Here are some differences you can expect to find between online poker tournaments and live poker tournaments:
Softer Competition in Live Tournaments
Live tournaments are typically much, much easier than online tournaments. Online tournaments are filled with a lot of savvy, experienced young players whereas live tournaments have plenty of donkeys who would probably never play online for fear that it’s rigged. A typical $500 buy-in live tournament will usually be as soft as a $10 online tournament. No joke, the live events are really that easy.
Deeper Stacks Live
Since live tournaments progress at a slower pace than online tournaments, players usually grow impatient and lose all their chips before they really needed to. This coupled with the easier competition makes for deeper stacks in live events. The average stack in an online tournament is typically 20-40 big blinds. In a live tournament, it will commonly be over 50.
Top Heavier Payouts in Live Events
The payout structure of a poker tournament can have a significant impact on one’s strategy. The payout in online tournaments is usually “flatter”, meaning more places get paid more money. There’s a pretty simple reason for this: online poker rooms have no limitations paying out as many places as they like, whereas a live tournament payout involves paperwork and man hours. For that reason, live tournaments typically a.) pay a smaller percentage of the prize pool and b.) pay a larger percentage of the prize pool to the top 3 finishers. The name of the game in live tournaments is to play for the win whereas online it can sometimes be sensible to essentially give up on trying to win and instead shoot for 5th place.
Tells
Live tournament tells are something that is not in play in an online tournament. Since you cannot see your opponents in an online tournament, how they’re behaving is left up to a guess. Savvy players can have a bigger edge in live tournaments because of the added value of spotting tells.
Small Stakes Tournaments
The smallest buy-in live tournaments will still cost at least $50 to enter. Online tournaments can be played for mere pennies. One great way to gain poker tournament experience is to play small stakes online tournaments. No matter how bad you are, you can’t lose too much in these events whereas if you were trying to hone your skills in a live tournament, it could cost a small fortune before you were remotely decent.