Balancing Timing Live

Stakes are 2/5 Vancouver, which plays like some Vegas(Bellagio) 5/10 because of straddling and 500 min, 1.5k cap.

Situation:
I notice that despite being an online player, I act the slowest of everyone at my table while playing live. Seriously. Even the old nits.
I commonly get shit for slowing down the action, like once every (10+hr) session for "thinking so much".
On most 6-10 handed tables I'm the loosest of the regs by a lot, so it's not like I'm playing 9/9 and tanking every time I have aces.


2 Examples:
-Waiting a few seconds in CO, KJ, MP before looking at my cards to look at players behind so I have reasons to widen my open raising range, sometimes giving me an ATC range in HJ or earlier. Regs know what I'm doing and hate it (so few people adjust by 3betting though), fish think I'm dumb, but I think this is very +EV. Applies to isos, 3bet/3bet reisos, cold 4bets as well, of course.
-Always taking more than 5 additional seconds to act HU because treat villain's posture/demeanor as a continuous stream of information and "want to get all of it". This is different from online since you get no more information after he acts, unless he types in chat. Very few players make a point of having a default posture during hands, and I've found it has been really helpful to tweak barreling freqs based on how they communicate interest in the pot through body language. I make a conscious effort to minimize the obviousness when I do this (every hand).


What do you guys think?
My main concern is if I ever decide to try to play higher, perhaps in private games, I'll need to learn to stop doing stuff like this.
I'm tempted to view it as a non-issue because I make much better decisions (confident, and feel better about them), and there are aspects of this image that are beneficial (inducing spew, fish calling down wider, regs playing tighter vs me because they know pots will be contested...and they've built their poker game from bullshit maxims like "if he is loose, you make money by playing tight" ) .
I never discuss previous action I was involved in at the table with my opponents, and balance this at the table by joking around a lot and talking to everyone about unrelated stuff (current events, business, sports, women). I feel when I'm paying full attention and pull this off well, I can be perceived as still semi there to gamble, just serious/focused when I'm involved in hands. I don't ever get perceived as a bitter ultra nit who hates everyone and is just there to take everyone's money.



Basically, I like my image but might get flack from some people for playing like this, and want to know if I'm being illogical anywhere in my thinking. I've played like this since as long as I remember.
Any of you guys who regularly play 10/20+ have thoughts? (advice, suggestions to add, or bitter hate)


Thanks,
Semp

I should do this more often

Keep it up

One thing I would like to add to your list (which I really like btw, I should strive for being a lot more like this in my own game fwiw. Not focusing on it nearly enough sadly): you could discuss past hand histories with deliberately flawed and stupid reasoning if you fear someone might notice that you never discuss poker. Just (fake)-mingle with the fish in that regard.

If you pause, you're thinking (about what to do, about how your opponent acts, whatever). I see no problem with that. durrrr was getting a lot of shit for that as well in earlier HSP / Poker after dark the cash game seasons. The first sentence of this paragraph was his response. It's not like you can't do the same

Edit: obviously, I never play stakes this high live, but the cost of living ain't so high enough here either, that's why I felt entitled to comment Just disregard as a lowly Eastern-European if my thoughts don't apply

learn to do it faster. all this shit barely matters and if you are dissuading fish to gamble vs you that is way more important of a factor

i am pretty slow live too for the same thing you said too, trying to get extra info. but as PU said, if it ever discourages a fish to play, or forces a fish out, then its a terrible idea.

i am surprised you talk to everyone, i feel guiltier for winning money later on. i have my tablet open, and pretend to read anytime someone tries to talk to me. if i feel as though they hate me, then i don't feel guilty about winning money anymore. obv there is a balance in this too, but i feel as though fish, usually play looser against to try and prove some manly point that they can beat me.

