Strategic Differences Between Live Poker & Online Poker

In this article I’m going to look at the major differences between the two, and the major leaks that typical live players have in particular.

The biggest leak: too loose early on

Probably the biggest leak live players typically have is that early on tournaments when the stocks are deep they play far too many hands and call too many raises. This means there are a lot more multiway pots live than online so if you’re an online player starting to play live used to studying and playing mostly heads up pots, you need to put some time and effort into learning how to play multiway.

Let’s talk about pot odds

Live players generally have a very poor understanding of pot odds. They tend to think in absolute chip terms rather than relative to the pot terms. By this I mean they’ll call a bet which is only a small fraction of their stack but big in relation to the pot early on in a tournament while they will often do the opposite late on a tournament: they will fold to a bet that is big in relation to their stack but small in relation to the pot.

Similarly, live players often have no understanding of implied odds. This means they will call with hands that are often dominated, or they will chase draws when the stacks are not really deep enough.

Not re-stealing enough

Live players in general re-steal way less often than they should. They like to defend their blinds, but usually by calling rather than raising, which means we can try to steal their blinds with a wider range.

Overly concerned about their tournament life

Live players are generally very concerned with their tournament life much more than online players. This is understandable when you consider that online tournaments take much less time and when you bust one you can immediately register another. By contrast, busting a live tournament that has been your sole focus for hours or even days feels a lot worse, and you usually won’t have the opportunity to jump straight into a new tournament.

This means live players generally over fold to all in bets. This is true whether they are the player who will be all in or the other player. I have seen players fold quite strong hands to all in bets for a tiny fraction of the pot, because they see an all in as always strong, as they would not risk all their own chips without a strong hand, and extrapolate this thought process onto opponents.

Poor stack size awareness

In general live players have very poor stock size awareness. Online players tend to be more aware of the tools that they have at their disposal depending on their stack size, but you will see live players calling raises when they’re far too shallow to do so, for example. Another very common live leak is they tend to play draws too passively: they will happily put chips into the pot trying to catch their draw rather than raising trying to add fold equity to the equity of their draw.

Bluffing

Another very important live player tendency is they tend to bluff in very straightforward rather than elaborate ways. Generally if they want to bluff in a hand they will do so at first or most obvious chance. For example if a live player raises before the flop and does not continuation bet but bets the turn this is very unlikely to be a bluff (as they would have bluffed the flop). Other lines which are rarely bluffs include check call flop check call turn lead river. This is because most players, if they decide to bluff, will either check raise the flop or the turn rather than waiting until the river to put the trigger. By contrast online players will often have bluffs in every conceivable line.

Thin value bets

Live players in general don’t thin value bet rivers often enough with marginal hands. They are generally happy to just check and try to win the pot rather than extract extra value. This means you can usually discount thin value hands when you face a bet on the river.

Slow playing

Live players often slow play far too much. If a player is constantly getting aggressive on flops, continuation betting, check raising, leading, and suddenly they check in a situation where you expect them to bet, this is usually a sign that they are slow playing. Don’t play into their hands by doing their betting for them.

All in bets

As I mentioned earlier most live players overfold to all in bets based on the fact that the bet is for all the chips rather than in relation to the pot size. This can be exploited in a number of ways. The all in size is a good size to use with your bluffs , the non-all in size even if it’s mostly all in is a good size to use with your value bets.

Changing gears

Live players tend to be highly inconsistent in their lines. You’ll often hear this referred to as changing gears but what they really mean is it’s like a switch flips in their head and they decide to just take a random line or make a random move because they feel it’s time to do so. When playing against live players you always have to allow for some percentage of possibility that they’re just doing something random because they feel like it.

Raising for information

Live players often raise for information. This was a play which even top players used 10 to 15 years ago. The idea is you’re not sure whether your hand is good or not so you essentially raise to ask the question in the belief that if you get re-raised you got the answer that your hand is not good,and if you don’t get raised you assume your hand is good. The problem with this is fairly obvious: our opponent does not have to give us an honest answer. In fact if he realises what we are doing, he should give us a dishonest one, raising as a bluff in the knowledge we will fold, and calling when ahead to encourage us to put more chips into the pot. This is exactly how you should look to exploit opponents once you identify that they are raising for information.

Pot commitment

Live players often fold even when they are apparently pot committed. This is a side effect of them not really understanding pot and stack sizes, and this is especially true calling stations. These players call too much and then when they have already put in more chips than they should and should be committed to the pot they don’t realise that and they have a very weak hand which they have to fold. Betting stations are players who keep betting until they get raised or you fold. Often this means they will keep batting until you raise, and even though there are very few chips, they have to fold.

Three betting

Live players typically have very poor fundamental understanding that three bet ranges should be polar. Most live players three bet linear ranges, which means that the bottom part of the range are strong but not very strong hands which can’t withstand the heat of a four-bet, or are not really strong enough to call a four-bet with. This means when you do four bet them, they either end up folding a strong hand, or continuing with one that is too weak relative to the size of the pot. Be prepared to four-bet these players wider that you would.

I had a read

Live players place a large emphasis on looking for reads and tells. These often mirror their own inconsistency when they are “changing gears”: they believe their opponents play similarly inconsistently and can be read. As such, they will often make decisions on very specific reads or put you on a specific hand rather than a range of hands.

