Transitioning from Live to Online?

Hey guys, this is my first post but I've lurked around here forever. I absolutely love this site and thought I might start contributing/asking questions of my own.

Anyway, just a bit of background. I've been playing poker for around 4 years now live and about 3 years online. I've been a winning player right from the beginning, but there have been some seriously vicious times (about a year after I started playing the 5k bankroll that I had built up live all but disappeared). I was a student at the time so these were all pretty small games with a bunch of unskilled players (though several guys that I regularly played have gone onto be minor live and internet pros with bankrolls of a couple 100k). I was pretty much out of poker for a while but am at the point now where I kill just about any live $1-2 NLHE. Needless to say the money is coming in well for the BR and I am working on moving up to $2-5 but the problem is that I have a hard time finding good games close and with the price of gas these days that can make playing a serious problem.

At the same time I've done OK playing online poker but never really excelled at it, especially since the law change and the PP fish pools drying up. I feel like online play is spinning my wheels yet I also feel like I ought to be able to do it. What can you guys say about transitioning from live games to online ones? How does it translate? Advice is especially appreciated from all but especially from those who have pulled this off.

I don't know where you played live but I find the online crowd to be much tougher at the same buy-in. I play much lower on the internet and with little success.
I only have a couple of hundred hours of live cash-game play, and I was just grinding through it and got most of my winnings from the occasional ueber-donk. I've seen people sit down loose 2-5 buy ins within an orbit and go home. You don't really get much of that online. Which doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I don't think there is that much difference in the gameplay really, I really think the players are just tougher online.

The reason why online is tougher than live is because of the patience factor. Online, players can see big hands twice as often during a single session due to the quickness of the game. Twice as many hands are played on any given able online, plus, you can multi-table.... which means more opportunity to wait for aces in the hole.

I find live 1-2 to be easier than the one cent two cent tables on pokerstars.

i remember i made $1k+ a few times just one night from weekend live 1-2nl but never achieved it from online 100/200nl. You need to improve a lot to beat online 100NL+ above FR cash games as well as using poker tracking software to your advantage. These days every man and his dog enjoys upgrading to next generation PokerTracker in the market. When you call an all-in with TPTK or overpairs , i'd say that you'd win at least 60% of the time in live 1-2NL deep stack cash games but lose your whole stacks quite often in online 100NL/200NL tight aggressive tough games.

patience /discipline/poker tells are the key to live cash success.
multitabling/tracking db/2nd & 3rd level thinking are the key to online cash success.

Originally Posted by pokerfan

i remember i made $1k+ a few times just one night from weekend live 1-2nl but never achieved it from online 100/200nl. You need to improve a lot to beat online 100NL+ above FR cash games as well as using poker tracking software to your advantage. These days every man and his dog enjoys upgrading to next generation PokerTracker in the market. When you call an all-in with TPTK or overpairs , i'd say that you'd win at least 60% of the time in live 1-2NL deep stack cash games but lose your whole stacks quite often in online 100NL/200NL tight aggressive tough games.

patience /discipline/poker tells are the key to live cash success.
multitabling/tracking db/2nd & 3rd level thinking are the key to online cash success.

what he said.

I supported myself playing live for over a year, but had really mixed success online until recently. I just embraced the fact that it's a totally different world and took it in from a humble (i don't know what im doing yet) kind of perspective. Once I stopped feeling entitled to win, I started learning a lot of little intricacies.

One main difference is the earn you can expect from the games. Live, with better reads and worse players, you have a significantly higher earn. You can duplicate the hourly earn online and with less variance by multitabling. Each specific table/session will be a lot smaller in terms of earn, because your edge isn't nearly as high, but you can play much higher volume, so each little tweak you make in your game yields bigger dividends (hence the need for tracking software). Approach it like it's something new, then maybe you'll get what you're expecting from online poker.