It's really hard to get motivated to play 25NL when you have been playing games ten times as a big and ten times as soft. Obviously no HEM graph to show but I recorded my sessions in my phone. I played 15 sessions in Sept/Oct and had 13 wins 2 losses :)
It's absolutely crazy how soft playing £1/£1 or £1/£2 is when your used to grinding out small edges at 25NL and 50NL online. Here is a notable hand I can remember from my live HUD.
I pick up AA UTG in a fairly active 10 handed £1/2 game, I opt for the limp raise, I know classic live play lol. Guy to my left makes it £10 and there proceeds to be 5 more callers after him. So the pots £60 I have AA with a £200 stack. Original raiser has me covered and every one else in the pot has roughly £100-£200. The way the table was playing I didn't want to make it £50 here because there's no doubt in my mind I'm getting 6 callers and then I'm just going to be screwed on the flop. So after weighting up my options I decided to move all in for £200. Some what to make my hand look weaker but also because I thought I would probably get at least 1 caller and also there was £60 in the pot so worst case scenario I take that down. Original raiser folds, next guy moves all in for £150 folds round to last guy to act and he announces "I have the value now" He moves all in for £200 creating a £600 pot ($1000) every one turns there hand over and I'm in dream land AA vs ATcc vs ATdd LOLOLOLOL.
As they say, there's always a sweat and the board runs out scary for me T33 on the flop and then the turn brings another 3, so on the river they have one ten to win the pot and one 3 for a three way chop but thankfully we brick and win a decent pot. These kinds of players are not one offs. Working class people In the UK dont seem to have any value for money and they literally just give it away at the poker table. I spend most of the time nitting it up. I can fold for 5 orbits, pick a premium hand and make it 5x and my main concern is hoping that just 2 people call rather than the entire table.
So with all that said I've had a fun time playing live and made a healthy profit but that doesn't account for all the expenses such as travel and eating out every night. Thankfully my Girlfriend works away Mon-Fri in London so I can freeroll £1000 worth of her hotel in the week. Obviously living the hotel lifestyle in London just wouldn't be feasible grinding £1/2 with out that. Also the games are significantly slower and are so boring when your card dead. So although the games are massively softer and there's definitely more money to be made playing live I think I'm going to get back into the online zoom grind for the next two months. I love the comfort of my own home and my nice grind station so happy to sacrifice some EV for that convenience. Also the games on Stars are normally pretty good at the end of the year when many of the regs are going for supernova and chasing bonuses.
GL and see you at the tables :)
