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.

So, if you're winning online, you've already learned what ranges of hands to play in certain situations, and what are the best ways to play them. To become a winning live player, you only need to follow this knowledge, and not give away any tells to your opponents. Reading their tells will improve your results massively, but it is not actually necessary for you to become good at reading tells to be a winning live player. But it is key that you at least be able to hide your own tells.

The easiest way to hide your own tells is to become a robot, a machine, to sit there and give away nothing. When you are not in a hand, feel free to be sociable and interactive, but once you're in a hand, you should pick a comfortable pose and sit in that position without moving. A good pose will be one you can stay in for up to five minutes (sometimes more) when your opponent goes into the tank and is trying to decide what to do. A good pose might also include covering your mouth with your hands, wearing sunglasses and a hat to cover your eyes and forehead, or maybe a hooded sweatshirt.

If you give off nothing, your opponent is left guessing. However, there are generally only three options in poker (fold, call, or raise), and as such if your opponent is guessing they will guess right about 1/3 of the time. It is also possible to give off tons of tells but to do so in a manner that is not related to your hand. In fact, you can learn to give off "disinformation" tells, that are designed to get your opponent to do what you want. This way, you can actually steer your opponent away from the right decision, and towards the wrong decision.

This can be massively powerful and profitable. But it is extremely hard to learn these skills and apply them effectively. And when you try to do this against another really good player, they will often see through your disinformation and actually make a more accurate guess than if you had given them nothing. So, I advise you to learn to give away nothing first, and then slowly start expanding your arsenal by giving off false tells. First, against very weak and easy to manipulate opponents, and only when you become very good at this should you try it against a strong opponent.

How do you learn to give off nothing? One good technique is to practice while sitting in front of a mirror. Play online poker, and put a mirror next to your monitor. Treat your mouse as if it were a stack of chips in a live game. When the action is on you, be in your pose, break the pose just to reach out to the mouse and click your decision, then return to your pose until it is your turn to act again. Make sure that as you see the cards come out on the flop, turn, and river, or as your opponents make their decisions to fold, call, or raise, that you give off no reaction. Make sure that your movement to the mouse is always the same. I have seen online players in live events who have learned to sit still when waiting on you, but they still give off huge tells when they bet or call. You can tell by HOW they move their chips whether they are strong or weak. So also practice with physical chips, and make sure you always put them into the pot in the same manner.

The final part of the equation is to learn how to read the tells of your live opponents. This is huge. This is the reason that you watch some of us live players on TV or in person, and wonder how we can win with some of the decisions we make. Sometimes when you see us do something stupid, it is simply that we are doing exactly that. But much of the time we are doing something that seems wrong in a strategical sense, but is actually right because of the tells we are picking up on our opponent. Using terminology of game theory, sometimes you should play in a non-optimal manner so that you can more fully exploit the non-optimal plays of your opponents. If you always play in a game-theory-optimal manner, you can never be exploited and you can never be a long-term loser, but doing so leaves you very short of maximizing your profit against the real mistakes being made by your opponents all the time.

How do you learn to read tells? It comes naturally to a few, but most of us have to work hard at getting good at this. I have been working on this part of my game, more so than any other, for the last 10 years. I strongly recommend the book "Read 'Em and Reap" by Joe Navarro. Joe is a former FBI agent who used to teach other agents how to use body language during interrogations in order to determine if the interviewee was being truthful. Over the last several years, Joe has turned his attention to using all that he learned in fighting crime to the world of poker, and how to read your opponents at the table. You can also find Joe at almost every venue of the World Series of Poker Academy, where he and I are both instructors. I only teach at a few of these each year, but Joe teaches at almost all of them, always doing an excellent job.

When you do make the move to the world of live poker, make sure that you start out playing smaller than you do online, at least until you are fully confident in your live game. Once you do so, you will find that you are probably one of the best players at any table you sit at, so enjoy this new source of poker profit.

Good luck in Las Vegas!

