What I learned from going to a casino this weekend....
Not playing in a live game in about 4 months more than three handed ended last weekend by going to Turningstone in New York. I guess I have improved a lot at poker because at my home game in Iowa I wasn't as observant as I am now (probably because I thought I knew these peoples plays so well). Here's what I learned, most has to do with playing in casinos (at low stakes games)
1. Get extensive reads. Pay attention to every single hand... note in your mind standard raises, how they play what hands, everything. A lot of times when multi tabling I can't get that extensive of reads because I am playing so many tables (READ: Is this a leak? Should I be playing less tables?).
2. C-bet much less on bluffs. The pots get so deep preflop, people tend to fold because "I'm not calling $20 with mid pair" even in a $100 pot. The pot doesn't matter to them. It's only the size of the bet. Yes, this will be exploited in higher stakes games, but in low stakes they don't pick up on it.
3. Physical tells rule. It's unbelievable how easy it is to pick up tells on people. There are so many tells to pick up, and they can give you such a specific range on a hand.
4. Because of the above 3, play a lot of hands. A smart player can absolutely kill these games to an unreal point. I wouldn't be suprised if you could make 50BB/100 at these games. You want to play a lot of hands because:
a. the players suck and can't get away from hands.
b. bluff are much more profitable because of 2
c. you get so much more information live because of 3
5. Play at 3-7 a.m. The games aren't going hard at this point, but the tables are filled with either deep stacks (who 9 out of ten times suck) or players who are tilting because they lost a lot of money that night and can't quit.
6. Bad players will play some (very few) hands that displays almost anti logic.
i.e. a player at a table I was at limped UTG with JJ. then proceeded to min raise a 3x BB raise that had 4 callers. 6 players to the flop and it comes 56T two clubs. UTG CHECKS. This does not make any sense, it was completely against most of the reads i had on him (i did know he liked limp reraising so that didn't suprise me, he did it with A8+ 99+ LOL) and that play is absolutely ridiculous, and no, he did not reraise the bet on the flop, which was 1/10 the pot.
7. Capped rake rules, especially when there are $400 pots (on a regular basis) at $100 buy in.
Thoughts?
