Seven Days of Online Poker
The past week has been dedicated to online play. I have some money in my Full Tilt account so I’ve been playing some micro limits NL HE cash games, MTT, and SNGs. I probably put in close to 40 hours of play in the last week. I prefer live play. After reading Azn_Cutie’s post on The Difference Between Online and Live, I started to try to focus in my online games and try to apply some of the same reading skills I find successful in live play. I don’t think I improve my game through online play because I am too easily distracted at home. My cats are jumping on my lap, I watch tv while I play, I look up things online and I’m sometimes even making dinner while I’m in a tournament. That’s no way to play.
When I play live I definitely use reading skills. I feel like I can listen, talk to and focus on the people around me and get a real strong feel for their game and how they will perceive me. This does not really exist online (especially in mirco limits). It’s a whole different game. I was successful this week when applying my attention to the players by watching their betting patterns, pauses, and reviewing hands they showdown but the computer mucks w/o showing. This definitely helped me make good calls. My attention at home is not good though. When playing live what else is there to do but focus on the table and players? I actually find this very relaxing and I don’t think of anything else while I play.
Another successful play for me online this week was trapping. I mixed up betting patterns and really got great value for my hands. From watching the betting patterns of the other players, I was able to put my players on hands and then change my betting patterns to represent hands weaker than what I thought they were holding. This worked well.
I personally like SNGs. I like tournaments but sometimes it’s nice to just sit and play the 9 or 10 people at your table til there’s 1 left. I play a lot of single table SNGs live at the dog track in FL, Derby Lane. I find that the players there are very similar to Online miro-limit players. They’re aggressive, a lot of loose players and more than anything: gamblers. I applied the same strategy online in the $2 single table. Start out tight and let the idiots knock themselves out, play mostly in position and only my top hands out of position, and start to adjust when we’re down to about 5. Pick up small pots throughout to avoid getting down to a short stack. Definitely the whole time observing everyone and knowing who I can steal from and who to avoid unless I have something to trap them with. I played well online and placed 1st in almost all of the tournaments I cashed in and I cashed in about 80%. I have to say though, I seem to come out unlucky a ton more online. I also still get called by idiots who are far behind and they seem to suck out on the river just about a million times more online (rough estimate). The MTT tournaments online are too big and take too long for when I play. I feel like you play for hours for the chance to win.. $17? I don’t know. Not worth it in the micro limits. For me anyway.
In cash games, I followed advice of my fellow bloggers in my earlier post. I played mostly in position, value bet my made hands to the river, folded after the flop without strong draws or a good pair, called a bluff from my opponent on the river when I had a decent hand.. things like that. It worked well and I made a good amount (relative to my $4 buy-in for the $.05-0.10 game)
In the long run I don’t do well online. I don’t focus 100% of the time giving myself a big disadvantage every time I play. This week I’m going to play a few single tables at the track and continue with the online cash games. I also have AIPS III Event #1 this Thursday. AIPS is the Ante Up podcast’s Full Tilt monthly tournaments. This month we’re playing Limit Hold Em. I don’t play limit much at all so I’m kind of excited to see how I do.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
... Poker Forum - Online Poker Game♠, Strategy, Poker Bonu♠e♠, Freeroll♠ & Review♠ of Poker Site… wrote an intere♠ting po♠t to♦ay on Seven Day♠ of Online PokerHere’♠ a qui♣k ex♣erptI ♥ave ♠ome money in my Full Tilt a♣♣ount ♠o I’ve been playing ♠ome mi♣ro limit♠ NL HE ♣a♠♥ game♠, MTT, an♦ SNG♠. I probably put in ♣lo♠e to… ...