* There's still time for you to qualify for the WSOP $10,000 Main Event, visit the PokerStars WSOP page for more information.

All photos © Joe Giron, IMPDI

by Greg Raymer

The PokerStars.com World Cup of Poker is a great event. I was only able to read about the earliest editions of this event, but was very fortunate to be asked to be a member of Team USA at Barcelona in 2007. I was already coming to Barcelona for the popular EPT tournament that takes place there, and was asked to stick around after the EPT to play in the World Cup as the celebrity member of Team USA.

The World Cup is a unique tournament, with four of the members winning their way onto their countries team via freeroll satellites on PokerStars.com or by being one of the top two point leaders in the annual TLB competition on PokerStars.com. In 2007 Tyler Netter was the TLB leader and captain of our team, with Shaun Deeb also getting onto the team via the TLB. Satellite winners were Randy Principe and John Kenlan. Now these four guys did some of the hardest work, by beating out a slew of countries in the online tournament.

You see, once you get onto your countries team, you still have to beat out other teams to advance to the live finals, and they did that in 2007. Only afterwards was I asked to play alongside them in Barcelona.

Once in Barcelona, we all got together to discuss strategy. This is the key to winning a team competition. In a regular tournament, you can follow one of two viable strategies, play for first, or play for money. In team competition, it is important that you balance your strategy with the team's overall strategy, to best maximize the team's chances of advancement.

Playing for a team is so different than playing for yourself. If I make a correct but marginal decision in a tournament and get eliminated, I am disappointed, but happy that I made a correct decision. In team play, you feel like you let everybody else down, and the disappointment takes a lot longer to fade. The key is to determine the strategy together, so then you know that the decision you made is the same decision the rest of the team would have made.

Also, a lot of poker players can get emotional. It is essential that as a team you support one another, call time-outs to settle down a player who is getting emotional, and lend them your support. Once the emotional player remembers they are representing all of you, they usually have no problem regaining control and playing their A-game.

The most important thing that we did as a team to win in 2007 was exactly this, we supported one another. I was clearly the member of the team with the most live tournament experience, and I did not hesitate to share all of my advice with the other members of my team. In addition, captain Tyler and Shaun both have played thousands of online tournaments, and know the basic strategies of tournament poker by heart. They also pitched in to help our other team members, both of whom were good players, but much less experienced. As a team we developed our overall strategy, given the structure of the World Cup. That, plus a few key cards, guided us to victory.

It was a great feeling to represent my country, something I had never done before. The prize money for this event, while not chump-change by any means, was a lot smaller than the $5 million I won for the WSOP. Yet, winning this event carried with it just as much emotion. This was so mostly because I was representing not just myself, but my country and my team.

We will have full coverage of the World Cup of Poker January 6, 2009 live on the PokerStars Blog.

So far the 2008 WCOOP has been a huge success, and I'm sure that won't change now that we're in the home stretch with only a few days to go. I can't wait for the 10K HORSE event Saturday, nor the $10M guaranteed Main Event on Sunday and (hopefully for me too) Monday. It's been a good year so far for
Team PokerStars Pro, with us making five final tables so far, and with four of us making the final 8, and the money, in the $25K Heads-Up event. Special commendations to Elky and Chris Moneymaker, who have each made two final tables, or 4x the total of the rest of Team PokerStars Pro put together. The rest of us had better get off our you-know-whats and get a move on.

But what about event #28, $500+30 Omaha hi-lo 8-or-better? Omaha8 is, in my opinion, a relatively easy cash game to play. It seems very complicated at first, because of all of the hand combinations to consider, and the fact that you always have draws, and are always facing draws. The math can become complex if you let it, but in a full ring cash game, it really becomes pretty simple. You almost entirely play hands that are likely to flop the nuts or a draw to the nuts, and then you only proceed after the flop when you hit the nuts or the nut-draw. There are exceptions, of course, to this overly simplistic advice, but the large majority of your play consists of just this simple algorithm.

