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Any tips for playing live MTT's? - The differences between online and live games
Cliffs:
Live is slower than online. Try to avoid reckless play.
Live is slower than online. Try to avoid reckless play.
Be careful not to give away obvious timing tells.
Pay attention to the players on your table and avoid giving away needless information about your experience with online / live poker.
Comments
Maybe if some members who have played a bit live are kind enough to share any tips it will help those who have not played much live and even give those who have played a fair amount live some new points to consider.
I will start and mention a few things which may be helpful (although everyone will have their own take on it).
Game speed - I would say one of the first things to consider is that the game is so much slower than online, by that I mean less hands are dealt in X amount of time than when compared to online so you may have long waits between the pots you are involved in. This is even more evident if you are used to multi-tabling. This can be an important and game changing factor if you get bored and start doing things you shouldn't like playing too many pots in the wrongs spots with marginal holdings and leaking chips needlessly due to boredom/frustration.
Time to act - Another tip offered to me a number of years ago in one of my first live games from Sky Dave was to try and take x amount of time before acting so as not to give away tells based on how quickly you react to your hand. I am not suggesting tanking for 1 minute on every action, personally I try to take 5 or 10 seconds even if it is an instafold as when I pick up a big hand and am trying to work out what to do with it, it gives me a small amount of time to figure out my action without giving too much info away. Also this can help if you are calling with a draw as some players will snap-call their drawing hands because they know what they want to happen and think a little longer if they are unsure when calling a bet with a marginal hand.
General body language and table chat - The slower pace of the game does mean there is extra time to pay attention to people's body language and the table chat. You may get 3 players stating they are new to this and have never played live (maybe avoid this if it applies to yourself), and a couple saying they play full time and have won x amount of tourneys before (again I would avoid this personally if it applies to you). This can be invaluable in giving you a general idea on who to raise and apply pressure too and who it may be better to avoid with more marginal hands.
While other people's body language can give you clues on how to procede, the same obviously also applies to yourself in that your own body language gives away information. If you are conscious of this you can use it to your advantage. For example, I remember one pot where I was sitting in the SB, I quickly checked my cards and saw pocket aces. I put them back down quickly and it folded around to the player on the BTN who I knew was aggressive and may try to steal the blinds. It was quite deep in the tourney and for a lot of money, I decided I would lean back in my chair as if to say to the BTN, 'go on then I am not interested in this pot'. This seemed to work and the BTN shoved all in (with JQs) and I leaned forward and called. Flop was horrific putting all sorts of draws on board but I managed to fade them all and win the pot.
The player was a friend and I spoke to him afterwards and he denies my actions influenced the hand and thinks he would have shoved anyway. I feel my action may have swayed his decision on a subconscious level though, I guess we will never know for sure.
Would be great to hear the thoughts of anyone who has played live if they are willing to share any tips. Has to be of benefit to everyone reading who is planning to play live, either in the upcoming WSOP or at a later date.
Every tell requires a short feedback loop.
Lengthen or eliminate feedback loops.
I would view someone doing that with their cards like you described as a bit (insert expletive here). I knew my opponent uses every bit of information at the table to help inform his choices and very subtly used this to my advantage (he certainly had no complaints). I wouldn't view (very subtly) looking disinterested in a hand as any more deceptive than taking a second when facing a raise when sitting with the nuts to look weaker before reraising (which is pretty common and acting instantly would give the game up).
Don't think I have ever been accused live of doing anything to stretch rules etc and while I will be hard on myself and go all out to try and win, I would never intentionally do this at the expense of being curteous to my opponents. On the contrary, I would/have went out my way to help opponents as although winning might be nice, there are more important things in life.
I think there is a big difference between sitting a foot further back in your chair and pretending to muck cards.
I will link the hand in question, it begins at 1 minute 27 secs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lnVtD6jNYE
To be fair it has been slightly edited the exact seconds before my opponent acted I just sat more relaxed which is slightly edited and the moment I leaned back is sort of missed but I think you can see there was no elaborate actions such as pretending to muck cards or wheeling my chair away back or anything like that, it was very subtle. Opponent also had TJs not JQs (my memory isn't what it used to be lol).
Yeah it was a fun experience playing those games. Although the cameras seem to add 50 lbs lol, thankfully shed a couple of stone since then although a bit to go still!
I think you will have more luck getting a deep run from Tikay and Neil as they are playing a good few events. I will give it a bash but in 1 event as you know anything can happen, will try and play a good few more events next year.
Hopefully one or more of the Sky players can have an amazing run!
On the plus side the side event is a reasonable structure with players starting with 200 BB's and 1 hour levels. It isn't amazing but there is some room to play. The players playing the main event are in even better shape as I think the starting stacks have been increased from 30k chips to 50k chips this year and they have 2 hour blind levels.
Good luck at the tables!
Great post to start the thread.
I would say the main thing is that players online can easily enter another tournament, they haven't travelled to be there and invested time and energy and they don't care if they do something that makes them feel foolish...these things make them way more likely to call 3-bet shoves and to generally continue in a hand once they have started. The fact that they can play more tables means that they can be very tight about playing a hand in the first place though.
Live players sometimes feel peer pressure and that makes them play a hand when they have the feeling they may look like a nit, even though they have been dealt only junk. This gets them into trouble. When it comes to the big bets and risking their tournament life though they are much more likely to back away as they don't want to bust because they have invested emotionally in the tournament, they don't want the "shame" of losing and there may not be another tournament they can enter that day.
If anyone is off to Vegas for the first time and has never played live you really ought to get to your local casino and just have a try before you go.