Adapting from online poker to playing live

I came across the following article on the PokerStars blog this morning. Its written by Greg Raymer and is a good read about converting from online play to live.

Click on the title below to read the full story.

How to adapt from online winner to live champion, by PokerStars' Greg Raymer - PokerStars Poker Blog

Many of our PokerStars players coming over to Las Vegas for the WSOP will be playing live tournaments for the first time. While the rules of the game are the same, playing online and live are two very different animals.

So who better to ask for some sound advice on how to adapt from online play to taking a shot at mega bucks at the Rio than Greg Raymer, who won the Main Event in 2004 and has got $6.8million in live winnings to his name....

by Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer

So, you've been playing on PokerStars.com, and doing well, and now you want to take a shot at the live games. What should you do? Well, the good news is you've already accomplished the hardest part, so the rest will probably come relatively easily. Here's some advice to make it even easier yet.

I've been playing poker seriously since 1992, so I started out as a live player, and only became an online player when it became available years later. Wherever you play poker, the hard part is learning how to play poker well. If you're winning online, then you've already done that. In 2004 when I won the Main Event, and prior to then, we used to make fun of the online players, and how bad they were. And for the most part, we were right. However, in today's poker world, it is the winning online players who have the most talent and knowledge, as compared to the live players. More importantly, the bad online players are nowhere near as bad as the bad live players.