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From Online To Primetime
By "Gank" Jungblut
I am fortunate to be one of the few players who are well known in both online and live circles and, as a result, I often have people from one camp asking me my opinion on the other. Usually the online players will ask me what are the biggest hurdles to overcome in playing live events. They tend to be players who have been playing for some time and have developed their skills to a level where they feel confident about their game. Then there are the brick and mortar players, who usually ask me what kind of style I use when playing online. I will try to answer both of these questions.
For a long time, especially during my college years (all five of them), I played almost exclusively online, as there was not a casino within eight hours of me. Looking back, I can see that this is where I developed a fundamentally strong understanding of the different forms of poker. I think the biggest advantage of playing online is the ability to see thousands of hands and situations that would take much longer to see in live play. I also think it is easier to concentrate on the fundamentals of the game you are playing online, because you are not as easily distracted by your surroundings, which includes the players seated at your table. It’s a very different thing to be playing online against nine players represented solely by cartoon figures than it is to play against nine players wearing sunglasses and hats, with all kinds of gold and diamonds on their wrists. Basically, it is easier to focus on the game, as online poker takes out the visual psychology of the game, which can affect the subconscious of a player tremendously.
Aside from the psychological jump to live play, giving off tells tends to be a hurdle to overcome for online players. With so many bad beats being taken in the comfort of your own room, where no one hears you drop a few four letter words or throw your mouse clear across the room, it is easy to get into a habit of “acting up” when you take a bad beat. However, all you are doing is making it that much harder for you to act calm and collected when the same beat happens live. For this, I recommend acting like you are playing live when you take a bad beat online – pretend you have nine other players intently watching to see if you will explode after the most recent suck-out. Remember, online poker is like the Triple A of live poker, and you should be practicing as many different aspects as possible while you play.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles with my younger brother, Robert, and two of my best friends, Keith and Chris. This is where my live career really started. I knew the games, but I was far from comfortable at a real table. I felt young and intimidated and emotional. As I worked through those hurdles, the weaker parts of my live game, I could feel my game getting stronger because, even as a 23-year-old, I knew I had seen more hands than most of my opponents, thanks to the online world. Once I started getting respect from live players, they began approaching me about online play. They would tell me stories of how they could crush live games, but had trouble beating online games. This is what I tell them: Online is different than live play, and you have to approach it differently. Online play is much more mathematically oriented, since the psychological part is not a big part of the equation. Online, there are more inexperienced players, and it is also harder to tell which ones they are. This makes some plays that work well in live play obsolete in online play, as plays are less effective if your opponents do not comprehend them. Respect that you have earned over the years playing live goes out the window when you log on to an online game. In all the other players’ eyes, you are just the new screen name in town, chasing the same dream.
All great players adjust to each game they sit down in. Hopefully these insights will help you approach any game you play in, regardless of whether it’s online or live. Until next time, keep swinging!
Brett “gank” Jungblut
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