ITH Poker Forum

[nsidestrate]

I was advising a friend who is starting out and told him that I believed that No Limit cash games were the most lucrative form of poker available today. He then seinsibly enough asked why I play limit poker if I think that is true. It took me a while to figure out what my answer is, but I'm curious how you respond to that same question.

Do you agree that NL is currently a more fishy game?

If not, why not? If so, why do you play limit?

[Misunderstud]

Ha ha. This is a question I've been asking myself for some time now, so I hope Barry can come up with a convincing answer. Of course, I'm looking at it from a rather different perspective, grinding away at (FR)LLHE, but about the most fun I have playing poker is chasing a bonus, and that really isn't very much fun at all.

PauliF (one of our ITHers) once said that he would rather eat his own eyelids than play limit, and I'm beginning to agree with him. At the back of my mind is that, if I can grind out a decent BR multitabling, I might then be able to move on 'proper' play at 1- or 2-table games at decent stakes. Is this a pipe dream or a reasonable ambition?

Personally, I'm wary of NL because I'm more a gamer than a gambler (to borrow from Ian Taylor's article), and I can see my hard-earned BR going down the Swannee with a couple of ill-judged shoves.

Perhaps I could add a supplementary to nside's question: why (or why not) FR rather than 6-max?

Thanks for guesting, Barry.

[PauliF]

PauliF (one of our ITHers) once said that he would rather eat his own eyelids than play limit, .

this is partially due to the fact that i played 800k hands of the thing once and hardly every left the house....

i actually think that NL tourneys are more fishy than NL cash altho i have no way of actually knowing this for sure

[nsidestrate]

Perhaps I could add a supplementary to nside's question: why (or why not) FR rather than 6-max?

My guess would be that short-handed games are rare live. As far as I know, games never run intentionally short-handed. Sometimes they don't have a full table, but I don't know of any tables that are intentionally limited to six players in a casino setting.

[jeffnc]

Personally, I'm wary of NL because I'm more a gamer than a gambler (to borrow from Ian Taylor's article), and I can see my hard-earned BR going down the Swannee with a couple of ill-judged shoves.

I like to play limit because I'm good at it, but I'm improving at NL.

As far as losing your bankroll, it's true that NL is more fuzzy and a little more "gambly", but if you read books like Professional No Limit and Harrington on Cash, a lot of it starts to become logical. You'd do the same thing in NL as limit - start at reasonable limits for your bankroll, gain confidence in making bigger bets, and work your way up. You might be surprised that the variance is less than you think. If anything, I'm more consistent in NL with less variance than in limit. In live play in a $2/5 game, I'm currently on a 10 session winning streak (10 winning sessions in a row of 4-8 hours each.) Multitabling online also tends to decrease your apparent short term variance - lose a big stack here, win a big stack there, make a small win there.

[Misunderstud]

Perhaps I could add a supplementary to nside's question: why (or why not) FR rather than 6-max?

My guess would be that short-handed games are rare live. As far as I know, games never run intentionally short-handed. Sometimes they don't have a full table, but I don't know of any tables that are intentionally limited to six players in a casino setting.

Quite so, but I'd guess BT's thoughts on the (online) matter would still be worth reading. As would yours - you still concentrate more on FR than SH, don't you?

[taz115]

nside is well suited to play 6-max as he is really aggressive, I think he prefers FR because he figures his aggressive style serves him better against generally tighter opposition. I think one of his previous quotes in response to this question was SH rewards "showdown monkeys" more than it does in FR play.

[nsidestrate]

Quite so, but I'd guess BT's thoughts on the (online) matter would still be worth reading. As would yours - you still concentrate more on FR than SH, don't you?

