For this prep article for this summer's WSOP series, let’s talk about some mistakes online players bring into live tournaments.
A lot of these will sound a little strange at first, but trust me: once you start looking for them, you’ll see them everywhere.
One of the first things that gets online players into trouble in live tournaments is flop bet sizing.
Online, it’s very common to use very small bet sizes when you have the range advantage and your opponent understands what that means.
There’s often no need to bet big, because your opponent realizes they can’t have many strong hands and therefore won’t raise very often. That makes their response patterns much more predictable.
Live, especially in the United States, things are different
You’re going to run into plenty of old school recreational players who see a small bet and just get randomly offended by it.
I once had a student get so irritated by the idea of using a small flop bet that he nearly walked out of the lesson before I could explain that the small bet was setting up an overbet on the turn after capping the opponent’s range.
That’s how suspicious some players are of small bets. To them, it looks weak.
Here’s the problem: if those players start check-raising you with gutshots, weak top pairs, or hands that accidentally turn themselves into thin value raises, they’re actually playing much better against you than they would if you had simply bet a little larger.
If you size up slightly from the smaller online standard, a lot of these players fall back into line. They become much more predictable: they fold their total air, call with gutshots, pairs, and draws, and raise mostly with two pair or better. That’s a much easier range to play against.
When you go too small, though, the live low- to mid-stakes American field can become much more chaotic.
Some players will check-raise far too often. Others will only check-raise the nuts. It ends up being all over the board, and there’s often no reliable way to predict which version you’re getting.
That would be the first adjustment I’d recommend for online players going to the Series: continuation bet a little bigger than you would online.
The second thing that tends to randomly irritate recreational American players is betting too quickly.
Online, I play very fast because I’m multi-tabling. I don’t have time to Hollywood, and nobody cares. Most opponents are multi-tabling too, watching football, or not paying much attention to timing in the first place.
Know the reactions you're inviting
When people are sitting there intensely staring at each other, fully locked in because this may be one of the only four tournaments they get to play all year, and you fire a bet at them instantly, they can take it personally.
They feel like you’re trying to run them over or exploit them.
I know — it sounds weird to me too. But I’ve actually tested this.
Against low- to mid-stakes American competition, I got significantly more random check-raises when I bet immediately than when I simply counted to three in my head before continuation betting. This happened even in spots where I clearly had the range advantage.
Now, if inducing that kind of reaction is what you want, that’s fine. There are definitely situations where you may want to provoke a raise by betting quickly and making someone feel challenged.
But you should know what reaction you’re inviting.
Misunderstanding live re-jams
The other major mistake online players make is misunderstanding what live players will re-jam all-in with.
For years, I’ve had students who wanted to cold-call with stacks around 17 big blinds in spots where jamming would have been far more profitable.
Online, you can sometimes call wider in these situations versus all-ins because players are more aware of push-fold math and are willing to jam appropriately wide from 15 to 20 big blinds.
Live, that is often not the case.
For many live recreational players, a 15-to-20 big blind jam still feels enormous. They are not thinking in terms of correct push-fold ranges.
And when a more recreational live player jams 20 big blinds or more over action, that range is often extremely tight — usually something like tens, jacks, queens, kings, aces, or ace-king.
They simply are not squeezing all-in as wide as they should.
That means you need to adjust. You cannot assume live players are taking the same aggressive, mathematically sound all-in lines you see online. In many cases, they just aren’t.
If you make these adjustments at the World Series of Poker, I’m convinced you’ll perform better.
Wishing you the best of luck on the felt!
Alex Fitzgerald is a best-selling author published by D&B Poker. Check out Alex’s most recent book, ‘How to Beat Players Who Never Fold.’
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