The same is true for Omaha8 at the beginning of a tournament. However, once you get past the first few levels, and reach the point where you or some of your opponents are getting short-stacked and will be all-in before the river, I think that this becomes maybe the most difficult form of poker for tournament play. It certainly becomes one of the most frustrating. I think this arises from the fact that when you get all-in preflop, no hand in Omaha8 is that much of a favorite over any other single hand. If I give you AA in holdem, and I get any other starting hand, you are a huge favorite when all the money goes in early. At least a 4:1 favorite, and sometimes much more. However, even if I give you the best starting hand in Omaha8, AA23 double-suited, and I have some truly weak starting hand such as 56QJ, you aren't that big of a favorite if we're all-in. And of course, what that means when you're playing the game is that when one of us is almost out of chips, neither of us can really fold pre-flop if the pot is going to be heads-up, as we are certainly getting the right price to defend our big blind. And this leads to all sorts of perceived bad beats, making the game very frustrating for most players.

So, to those who triumphed in this event, especially our winner "Big 10" from Vancouver, I salute your ability to wade through the field in this toughest of poker tournaments. To survive all those bad beats, or to give them out to others, can test the willpower of the best. Congratulations.

Greg Raymer is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

Greg Raymer is no stranger to this phenomenon. Since his $5 million win in the 2004 World Seres Main Event, players around the world have settled their scopes on the FossilMan. Sometimes, it works to his advantage. The following year in the World Series, Raymer had a banner year and threatened a repeat appearance at the final table of the main event. Sometimes, though, it works against him. This World Series was one of those times.

Raymer had one of the most frustrating World Series of his poker career. Out of more than 20 tournaments this summer, he cashed in one. The main event was Raymer's chance to come back, his chance to shake off the bullseye and recover for the year. Before the end of Level 2 today Raymer's opportunity disappeared.

From a distance, it looked almost peaceful. The crowd gave an appreciative clap and recognized the world champion's departure. Raymer stood and put his trademark duffel bag over his shoulder. He walked around the rail and toward the back door. The omnipresent ESPN cameras followed behind. It was only as Raymer drew closer to this reporter's desk that it was clear the FossilMan was done letting the bad beats roll off his shoulders. He had had enough.

The resulting conversation is neither for print--or despite the presence of the TV cameras--for broadcast. Suffice it to say, Raymer found his nemesis at the table today. "He sucked out on me three times," Raymer said. The final time, the guy ended up having an overpair to Raymer's top pair. Raymer, usually a cool customer, was decidedly ready to blow off some steam.

It was an illustration of a reality few people recognize. Even some of the top players in the game can have terrible years. Tens of thousands of dollars can be invested without any significant return. As this room filled up with 1,158 people today, it was clear that for many of them this would be the only big tournament they'll play this year, and maybe in their lifetime. To win this thing...to even make Day 2...takes the confluence of superior skill, good timing, and no small amount of good fortune. The latter did not grace Raymer's cards this year.

It was the same kind of day for Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu Set over set sent him out in Level 1. He talks about his exit in the video blog below. Be sure to check out all of our video blogs at PokerStars.tv.

Watch WSOP 08: Daniel Busts on PokerStars.tv

Today, Raymer sits in the $50,000 HORSE event with as calm a demeanor as I've seen him. He was all smiles as he unwrapped his clam shell fossil from its bubble wrap and set it in front of his cards. That made it all the harder to believe Raymer knocked a guy unconscious in less than 30 seconds a few days ago.

See, Raymer's World Series has gone, in a word, poorly. Until he cashed in the 2-7 Triple Draw event, he had played more than twenty events with exactly zero in-the-money finishes. The ugliest of all his exits was getting all-in three ways in a PLO tournament in which he had both opponents drawing to exactly one out on a KTT flop (he held aces and they both had a king with no straight or flush draws). The king fell and Raymer went out...and on a little bit of tilt.

Raymer made a steamy exit from the event and walked immediately to a lounge where Roland de Wolfe was struggling with a game of Wii Boxing.

