Live help

call the floorman and demand silence while you initiate your hand reading abilities

When you snap call a shove online you didnt do it because of a tell, you did it because of history. Live is no different. I mean I'm sure the tells are there, but low stakes live fish are so bad it doesnt even really matter. Their hand range will tell you all you need to know. Just take it slow and be prepared for lots of silly table talk. Everyone thinks they're Mike Caro and tries to ask you stupid questions about your intent and so forth, thinking they're going to figure out what you have when they know they're never folding their gutshot anyway so they're just wasting their own time lol. My first live session was one of my most profitable, and my hands were shaking and I was constantly clarifying the action "is it on me?... he folds?... he raised?..." etc. Didnt even matter, they still paid off every single time. Just be concise & make sure everyone is in agreement with the action if there is any doubt, because there is so much minor angleshooting that it's almost funny.

Just being a Whale isn't much to go on lol.

What positions is really helpful, if it's 4-5 last to act, and it's you and him with straddle. It'd take MUCH to have me fold AKs. If he was loose too, maybe he have done shoves like this before? If any of that is true, I get more and more comfortable with getting it in. Did he open from UTG, and you're late position, and you've never seen him do this before, maaaybe it was a good fold xD

I'm not really helping much am I xD

Yea you need to provide more info. If you don't have more info, then you need to start paying more attention at the table.

Is a call station type of whale? Spew whale?

Lot's of players will see some horrible player making horrendous calls, then when he 4 bets them with the nuts they think they got coolered. You need to identify what type of player he is and what kind of mistakes he's making, not just see him make a couple bad plays and file him under whale.

-Whale was a call station
-Whale was bluffy, double barreled an open ended straight draw,
-In one family pot i bet flop, everyone fold except whale, turn checks, then whale pot bet leads river when the board comes out to a four card straight, whale had top pair and I had the straight
-Past couple orbits I raised whale's limp about 3-4 times and took it down without showdown on the flop, and then about twice during straddled pots where I made it like 25-30 and everybody folded preflop. (game is 1/2/3 nl, guy directly to my left kept straddling my big blind, whale was 2 seats to my right, other players would make it anywhere between 13-20 pre in un-straddled pots and whale would be calling oop and showing hands like K2o, A2o, 59)

In the hand where I lost big it was a straddled pot again by the same person, I think there was 2 callers before the whale opens it up to 20, then I made it about 60 with AKs wanting to isolate the fish and not have to play AK oop potentially 4 way. I also 3 betted with the intention of calling a shove considering I've beatin him out of a few pots close together very recently without showdown, and villain was on the bluffy side. I was thinking villain's range would be.....

welp will finish later have to get ready for work lol.

Try to get a live tell only when it's a close spot unless you're confident with your ability to read.

(in your spot given the history it's a fist pump call)

I just try to get baseline's on people's breathing and blinking/facial ticks/hand movements when they aren't in hands, and then try to notice if they alter them while they are in a hand, and then try to figure out if they were strong or not and loosely link the change with the strength of their hand. If it becomes consistent I strengthen the link in my mind. Showdowns are very useful to solidify a person's tells, but sometimes just asking what they had works. If they decline and you noticed something very significant that will help you a lot you could even offer to pay to see their cards. A big blind or two usually will get a person to show you their cards even if the pot is pretty big already.

For the most part though just play solid poker; In your situation, even if you have a tell on the whale that he thinks he's strong...he probably thinks pocket 8's are strong so it doesn't really help you.

Caro's book of Tells + many years experience will help you slightly in these spots, but lacking a solid read you got to play the numbers just as you would online. +EV does not change live or online.
In my experience you need to spend a great deal of your time at the live table watching your opponents when not in a hand, and if they act differently in one situation vs another.
examples, the loudmouth suddenly shuts up on the turn when the 3rd heart falls. (I would pay attention here)
Someone shoves and you can see the artery in his neck visibly pulsing. (He has the effective nuts)
You will be amazed how many reliable tells you will pick up just by hours of careful observations and seeing what type of hands they have in certain spots.
Again I want to stress, +EV does not change. Neither should 99.9% of your normal decisions.