Live Poker. How do you...

strike up a conversation and say "whats your tell?"
then say "ive got a tell, whenever i bluff i always cough 3 times"
then when u have the nuts, cough 3 times.
say it loud enough that everyone at the table can hear, but not so loud that its obvious you want them to hear.
theres like a 90% chance this will work at Live 1/2

Whenever I play live im usually playing for fun and im definitely drinking/shitfaced so I talk to everyone. You dont need a phil ivey focus to beat these tables. Honestly you can learn alot by talking to people, get friendly with them and they will make it very clear what type of player they are. They are also very likely to tell you what hands they had if you ask. I usually become friends with the few people next to me and without speaking become sworn enemies to the other side of the table.

As you play higher (even 2/5) people are more serious and little less chatty. 1/2 players are there for fun, its the lowest game available and most of them are amatuers trying to enjoy themselves.

Also, if you really wanna crush, become friends with the people next to you, in the beginning let them see that you dont want to tango or take their money, show them big hands when they fold and stuff, or even tell them what you had, make it clear you are never bluffing them. Then after a while when they like/trust you, RUN THEM OVER. Just keep attacking an be like, "wow im getting really lucky, another huge hand there" MUHAHAHA, MUHAHAHAHAH

Hm yeah thats a realistic assessment, YGG. People probably are more serious above 1/2. Basically, I was trying to work on an ivey-like focus (or try at least) at 1/2...haha. You can imagine how awkward socially that was for me. Its a very difficult thing to balance. But I still intend on working on it tho.

On May 13 2010 11:51 byrnesam wrote: strike up a conversation and say "whats your tell?" then say "ive got a tell, whenever i bluff i always cough 3 times" then when u have the nuts, cough 3 times. say it loud enough that everyone at the table can hear, but not so loud that its obvious you want them to hear. theres like a 90% chance this will work at Live 1/2

this is funny AND it might be worth trying - byrnesam for the win

On May 13 2010 13:17 hiems wrote: Hm yeah thats a realistic assessment, YGG. People probably are more serious above 1/2. Basically, I was trying to work on an ivey-like focus (or try at least) at 1/2...haha. You can imagine how awkward socially that was for me. Its a very difficult thing to balance. But I still intend on working on it tho.

I've been practicing this kind of thing for the last ~2 years (I'm like a 20 PTBB winner at live 1/2 over like 20 3-4 hour sessions - obviously a pretty small sample, but still reasonably indicative that I'm a big winner in these games). Whenever I'm in a hand, I try to emulate that level of pure focus and intimidation - ie. staring blankly at the board and other people, eyeing up people's stacks, not saying anything besides the occasional "I'm all in." and generally just trying to be as spooky as possible. This allows me to figure out people's ranges/perceptions of my range/likely future plays in certain spots/etc and basically just lets me get the most possible information out of every hand I'm in. I observe hands I'm not participating in, but don't try to convey that spooky/intimidating persona, because no one is paying attention to me during that time anyhow.

Between hands, however (while dealer is shuffling, while the pot is being shipped to a player, while the dealer is dealing, etc.), players around me generally chit-chat a bit, so I get my foot in the door of certain conversations to get a feel for how that player approaches the game and thinks through hands. One example might be if a guy tells the guy next to him that he was certain the guy didn't have a Q on a Q553r board when he bet the turn and the other player in the hand folded, I might ask, why don't you think he had a Q? He'll come up with some retarded livedonk thing to say like "he wouldn't bet $20 with a Q" (even though it'd be perfectly logical for that player to be betting $20 in that spot with a range that includes Qx). I can then perceive that this is the kind of guy who will trivially assign reads to bet sizes. I can use this information later, when I'm involved in a hand (and have my "spooky" mask on!).


I've experimented with saying all kinds of different things that has gotten players at the table to fear me/respect my game/disrespect my game/all kinds of other crap. If I win a massive all-in, for example, and the guy next to me says to his friend, "He's tripled his stack already and he's only been here for 20 minutes!" (and obviously I've just luckboxed my way to winning a bunch of massive all-ins in the course of a 20 minute LOLLIVEPOKER orbit), so I might respond with something like "The games aren't dead." Then the guy will ask me, "What do you mean the games aren't dead?" and I won't respond (or will give a wry smile while stacking chips), so the guy's friend will say something like "That means he's not leaving anytime soon" or "He thinks there are plenty of bad players at live 1/2 games" or some other crap. In this way, I have manipulated my image to being that of someone who is used to winning and is going to be fighting to keep winning, or someone that will leave once domination is no longer possible.


The last example actually happened to me the last time I played live 1/2, and it got the guy on my direct right to move to a different seat (to my far left) because he was tired of me consistently punishing him when he entered a hand. I utilized this level of intimidation and opponents' fear to get them to hate playing pots with me - both psychologically and monetarily rewarding for me!

ignoring people is the worst thing and the biggest leak online players have while playing live.

last time I played live, they was this young wannabe playing awful and acting tough. the fish at the table (one of them) was a super friendly 80 years old guy, he had a hard time playing because of his age, and was talking to everybody, saying nice hand, laughing, saying wow, I had it and showing etc. playing maybe 90/5.

So the old guy folds river vs this douche in a small-medium pot and the old guy ask, did you do good bluff or did you have good hand!!?? Kid doesnt answer, the old man repeat laughing, saying something like < my friend, did you do good bluff or did you have good hand > kid takes 5 secs and says with an arrogant tone < call next time if you want to know >

I wanted to smack the shit out of this idiot asshole. Too many online players are like that. Obviously the fish didnt appreciate and was gone about 5 minutes after. Why answer that to the fish, how fucking stupid can you be. If you are dumb enough to REALLY not want to answer, why dont you just answer anything instead of that.

Actually I've tried the spooky thing myself once with AA. It seemed to have gotten the other guy to think was bluffing when I probably never bluff that spot.

That stuff depends on your presence/appearance/etc. I think there's definitely a personal element to it. Dunno if my tl;dr post made any sense or offered you any kind of value.