When it comes to choosing whether to play online poker or live, it can often come down to laziness. Players love the convenience of just sitting at home and playing on desktop or mobile. But is this the most productive environment to play poker? Granted, the online games have more lucrative tournament prize pools, but for most people wanting to play cash games, we think live poker has more to offer. That’s why in this post we’re going to offer three reasons why it’s why still awesome to play live poker from time to time.
Using Real Poker Chips
As fun as riffling chips at home can be, there is nothing quite like using real casino chips in live games. The sound of chips ruffling and players doing tricks just makes the poker experience that much better. Even if you find yourself card dead for an hour, enjoying the feeling of poker chips makes it ok. That’s why we think its important to get the best poker chips for home games too. It is one of the big perks of playing poker in live games.
Table Banter
Another reason live poker is great is the social element. Players love to have chit chat, exchange stories and have banter with each other. In an era where everything seems to be done on phones, it’s a nice break from digital to be playing live and enjoying other people’s company.
In addition to the social part of it, there’s also extra perks of being able to read better and increase your edge through talking to opponents. Players don’t talk much in online games so there is definitely an extra benefit in indulging table banter when you play live poker.
Softer Games
Lastly, we come to the biggest reason of all; live games are soft. It’s amazing how much bad play you’ll find on weekend games in cardrooms. You’ll find players who won at roulette or blackjack try poker with only a cursory understanding of the rules. People will be limping in continuously, overplaying 2nd pair and countless calling stations.
Most players goals are to generate a high hourly rate and this is best achieved in live cash games. Whilst you may be able to get a similar rate online, you’ll have to bum hunt at low stakes and probably have 8 tables on the go to generate a comparable win rate. In short, live games are softer and therefore more profitable for most players.
Final Comments
As you can see there are three compelling reasons to play poker in real life. You’ll get the pleasure from using real chips, have a better night out engaging in social activity and probably earn more money too as the games are softer.
Next time you’re weighing up whether to stay in and play online or go to the local casino, try the latter and you’ll hopefully have a better time and more money in your bankroll too. As always, play responsibly though and avoid drinking alcohol.
