There are two forms of poker that you can play. The two types are online poker and live poker.
Live Events - Tournaments in purple are generally satellites to a major live poker event, such as the European Poker Tour (EPT).; Satellites to Online Tourneys - This dark blue color is used to identify satellites to online tournaments, such as the Sunday Million.
Though both of them function the same way, there are a lot of differences between them as well.
In this article you will learn the main difference and how to choose your game.
Related article: Live Poker: Does Your Hand Tremble?
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A stack of chips.
It is quite normal to see large open raise size when compared to the blind in live games.
In the online game, you might have an open raise whose size is 3-4 times. But in live games, it’s quite normal to see a raise that is 5-8 times the blind. Sometimes you might even find someone raising 10 times the amount.
This effectively changes the stack sizes in the games.
So in effect, bigger bet sizes are played in live poker while smaller bet sizes are played in online poker.
The fact that you get to see real players when you are playing live poker provides a lot of information.
You can observe what the other players are doing, hand movements, body twitches, etc.
Online players find it difficult to hide their emotions when playing the game.
While live players get a lot of information from the HUD display that they have on their screen.
So gaining the information from huds and body tells is one thing but using it to your advantage should be something that you should work on.
Giving away information is something to work on as well; other players also get the same information as you would so avoid giving away a telltale sign that others might take up and use to their advantage.
Keep up the pace!
There is a massive difference in the speed of both the games.
So in live poker, you would be lucky to see more than 30 hands per hour, this is a seriously slow pace.
While in online poker you would get to see more like 60 hands per hour, which is twice the rate you would see in live poker.
So if you are playing multiple tables in an online poker session, you could end up playing like 200 hands in an hour.
This has two problems with live poker, it makes it slow and tedious, and the other thing is that it will take a long time to make a decent pot size.
The problem with live games being slow, plus you cannot play multiple tables at a time. This dramatically reduces your chances of growing your pot quickly.
Also, hand history is not saved, so all the information and database saving has to be done by hand in live poker.
You would need to fight the boredom caused by playing live poker, and the pace hurts your games.
The dynamics of live and online poker are different and to play these games, different approaches should be taken.
In Live poker, since you are being continuously seen and you can see the other players, you should take a more relaxed and passive approach to the game.
This can change once the game starts, but it is the best way to start playing this kind of game.
Live players will give large and small bet sizes depending on the action that is going on, meaning that they are more inelastic with the betting amount.
This is the opposite in online poker; these players are more inelastic with their betting and would bet large amounts when they have a strong hand.
These are some of the dynamics when it comes to playing live and online poker.
Are you a hot player?
As you can see, there are quite a few differences between online poker and live poker.
Both have their pros and cons. Online poker can give you a faster pot size and help you to earn a lot more by playing faster and multiple games at once. Live poker gives you the opportunity to see real-life players. And you can even get the advantage by seeing how they react to certain things that happen only at a table.
The game in online poker is faster than in live poker.
That is another point to think about when you want to play either of the games and you need a cooler head when playing live poker since people can see it, so it is a better game for those who like to think it out.
Of course, when you do choose your game, do make sure you do not overdo by playing too many games. Else you could have boredom setting in and of course, you could end up losing a lot of money.
Also be careful about how you play the game and never over bet or go over your bankroll. That is one of the best tips that can be provided when playing poker.