Isolating limpers

Live players generally don’t isolate limpers often enough. Limping is the guilty pleasure of most live players: they feel it allows them to see more flops, which is a lot more fun than folding preflop a lot. This means you should be looking to isolate limpers yourself, but also with certain types of hands you can just limp along as you won’t get isolated as often as you would online. Live players similarly don’t squeeze enough so you can also flat raises more than you would online.

Four bets

Live players often have absolutely no four bet bluff range. All of their four bets are for value. Therefore you should fold more of your three bets to their four bets but you should three bets wider (to exploit their lack of four bet bluffs).

Unbalanced post flop ranges

Live players typically have very unbalanced post flop ranges. For example they often continuation bet the flop too often, and then shut down too often when called. This type of leak is very easy to exploit. You can raise their continuation bets more often on the flop, or just call and then bet turn or river if they shut down.

Overfold the turn

Most live players fold the turn too much. This is a response to old-fashioned strategy advice that was dispensed 10 to 15 years ago: “if you call the turn you have to call the river” or “you have to make your mind up on the turn”. This is terrible advice. You should call turn and fold river with part of your range. This type of player therefore is always going to call the river when they call the turn, so you should give up on rivers with your bluffs.

The law of second aggression

A common leak a lot of live players have is one I call the law of second aggression. They don’t like folding to the first aggressive act as it feels weak, but they don’t mind folding to the second aggressive act feeling they at least put up some resistance. Against this type of player you should always follow through on your bluffs.

Bet sizing tells

Many live players have fairly big bets sizing tells. For some live players, small bets are weak and big bets are strong. A small minority of live players do the reverse (small is strong, big is weak). A small bet on an early street followed by a big bet n a later street generally means their hand improved specifically on that street. For example if you call in the big blind and the flop comes King seven five, and your opponent bet small on the flop then small when a queen hits the turn but then big when an eight hits the river, their most likely holding is pocket Eights.

Small raises pre-flop usually signify either monsters or marginal hands. Some players raise only aces and kings at a small size and everything else at a bigger size while other players use the small size for all their marginal hands like 75 suited. Very unusual lines like check call flop, check call turn, check raise river, or check call check call lead river tend to be weighted towards value and are rarely bluffs.

Limping

Limping is much more common live than online. When dealing with limpers the most important consideration is to try to decide which type of limper you’re dealing with. There are four predominant types.

Type one is the weak passive limper who just likes to see flops and tends to limp their weakest hands. These players will often fold to a large raise as the range consists entirely of weak hands.

Type two are the calling stations. Like type one, they also tend to limp their weakest hands but they don’t tend to fold to raises. You should raise these players as they’re often out of position with too weak a range, so we can usually win the pot post flop. Most of the profit comes from playing post flop against these players.

Type three are the maniacs. These are the players who seem to be raising almost every hand and then unexpectedly once in a blue moon they limp. When they do this is almost never 74 suited: it tends to be aces and whatever other hands they want to trap with.

Type four are the trappers. This is old man coffee who has been folding for the last hour and then suddenly limps under the gun. He does so with aces and maybe kings if he’s feeling adventurous, hoping somebody will pounce on his limp and then he gets to reraise,

How to play against the different types of limpers

Type one are the weak passive limpers that either fold to preflop raises a lot, or call but check fold too many flops because their range is too wide. The best way to exploit these players is to isolate very wide, basically any hand you would open, because you can almost treat them as an extra blind.

The other major exploit is just continuation bet 100% of the time. When you are dealing with weak passive limpers consider the players behind you yet to act also. Good players will adjust and start to attack your isolations with three bets. When this happens you have to tighten your isolation range.

Sometimes at loose tables the players behind won’t threebet your isolations but will call a lot leading to many multiway pots. At these tables choose hands of play well multiway like suited aces and pairs. If the players behind fold too much when you isolate limpers, then you can raise almost anything playable.

Type two limpers are the calling stations. These players don’t fold pre-flop to isolation raises and call down to wide post flop. To exploit these players, isolate with high card hands that make top pair a lot, and value bet wider post flop. Don’t try to bluff these players with air but you can semi bluff draws, as they will pay you off when you hit. Against stations never bluff the river, unless they have a lot of air (in the form of missed draws) that beat your air.

Type three limpers are the maniacs. They don’t fold pre-flop, and they may limp reraise, and they will be very aggressive post flop, donking and check raising a lot. To exploit these players don’t isolate too wide: stick to strong value hands. Pot control medium strength hands post flop. Be prepared to stack off wider post flop.

Type four limpers are the trappers. They typically limp only strong hands that they are looking to limp reraise. To exploit these players don’t raise them often. Your raising range should include some very strong hands that can continue versus a limp reraise, and hands with blockers to the hands that they will limp reraise. If they only have very strong hands then you should never raise weak hands (even with blockers) but you can limp behind more with hands that have a good chance to crack their very strong aces or kings type hands, such as suited connectors and pairs.

Further investigations

In this article we have looked at the most important differences between live and online play, in terms of the major leaks that live players exhibit compared to online players.

For a more detailed look at the most common leaks we see both live and online, my book “Beyond GTO” (available on Amazon) in both Kindle and hard copy formats)goes into considerable detail on all the common leaks, and how best to exploit them.

For those of you who prefer watching to reading, my webinar “Exploiting Weak Live Fields” available on Gumroad also covers this.