Played my first NL ring game and MTT in AC this weekend (Actually not my 1st but my 1st since playing for awhile and feeling like I have some idea as to what I'm doing). My first impression was that I could clean up in this place (1-2NL ring game) much easier than online. Preflop raises were $10-20 with hands like AJo or even KTs. Crazy stuff that I only ocaisionally come across in online. The MTT had so many people rebuying in the first 5-10 minutes it was unreal.
My point is that many authors/experts talk about B&M play being so much harder. Why do they have this opinion? Is this just an artifact from when online play was first starting? I am sure that bigger tournies are not this bad but I don't see play this bad at comparable limits online.
I think anyone who does breakeven or better online at NL ring games could absolutely crush these small stakes NL live games if they could handle the occaisonal ridiculous beat.

I'm with you, that most low stakes live games I've played have been far softer than many play money games online. 5/10 limit often plays like 1/2 online, and the no limit games some times are wild and wooly for a reason, but rarely.

The skill level in a B&M game isnt even close to an online game. The "experts" youre talking about must not have played online in the past 2 years.

Since I am have been playing online for almost a year now I have no frame of reference for comparing the earlier environment of online play. But as to the "experts" I'm talking about even Harrington (in HOH) says things like (my words) raises mean more in live games, players online more likely to play any ace or acex/kingx suited, larger raises are needed to chase people out online, etc.
Just gives the impression that online players are more fishy. This may be the case but the B&M players (again at the lower stakes) are just plain bad. Online players may chase drawing hands too often but the B&M players I faced just overplayed even worse hands than this.
Again it might be that he is comparing major tournaments to smaller buy-in online games but the overall impression it gives is that online players are softer.

The impression is wrong. Harrington is wrong. The online players are even taking over the big tournaments. Online players play 5, 10, 20 times more hands in a year than the B&M pros and the online players are passing them in skill level. The big name B&M pros dont like this and they cant accept it but its a fact.

Not too mention that there are tourists who dont have a clue playing at every casino in the world. Tourists dont just plunk down $1000 online. They have to set up accounts and make deposits. It takes planning.

I agree that B&M players are, generally, MUCH worse than online... I'd say at a normal 10 man table at AC or Vegas, especially 1/2 or 2/5, AT LEAST 3-4 players are blackjack players that don't know my ass from their elbow when it comes to most facets of poker... Another 3-4 are bozos who watched poker on TV, and play it that way... I've VERY seldom seen (and I play a fairly decent amount of live poker) more than 2-3 people (including me... which may be a stretch ... ) that I would consider "Good"...