Today was a big day for my poker career. That’s because today I had my first hate thread in NVG, meaning I’ve attained enough notoriety in poker to have people despise me and want others to know about it. It appears the posters main problem was my live vs online poker article:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/tony-dunst-333176/

During the conversation with Greg Raymer that resulted in the ‘Fossilowned IMO’ post Greg mentioned that he’d read my ‘challenge to the world’ entry. He said he was surprised how I came off in it and how it’s rather unlike how I am in real life.
“Don’t worry Greg, nobody could take outlandish arrogance of that degree with any seriousness, and there’s a lot of joking entries like that in the blog. I mean I made a barely better than stick figure drawing of a guy holding both middle fingers up while stomping tiny opponents. What kind of moron would take that seriously?”
“It only takes one moron, especially if they aren’t familiar with your style.”
Damn, Raymer really is Obi Wanesque, sick read.

Okay, so let’s get it out in the open how I feel about live vs online and live players vs online players in a more serious and level manner.
Live vs online: It’s really just a preference. I can completely understand why people would prefer one over the other. For me personally, I need a balance of both. I like grinding online because it’s consistent money with minimum variance and I get in a routine so easily it barley feels like work at all. I also enjoy having the thrill of running deep in a tournament nearly every day.

Meanwhile I need live poker every now and then because I’d go nuts sitting in front of my computer forever. Live poker is enthralling because there’s so many additional elements to the hand. I like being around people and joking around at the table, and only in live poker can you compete for massive first prizes that can change your life, outside stuff like the FTOPS and WCOOP. You also get to travel to new and interesting places whenever you play and meet a ton of cool people. The pace and variance however, are just agonizing.

As far as live vs online players is concerned, I think the whole thing is overblown. Why waste time arguing with each other about how a hand should play out when we can collaborate and come to an optimal understanding? That’s why I’m so excited for Barry Greenstein’s new ‘Red Pro Forum’ over at www.pokerroad.com. It’s a combination of the best live and online players the world over coming together to talk strategy in both high stakes cash and tournament situations, both live and online. Every question I’ve had on that forum is about live play.

It’s no secret that I think live players are consistently leakier at the technical aspects of the game than online players. A ton of live players I know will even admit this, including my poker seminar collaborators Lee Nelson, Joe Hachem, and Dennis Waterman, who have considerable experience in both forms but are mostly live experts. There’s no reason to turn this into some jihad fervor dispute, it should be clear from the way the two forms of poker are played that online players will result with better fundamentals. Online play is structured around numbers and math and ranges with programs that will track every hand you’ve ever played and tell you exactly where you’re gaining and losing equity and by what % or $ amount.

Live players don’t have access to elaborate software to save their hand histories and the skills live poker demands are of a different variety. Sometimes I talk to live players about certain hands, or read their recollection, or simply watch them play on TV, and am stunned by their ability to pick up certain things and read into aspects of what their opponent is doing and saying. I’m impressed with their willingness to go with a read in a situation like that, and the best ones at it make some astounding plays. These days I spend as much time asking live players questions as I do online because my skills in these areas are rather undeveloped and I’m fully aware of it. That said, almost every live player I’ve encountered has pretty noticeable technical leaks, but if they take the steps to clean them up they’ll be even more dominating.

I think for the group of players out there willing to set their ego aside about the issue and see the opposing players information in the spots where it’s quality have the potential to gain a dominance at both forms. This goes for both online and live players, and I you commonly see arrogance in both about the other.

As a guy who spends a ton of time in both arenas of the game I’ve grown to be friendly with a lot of players on each side. One of the most awkward aspects of going to live tournaments is being pulled to interact socially more with one more than the other, and for the most part the two groups do not mix. The live players are often considerably older than the online players, and tend to view them as arrogant kids who are reckless with their tournament lives. Online players see many of the live players as fish due to their technical leaks, and aren’t afraid to verbalize it routinely. There are only a few guys who seem to enjoy hanging out with both sides, and as a guy often in the middle it’s a juggling act.

All of that aside, I will never stop making fun of live players who think they are the shit and continue to make horrendously awful technical plays. You know how I know I’m right about them? Because I can use a calculator.

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