I do play more full ring than short-handed. I believe that there are two main reasons in my case. One is that I find it more difficult to multi-table short-handed games because there are far more decisions and more flops seen than in full ring. The other is that I don't believe my edge is as large against the typical short-handed player at the "higher" limits. I have been mixing more 6 max in when there are not as many games running at my preferred stakes, and my results show a similar earn rate with a much higher variance. I make a number of plays in full ring games that are intended to generate folds from medium strength hands (second and third pair type hands) and I believe that I succeed at getting the folds I want in those cases. In my opinion, most 10/20 and higher players pretty much go to showdown with every pair and many Aces. This means that many of my favorite tactics do not work as well (Hence Taz's memory of my "showdown monkeys" quote). I believe that I understand how to adjust, but given the choice, I'd rather play tables where I can force folds more often. Its odd, because my sense is that at limits like 5/10 and below, the short-handed game tends to be weaker and more exploitable than the nitty full ring games. At 10/20 and above, I think that the full ring game is more exploitable.

I have more to say about the differences for me between full and short and limit and no-limit, but I'm more interested in hearing Barry's answers than posting my own.

[jeffnc]

Where are you finding 10/20 and higher FR games that are good? And define good. You can PM if you prefer

[taz115]

nside plays 15/30 and 30/60 at Stars. Good games for him may not be good games for everyone else

[nsidestrate]

Where are you finding 10/20 and higher FR games that are good? And define good. You can PM if you prefer

I define good as "I am able to win money" which is a nebulous standard, I know. Most of my play is on Stars, where I have decided to become a "SuperNova" for reasons similar to my decision to buy seamonkeys when I was 7. The only other site where I find 10/20 and higher FR that I like playing is WPEX and that has been very spotty of late. Several people pointed me to Cake, but I rarely find games higher than 5/10 running full there.

[MacTaiga]

I agree that there are more bad players playing the NL tables, the reason I stick to the limit side is that I can grind out several tables at once working off bonuses and know I can steadily make money doing this. The level of thought required for each decision is lower I find and the maths easier.

I enjoy the NL game far more but I've found it more volatile and prefer to stick to tournaments as a way of getting the enjoyment with lower variance.

[pokerbear]

Hi. Mostly I play limit because the games are still great, and I make a lot of money from it. To make the equivalent amount from NL. I would have to play the _410-$20, and that game in general is not a easy as the $30-$60. As I said before, i am just trying to make a living.

Also, while I think I have an OK NL game, I have an extremely developed limit game based on over 25 years of play. There are subtleties to NL I would still have to get used to, and I not inclined to do so unless I must.

Finally, I believe (as i discuss in an upcoming CP column, the NL games tend to deteriorate over time (meaning get tougher and tougher) and limit games do not. So, while there was a time when NL games, especially 2-5 were very juicy, that has not been quite the case recently.

[Misunderstud]

I agree that there are more bad players playing the NL tables, the reason I stick to the limit side is that I can grind out several tables at once working off bonuses and know I can steadily make money doing this.

Those were my thoughts exactly, Mac, but I'm no longer so confident that I'm right. I dunno, maybe I just haven't done enough chasing yet. I'm on my second at Prima this year. The first I broke even on the play and came away with a nice $700, which was fine by me, but this one . . . after a quick initial +75BB I've been getting consistently hammered and have lost about 200BB. That seems far too much to be simply variance. I'd have thought after almost 3 yrs my game would be good enough to at least hold my own at 1/2 grinding tables, but it seems not. And if I can't even do that, well, wtf can I do?

Pauli's eyelids are looking tastier by the minute

[nsidestrate]

Hi. Mostly I play limit because the games are still great, and I make a lot of money from it. To make the equivalent amount from NL. I would have to play the _410-$20, and that game in general is not a easy as the $30-$60. As I said before, i am just trying to make a living.

Also, while I think I have an OK NL game, I have an extremely developed limit game based on over 25 years of play. There are subtleties to NL I would still have to get used to, and I not inclined to do so unless I must.

Finally, I believe (as i discuss in an upcoming CP column, the NL games tend to deteriorate over time (meaning get tougher and tougher) and limit games do not. So, while there was a time when NL games, especially 2-5 were very juicy, that has not been quite the case recently.

Very interesting. I am quite certain that the on-line limit games have significantly deteriorated. In my opinion, the Party Poker 15/30 and 30/60 games a few years ago were the absolute sweetest poker games I've ever seen. The Stars 30/60 is considerably tougher than the Party 30/60 game of three years ago. I find it interesting that a similar change has not taken place in the live environment.