Poker Literacy and the Internet

[DeadBabySoup]

Unlike a lot of players, I started out playing live. A guy in my apartment building 7 or 8 years ago had a weekly tournament with up to 30 players. I didn't start playing online until after 2 or 3 years of live play. Now days, I think most new players start out playing online. And rarely, if ever, play live.

I've been noticing it at local tournaments. I live in Vegas and play small tournaments, usually with a $50 buy-in or less. Most of the players are fresh off the plane. They generally play like donks. But I've noticed a lot of players don't even look at their opponents. They look at their cards, look at the chips, look at the cocktail waitress, but practically ignore the other players at the table.

I try to watch everyone act even when I'm not in the hand. I tend to get a pretty good read on people and know when they're making a move. But for most players, it's like they're sitting at their computers. I think online poker has drawn a lot of people into poker. But it doesn't teach you one of the most basic skills. The ability to read.

[gamer4life27]

I beg to differ.

When I first got into poker, it was, like you, live. I would play for fun with my family and didn't know what a read was. I was just playing the luck of the cards and have fun doing it. Man, I wish I had those days back when poker was still fun. It's still fun, but knowing what a bad beat is, having it happen to you LOADS of times online, it begins to lose that sense of fun that I once grasped when I was first starting out with my family.

After a while, I started to watch it on T.V. When I started watching it, it was only re-runs of past WSOP's where some of them wouldn't even show their hole cards. But when watching it, I began to realize how much money was in poker. Tons.

While playing live, I learned about online poker and started playing there and got SO much more hands in. I was still playing my cards, but while playing online, I started to learn how to read. I played a mix of live and online more serious, started going to home games and learned to read my opponents more then when I was first starting out.

I took a little break and played online hard core since it was so easily accessable and live whenever you wanted. So using my reading abilities, I adapted those abilities and learned how to read players online. This ability is a VERY valuable assest to my online play. At one point, I could read players better than I could live. But granted, I was still not that good at reading players.

A person's betting patterns can say just as much as their live tells. This is just one of the numerous tells that I have transfered from online to my live tells. I still read the players body language, their posture, the way they handle their chips, etc. But I also take into account what they are trying to percieve to me. This is something that I have improved on EXTREMLY in my online game and live game. When playing online, I always have the right reads.

Now, always is of course a stretch of the truth, but I always have feelings that I should listen to, but don't online and when I don't, it turns out I was right with my gut feeling. ALWAYS as I am playing online, I take into account how fast the person bet, how much they bet according to the pot, what was on the board when they bet, etc. But when you transfer this to live play, it adds that much more tells to your already infinite bank of things you can turn to when trying to read a player.

I could play a live tournament and not even look at a person. Just at their bets, the board, how fast they bet, and any other things that I would take into account online. As long as I am not throwing out my tells out to the other players, it would be just like playing online and it is a regular online game. But since I know that live tells can speak so much more than online tells, I do not just look at these.

So the ability to read is MUCH different from online and live, but they do have reads. So to say that online poker players can not read live is a big missconception because not everyone reads the same things, not everyone sees what others see, and not everyone has the same ability as someone else. It all comes in time. So to dis on the online players for apparently "not being able to read players live" is in fact losing you money. Do you really want a internet pro learning how to read live and be just as dangerous live as they are online? If they decide to not learn how to read live, then it's their loss. But if they decide to read both live and online (like me and many others out there) then they will be a force to recon with either live or online.

[DeadBabySoup]

Obviously, you do some reading online with betting patterns and timing. But the difference is night and day. You're getting 10 times the information playing live as you get online. And the information you do get online is more easily manipulated. I find that it's very difficult for the average player to control their body language. And those who try to with false tells or whatever tend to give even more information away with bad acting. So if you were to only look at players bets while playing live, you would be putting yourself at a serious disadvantage. And from my experience, 60-70% of the players I see come into town don't know how to read body language. And don't even try. To be fair, I've only lived in Vegas for three years. So I can't say for sure the internet is the reason for this. It could just be that tourists don't know how to play poker. But I suspect it plays a role.

[liladypokerpro]

Hi DBSoup, I also started out live. Nothing serious at first, obviously, as I was only about 7 years old or so. But as the years went on, and I became legal age, I moved around the country a lot (No, not a military brat, just bored lol). I eventually found myself in Vegas where I inevitably found myself playing poker in the casinos from time to time. I only started online poker a few years back.

What's strange is that reading comes as second nature to me in either venue. Although I do agree, the tools used in the two reading styles are as different as night and day, it is very possible to do in both venues. The key online is unbroken focus and extreme attention to detail. Timing does not always mean anything, but for certain players it means everything. Some players play specifically in a certain manner in certain time, but one slight misstep can give you a perfect read.

As an example, yesterday I was playing in a PLO MTT, 9 players per table. I'd been at this table for about an hour, all the same players (with exception to those that had gone out by this point). One particular guy and I had gotten into a few showdowns with eachother, passing chips back and forth. He was very good, but very predictable. Then something different happened in a hand following.

I had set up with Queens on the flop, he checked to me and I bet pretty heavily into him. He flat called. The turn let out a 3rd heart on the board, and he took an extra second or two longer than usual to check me. I knew right then he'd hit the flush, and it was proven when I let out a feeler bet, to which he immediately shoved over the top. I knew this move was coming, so (since we were in a friendly game) I folded and showed him my set, and he showed me the Ah10hXX to complete the suspected flush.

This is just the most recent example I could give, but there have been others which were even more [amazing] for lack of a better word. The last truly good one before this one was when I folded a nut flush because of a full house. The funny part was an observer friend of mine and I were debating on whether or not I was as good as people made me out to be (My stance was no, his was "stop being humble" lol) - but he watched as I said... "smells like a full house" and folded and showed the nut flush (again, a friendly game) the opponent showed his full house and said "How the hell did you know?" to which I replied, "unusual sequence of events."

My observer buddy knew what I was talking about (the betting and time taken was unusual for the player) but he didn't say anything other than "lol" - so then the guy with the full house jumps into our conversation and says, "If you can fold a nut flush cus you smell a full house then you are a lot better than you think." That was a nice comment and kinda made my day. I went on to win that game lol ^_^

Actually, now that I think about it, if memory serves, there was someone from here that watched that game too..... now who was it? I want to say I Eat Gamblers, and maybe Dew or gamer4life too... I feel bad now that I can't remember. My memory sucks...