Since Black Friday, I’ve seen some incredible changes in the way poker players make a living. When the rug was swept out from under us, many poker pros were left hanging with very little source of income. Players who lived far from traditional card rooms and weren’t able to move were left with some tough choices, compounded by the loss of bankroll on Full Tilt, UB, and Absolute Poker.

Chris Wallace is the founder of TourneyTracks.com, which lists every major upcoming tournament in North America.

I know a number of players who have moved to Costa Rica and at least as many who have gone to Canada. The choice of Canada may seem strange when there are so many poker-friendly countries in the tropics, but some players are actually commuting to Canada for a few weeks each month to play online before returning home. What an odd profession we have chosen that many of its best practitioners leave home to work in another country because the nation that started it all has made it nearly impossible for us to practice our trade.

When relocation is out of the question because of family ties, felony records, fear of the third world, prior commitments, or a multitude of other reasons, many players have found a way to make things work at home. A few are scratching out a living online at smaller sites where it can take months to get your money, game selection is limited, software is miserable, and your money may not be safe.

If moving or playing online poker won’t work, going back to a previous career may be an option, although this is rarely attractive to a player who has been free from the nine-to-five world. A resume with a multi-year hole that says “Professional Poker Player” will read to many uneducated potential employers as “Unemployed – Gambling Problem.” Even more enlightened human resources personnel may be wary of hiring someone who has been out of the field for a few years, making a tough job market even tougher.

The solution for many players has been to travel. I’ve put a lot of miles on my car and racked up some frequent flier miles since Black Friday. Attendance at the larger tournament series is soaring upward, with huge fields and prize pools for major events. I recently played in a $1,600 Main Event on the WSOP Circuit that had over 1,600 players and a top prize of nearly $400,000, the kind of money that was unheard of outside of the summer WSOP events until this year.

There is money to be made, but making the transition from online to live play can be tough. Since I started out as a live player, and have always played quite a bit at local card rooms in Minnesota, the transition was a little easier for me. In working with players who are making the switch, I’ve come up with a list of things for online tournament players to work on when they play in live tournaments.

The first thing to know, and it’s good news, is that your advantage can be much larger. Online tournament players are used to pushing tiny edges and making up for a very small advantage over their opponents by playing a huge number of tournaments. Pushing those tiny edges makes sense when you have such a small overall advantage, but when your ROI could be three times the norm in live events, risking all of your chips on a 2% edge can be a big mistake.

Once you learn to pick up tells on opponents, read their appearances, and take advantage of typically weaker fields, it is a big mistake to push a 2% edge. The best live tournament players tend to be a little more conservative than their online counterparts. They are not weak or passive by any means, just a little less willing to risk all of their chips for a tiny profit. It may help to remember that you can’t play ten more tournaments if you bust this one and you are likely to find a better spot to get your chips in than making that questionable re-steal or shoving a short-stack all-in at the bottom of the Nash push/fold range.

Now, let’s talk about how to achieve that big advantage over your opponents in brick-and-mortar tournament fields.

Physical Tells

Yes, we’ve all seen “Rounders.” Sadly, very few of your opponents will be eating Oreos. If that scene is all you know about reading your opponents’ tells, then you will be amazed by how much information you can get and how rarely your opponents will be aware of the wealth of information they are giving away. The next time you play at a live table, watch your opponents watch the flop. Unless it’s a big game full of Vegas pros, you will probably see everyone watching the cards when they are revealed and no one watching you.

The best way to train yourself to read opponents is to watch them constantly. You should never see a flop happen again. You can look at the flop in a minute, but you can only see the reaction from the fish across the table from you right when the flop happens. After you watch them watch the flop, you can take a look at it yourself; it will still be there.

To learn to read opponents, and cover up many of your own tells, try Joe Navarro’s book “Read ’em and Reap.” As the best book on getting started reading your opponents, it will give you a solid foundation on what to look for.

Learn to Read Appearances

While appearances can be deceiving, they usually aren’t, and when a player first arrives at the table, appearance and behavior are the only things you have to assess an opponent. That old grandmother who just 3bet you may be loose and aggressive, but I’ll lay money that she has a big hand. Everything about your opponent can tell you something about them and how they will likely play.

No one has written a book on reading appearances yet, although books on body language certainly help. The best way to learn about your opponents from the way they look is to pay close attention and think about what each piece of information means. Study every person who sits down, and keep at it. You may not learn much at first, but keep at it and you’ll find yourself learning more and more about players before they even reach their seat.