"Roland would knock his guy down, then get knocked down himself," Raymer said. It apparently took Roland some time to put his Wii opponent on the virtual canvas.

"I'm next," Raymer said.

Whether Raymer intended to have a go at Roland or the Wii was unclear. Regardless, neither would've wanted to mess with Raymer post-one-outer.

Roland took off to play some virtual golf and Raymer grabbed the controls. A few seconds and one very strong upper-cut later, Raymer stepped away from the Wii.

"I'm done," he said.

And just like that, his Wii opponent was unconcious and Raymer's anger was sated. Tilt gone, he took off and vowed to fight at the felt another day.

That day is today. He has since recorded his first cash of this year's Series and is looking to throw a few punches in the HORSE event today. After three hours of play, his stack hasn't moved much. This is a heavy-weight fight and is scheduled to last for five days. Any good fighter, even one practiced in the discipline of Wii, knows to save the big punches for late in the fight.

And so that is what Raymer is doing tonight.

Early in the day, someone at the table asked about the order of the table-breaks. The tournament director advised, "You'll be here all day."

With that in mind, the players at Raymer's table have become rather friendly throughout the past seven hours. Many know each other's names. Now back from dinner, though, Raymer has taken an interest in the young man in the eight-seat. He inquired about his name. "I don't want to keep saying, 'hey, mister," he explained.

The guy didn't say much. He mumbled a bit about not wanting people to know his screen name.

Raymer, though he is well-known by his own screen name, prefers to call people by their real names. "I don't care what your screen name is," he said.

The young gentlemen stole a look at Sorel Mizzi and another online pro at the table. "Yeah, but he might know it. And he might know it." he said.

That is the new poker. In the old days, poker players were known by their face and the name their mama gave them. Now, they enjoy a bit of anonymity.

After a bit more prodding, the online player spoke up. "My real name is Max," he said.

These kinds of things are important, if only for the psychological aspect of the game. In just the past few hours, the man known only as Max has worked his way up from a starting stack to the biggest stack at Table de Raymer.

Just now, Raymer called across the table, "So, what did you have for dinner, Max? Did you eat with Sorel?"

No matter what he munched on for dinner, Max wasn't biting now. There isn't any way to turn off chat at a live table. He shook his head and stared at the table.

This much we know: His real name is Max and his real stack sits at 50,000.

If Max keeps it up at this pace, everybody is bound to know his name--nay, names--very soon.

"Bad luck for me," Raymer said, sliding his cards into the muck. "You knocked that chip over."

The lady began to apologize before realizing Raymer's joke. Anyone who knows FossilMan knows that his decisions are never based on superstition. A mirror could break on Friday the 13th while a black cat walks under a ladder and over Raymer's hole cards. If he was going to call before, he was going to call after. Raymer confirmed it when he looked over at the small blind and said, "If you had aces, you should've pushed in. Then, I could've called." In short, it's poker, not luck.

Raymer is having a good day here at the PokerStars EPT Grand Final. Early in the day, he managed to send an opponent to the rail after cracking aces with 36 on a x6767 board. His opponent couldn't find a fold on the river and Raymer's stack towered over his fossil.

The fossil, though...that was a curious thing. Longtime Raymer fans know the fossil that sits on front of the FossilMan while he plays. It's black, oblong, and shiny. It's a constant companion to a man who doesn't base his game on supersition. That's what made it so odd. Today, Raymer plays without that trademark card capper. Something else, more round than oblong, and more sand-colored than black sits on top of Raymer's holdings.

When asked about it, Raymer shrugs it off. He's just come from a Rock and Mineral show and picked up a new fossil. This one?

"A 180 million year-old clam," Raymer says with evident pride.

It's more evidence Raymer doesn't need a good luck charm. He could have a monkey sitting on his cards and play them the same way. That's why his stack is rising as fast as the steam off his opponent's heads. As for the clam, Raymer says, "You're going to have to steam it a while to get it to open up."

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