I actually think my edge is better playing live. I seem to be especially good at reading players, and basic profiling of their playing style live. I also have a very aggressive poker style and it is easier for me to control the action in live play.
I lose a lot of my player reading skills playing online, and I lose some of the aggressiveness and control factor. My theortical edge or win rate goes down on a per hand basis, but actually goes up on an hourly basis playing online due to some factors which include:
- Speed of the game, instead of aproximately 35 hands an hour playing live, you can normally play between 50-60 hands per hour in a full game online
- Playing Multiple games simultaneously. For some reason the Bellagio won't let me play in two games at the same time.
- Tipping - you don't have the guilt factor of having to tip when playing online. I know it sounds petty, but tipping adds up to a lot of money at the end of a year for professional poker players.
- Online Tracking factor. I truly believe that there are players playing online that couldn't beat the game without the use of poker hand tracking software like: Poker Office, and Poker Tracker, or online Odds Calculators, like Texas Calculatem.
If your not using some of the poker tools available, you are losing out on valuable profit and I can guarantee that at least some of your opponents (probably the better ones) are using these tools. I'll try to get up an article or post with some more details about tracking software in the next week.
I will also write a lengthy (and most likely contoversial) post about tipping sometime in the future.
Jason
