Warming Up in the Online Arena

I am primarily a live cash-game player, but even I see the advantages of playing online poker sometimes.

For some poker professionals it's their primary source of income. For me, it's how I prepare for the live games and live tournament action.

The benefit you have playing online is the ability to go back and review the hand history. It's much easier to find the leaks and holes in your game. You are not relying on your sometimes faulty memory.

As an online player you can go back and look for specific types of betting patterns and tendencies you might have missed during play as well. It's much easier to view mistakes from an objective standpoint by going through your hand history.

I am playing quite a bit on Chilipoker. I've been playing a mixture of $30/$60, $50/$100 and $100/$200 games for the last few days so I can play with some of the regulars on the site.

It's a good opportunity actually to warm up my game for the upcoming Bellagio Five Diamond. It's also a good opportunity to interact with the players on my sponsored site and chat with fans.

I will continue to play a mixture of games. I'll play $30/$60, so that some of you don't have to jump into the nosebleeds to play with me, and I'll play as high as $100/$200.

Making the less common live-to-online transition.

Normally I play $400/$800 live, but the goal here is to fine-tune my game, and overall my edge online is thinner anyhow so I try not to overexpose my bankroll playing too high online. The swings seem to be bigger and more frequent!

I plan to play a lot more online during the week. I encourage people to come by www.Chilipoker.com and watch me play.

Yes, I am taking this seriously! I am trying to fine-tune my game but that doesn't mean I am not trying to win!! I was feeling pretty good about my game and then I hit a very rough stretch in the last couple of days.

It was a pretty sick stretch of poker and I couldn't have possibly run worse. At one point, I had doubled my original buy-in in a few days. A couple of days later I was down to my last few thousand dollars!!

Luckily, I was playing at mid-level stakes and was able to keep my emotions in check. I must admit I have run into some really interesting players at the $30/$60 limits in particular. I'm not sure if this is typical but I felt like some of the players just wouldn't get off a hand.

It didn't matter if they had queen-high or jack-high with no redraws. They would just continue chasing to the river. I normally welcome that type of chasing, except that over and over again they kept hitting the only card in the deck that could beat me.

If you don't believe me, come and check it out for yourself. I am starting to wonder if I am warming up my game or making it worse! lol :).

Not to worry. I was able to start picking up a few hands and managed to turn it back into a profitable week. I am about $6k ahead of where I started when I made my initial deposit.

Going through this otherwise sick stretch of poker did give me some good ideas for this blog however. It reminded me how important it was to have a decent-sized bankroll.

In poker, if you are playing above your means, a short-term run of bad luck can completely ruin you. For example, I went back and analyzed the hands I played when I went down to a few thousand dollars, and it really was a run of poor luck.

Can't believe her eyes.

I laughed at some of the hands when I went through my hand history. I wanted to make sure I didn't imagine the action, and I still couldn't believe some of the calls that were made.

It's a good sign for the health of online poker, however. I know many people believe online poker is getting tougher and tougher to beat. I want to let you know there are still a lot of juicy games with many action players.

This leads me to a good discussion. What if this poor run of luck were happening to me in my regular $400/$800 game? This is typically when people get stuck or go broke. They continue to play because statistically it's impossible for this action player to run so good any longer!

Common sense is you stay at the poker table for as long as you have an edge. I would agree with this, but of course you always have to consider your bankroll and your emotional state. Sometimes you might have an edge in skill and it still makes sense to walk away from the game.

Fortunately for me my short-term run of bad luck was at mid-level stakes, as I mentioned, and it was very easy for me not to get emotional about the losses. I continued to play what I felt was a winning strategy and eventually turned a profit.

I'll keep playing at these stakes for another week! I want to encourage people to come play with me if they can. Or rail me and just watch the action if you choose. I am still bringing my best game to the tables so you can see firsthand what winning Limit poker looks like.

Who knows? Maybe I will turn that initial $10,000 deposit on Chilipoker into a few hundred thousand dollars. I will try to play my best, but don't be afraid to take a shot. Anyone can run badly in the short term and maybe you can catch me on a bad day!! :) I look forward to seeing you at the tables.

Cheers!

Liz Lieu - Poker Diva

www.LizLieu.net

www.iPokerCal.com

Drop by Liz's home site, ChiliPoker, and find out how you can earn a heads-up match with the Poker Diva herself. And be sure to take advantage of PokerListings.com's exclusive sign-up bonus.

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