Talking to them causes them to softplay against you sometimes though, which you can shamelessly can take advantage of. I don't think anyone ever notices that I don't softplay back against them...

as tommy angelo says, look to your left not right when cards are dealt, as it doesn't matter what people that you have positional advantage on do as much as the other way around. That way you dont have to waste time preflop with the stuff you are doing, which happens so often. in HU pots I just try to balance the time I take, and just try to think stuff through anyway more deeply as I know I'll be bored for a lot of the time, shouldn't be an issue when you raised etc, especially on turn and river that don't happen that often

On April 23 2013 08:10 PoorUser wrote: learn to do it faster. all this shit barely matters and if you are dissuading fish to gamble vs you that is way more important of a factor

this.

take your time postflop. preflop you are being annoying if you just act slow every time its on you.

goddamn you're one of those young online guys that come into the live games and literally takes forever for each trivial decision O_O

It really doesn't take 20 seconds to pick out a static preflop range that will likely rape that live noob fish and just put the chips in. no need to slow down the game for no real reason except to feel better about your decisions with no real benefits. Why can't you just pay attention to other players while you're not in the hand too so you can get the constant information on their body launguage etc. Most of live tells/timing tells picked up is when i'm out of a hand observing anyways. Another reason why long trivial preflop decisions piss me off is if you're actually good at the game you'll realize most of the edges in NL holdem come postflop anyways because that's where all the really hard decisions come up.

Just learn to pick up on stuff that only matters. body language, tells all that is obviously all good and dandy but if the other player has any sort of experience playing live at all there wont' be as many reliable body language tells as you'd think. All you're doing is pissing off everyone including the fish and you won't be invited to their juicy home games!

You need to be aware of who the fish are in the game and if your actions are pissing them off and making them less likely to come to the game. If you are pissing off the winning players it does not really matter. This is because every cent you make in this game in the long run really comes from the losing players. You have to react to different players differently, like someone who is completely hopeless, why would you have to act all serious in a pot with position on him, it may just make him uncomfortable and he's going to play terrible anyway. Just use common sense.

Therefore I would recommend making an effort to, sincerely talk to and gamble with the fish and make an effort to keep them happy. I do similar to you in the way I act at poker tables except I probably reserve my serious demeanor for pots against real good players or for really big pots. If you are perceived to give no edge ever and fish look around and see a few players like you at the table it is much more likely that in the long run they are likely to think that they are not going to win money in the game (as noone comes to lose funnily enough), and not return. For example against me people knew that I played for a living and that I won a lot of money in the game but thought I was willing to gamble and very lucky, as well as being able to play poker ok. They weren't interested in me talking about any games I played online and any successes I may or may not have had so I obviously have never told them. As I know you are aware but I will re-iterate, it is important to not talk poker at the table and to take bad beats well, as well as you physically can. If you win in the game and most other players lose it is obviously not fair to complain when you occasionally do lose, however it came about.

You are doing 90% of the things right though, much better than most online players or lol live pro's! Just make sure that you do everything you should all the time, make sure that as a pro your game is a friendly and fun game to play in. I say this as when a game does dry up people look back to all the possible reasons as to why the game might have not been successful and its best to make sure that you personally are not responsible for any fish leaving the game apart from by taking their money.

EDIT: Just re-read the original OP. If the game is a good game you should not be taking significantly longer than everyone else at the table, especially if you are constantly getting shit for it. While everything else you say sounds good it depends how much of it you actually do and how much of it you try to do some of the time apart from when losing etc etc. With taking so long over decisions all the time and constantly getting shit for it it enough to make a post on liquidpoker it leads me to believe that maybe you're not doing the rest as well as you think you are.

EDIT2: There has been numerous cases of people winning £8~£10k in my local casino either in one of the bigger poker comps or from roulette/Black Jack and have come and lost it in our cash game over the course of a week or two. I am positive that if there was 3-4 players in the game playing really serious and taking ages that they wouldn't have came in the first place or would have left after losing one or two nights.

Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone.
This really helps.

Will have comments when I have more time to post, but really appreciate it.

Gl all.
(if any of you drop into Vancouver in the near future, give me a PM. Drinks on me)

On April 23 2013 08:10 PoorUser wrote: learn to do it faster. all this shit barely matters and if you are dissuading fish to gamble vs you that is way more important of a factor

QFT.


Most people are slower live than online because there isnt a beeping clock infront, but you should only take extra time in big decisions or in weird spots.