had second pair!
Considering how tough online games are getting, it’s a nice change to play in softer live games for a change of scene. Try it some time, though take care to always play aggressively and in position! Check out the shot of this hand, the very first straight-flush to showdown in the live game I played in (Poker Empire!), and that was directly after the very same player flopped quad kings!
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