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Over the past year or so, I started playing more online poker than I ever have before. Having limited tournament experience, I decided to increase my online play to grab up more experience in tournaments with larger fields. Before I knew it, I was playing cash games, Sit & Gos and tournaments nightly. Sometimes my online play was as much as 6 hours a day. On the flip side, my live play was diminishing…and by middle of 2006, I was having my absolute worst year of live poker since I began playing. I took some time off from live poker and then upon my return to play more live sessions, I noticed partnering it with long online sessions was a recipe for disaster.

So, early in November, I decided to leave online poker behind completely. While playing online was a quick fix for my desire to play poker, it was affecting my live game and I knew I had to step away from the online game to work exclusively on my live game. Since then, I have played 16 live sessions of poker (mostly No-Limit cash games) and have had 9 winning sessions and 2 break-even sessions with just 5 losing sessions. While 16 live sessions in 3 1/2 months is nowhere near as often as I would like to play, every time I sit down to a live session, my mind is clear and focused and my play is fresh. Before giving up online poker, my live play was robotic, uninspired and predictable. More importantly, my live play was unprofitable.

In Daniel Negreanu’s new book, “Hold’em Wisdom For All Players”, he talks about what he calls the three levels of poker. At level one, your focus is on “what do I have?” Basically, you play your cards and make decisions based on the probability of you making your hand. You are playing at level two when you factor in “what do my opponent’s have?” Level two becomes more complex because you have to factor in not only what you have but what your opponent might have as well. At level three, you combine these to factors with “What do my opponent’s think I have?” This is the most complex of the three levels as you have to factor in your table image, how your opponent thinks, what has happened at the table, etc. Being able to play at level three gives you more information to make decisions and win some pots that you would have never won playing at levels one or two. This concept is vitally important when discussing the effect of online play on live play because these two areas cause a player to operate at different levels more frequently than others. Additionally, online players who have not flexed their memory as frequently as live players need to can make up for a poor memory with the utilization of Hand Histories and software designed exclusively to help players become better decision-makers online. In live poker, you have yourself and yourself alone to rely on to make the right decisions.

Additionally, online players can hide their tells easily, switch tables with lightning speed and get up from the table after an embarrassing bad call with the click of a button. At a live game, the information that is available to you to help you play better poker is never ending. What is your opponent wearing? How do they stack their chips? Are they talkative? What are they drinking? Online poker relies heavily on playing the cards dealt whereas live poker relies heavily on playing the players. In my case, marrying the two versions of poker caused my live game to tank because I failed to switch gears back to a live poker mentality because I played so much online poker.

Is this the case for everyone who plays both online poker and live poker? Of course not! However, there are many players who don’t realize the effect of playing mostly online poker can potentially have on live play. For example, players who are successful online players by playing multiple tables at one time have a completely different skill set to be successful than a live player does. It usually is a combination of patience and great level one poker. A successful live player usually has to operate at least at level two to be successful. Personally, my game relies a lot on the style of play at the table combined with my ability to adjust to that style. When I switched to primarily online play, I focused a lot of my efforts on hand selection and eliminating betting patterns. Success at online play allowed me to bring this skill to my live game but I also dropped certain key elements of my live game that negatively impacted my level of success playing live.

To further illustrate the major difference between online play and live play, here is a recent situation that occurred at a live game that provided me with a lot of information that led to a successful session. While playing $1/$2 No-Limit, I was at a fairly tight 10-handed table with two younger players basically running over the table with aggressiveness. I was in the 3-seat at the table and they were in seats 7 and 10. Early on in the session, I caught a hot run of cards and was able to win a few pots and was able to do it without showing down many hands. While both of the younger players were aggressive, they were also somewhat weak as they usually got out of the way when they were played back at with a raise or re-raise. In addition, they were astutely paying attention to everything that was going on at the table while the other players were more tuned in to the sporting events on the television or the talk at the table then what was actually going on. So, with me in late position, the younger player in the 10-seat raised the pot to $10 after two other players limped in, which was becoming standard when a few players limped in front of him. Noticing this, I decided to see if I was correct and after glancing down at 8-5 offsuit, I bumped it to $25. The rest of the group folded around to the 10-seat and after thinking a while, he folded and showed one card, an ace. At that point, I decided to ruin my table image and showed my bluff. Both younger players were visibly affected by seeing the hand and now I knew I had a shot at hitting a home run. About 20 hands later, I was in the big blind and had pocket aces. Like clockwork, there were two limpers ahead of me and the 7-seat raised to $10 with the 10-seat calling and the button calling as well. Looking to set a trap but not wanting to allow too many players in the hand, I made it $25 again. Quickly, the limpers folded to the 7-seat who made it $50. At this point the other players folded to me and after I thought for a little bit, I just called. The flop was near perfect for me, Qd-8c-4s. Immediately, I pushed all-in for over $250. My opponent, sitting on about $150 was well covered and started to think hard and long about his decision. Normally, with a board as perfect as that, I would have let my opponent walk into trouble with a continuation bet. In this instance, my ruined table image set up the all-in move as I didn’t think he could fold if he had a pocket pair and if he had A-Q, he was done. The only fear I had was if he flopped a set of 8s or 4s but I was willing to take the risk. Once he started thinking about his decision, I knew I was ahead. He started mumbling to himself and at one point said, “I just have to know what he has.” After about 6 minutes, he finally made the call stating that he thought we had the same hand and I quickly flipped over my pocket aces. The turn and river brought no help to his hand that he never revealed other to say that he had A-K to his friend sitting next to him in the 8-seat.

…to be continued

BJ316 is an amateur poker player who can often be found on Full Tilt Poker or at the $1/$2 No Limit table at one of the many casinos in Atlantic City. He has had moderate success in cash game play over the years and some tournament success in all formats of poker.