Tell me about pot limit.

Hi, I was wonedering if somebody could give me some advice on pot limit hold'em.


There is a low stakes pot limit hold'em game with a $50 minium buy in and a $6 per hour seat charge.

The blinds both ante $1 and then play progresses as normal.


I am used to limit games.

Whats the low down on pot limit, if you need a 300 big bet bank roll for a limit game them what do you need for pot limit (how is it worked out).

I guess I should expect more fluctuations ?

What are the major stratedgy changes ?

Whats a good way to work out if the seat hire is going to be hard to overcome without actually burning through cash and writing the results down ?


Thanks.

stratedgy change--in many limit games the pot odds justify drawing in most situations. that will NOT be true in P/L--this is the key difference


bankroll--because you will likely be drawing to fewer hands (per above) you requirement may be less, or no more.


BUT--2 games with same size blinds can be very different in action, and thus money required AND also because of this, difficult to evaluate seat charge


it may be a good game, but I do not like a game when the total blinds are such a low percentage of the minimum buyin because it makes it too cheap for the rocks to sit forever waiting on super big starting hand, which tends to kill the action--they can sit there for 25 rounds, and at 3-4 rounds per hour, that's a long time!!!

Whenever you flop top pair with top kicker bet the pot. If you flop trips bet the pot. If you have a much bigger bankroll than the other players you can make huge intimidating bets to encourage other players to fold. I think the calls one has to make are actually much simpler in PL than in a regular structured game, the punishment from a bad beat is much worse. Be careful with hands like AK or AQ because if you end up heads up with someone holding a pocket pair you could lose a lot of money.

UltimateBet.com has a good game: blinds $1-2, maximum chips $200. If you get up to $400 or so then you can start bullying the other players with huge bets and naked bluffs.

Dear Mark,

I do not agree with VK's advice. Pot-limit poker is much less one-dimensional than he suggests and what's the use of bullying your opponents when the blinds are relatively small? (you might bully them off their hands six times in a row, but the seventh time you will lose all the money you just won). If you're new to pot-limit, I would advice you to jump into the lowest buy-in and (especially) smallest-blind game there is to get used to the flow of the game and its fluctuations. Try to play very tight and don't be too afraid about being bluffed out. Try to see this as a learning experience; also don't be too afraid of being drawn out on because drawing hands tend to do poorly in PLH. Also, beware of the bread-and-butter hands in limit hold'em (AK, AQ, AJ, KQ) because in PLH these hands can be very costly. This having said, in my opinion pot-limit hold'em is not really a good game because the bad players lose too often, and therefore the preservation of the game is almost always in danger. If you are really interested in playing pot-limit try Omaha high; the fluctuations are a lot higher than in PLH and you will see the worst players experience huge wins, but if you are really good your long-run expectation can be incredible. In fact, almost all top money players in Europe and even quite a few in the U.S.A. prefer PLO over any other game. If you have a strong stomach (PLO being the ultimate drawing game) you will have the chance to book mammoth wins- while having a lot of fun in the process. Good luck to you,

Rolf.

I would expect less fluctuation, not more. If you have Aces and you are against a flush draw, and if you have enough cash, you can bet the pot, laying 2-1 odds on a 4+ to one bet, TWICE! Only a sucker would chase in that situation. Such suckers can be found in pot limit games, but the price they pay in pot limit is very heavy.


Pay attention to the pot odds. Usually draws are not valuable, but sometimes situations arise where someone underbets or where you can raise and get yourself into a good situation.


Do not lose big pots. Be careful when raised by solid players. Try to avoid confrontations with players who are solid and have big stacks.


Game selection is critical, although often you will find the proportion of good to bad players might seem much worse, one or two bad players in a field of 7-9 players total, with several of the players being better than you even, can be a profitable situation.


Careful with big bluffs. You might find that these are completely unnecessary if you pay attention to your game selection.


Check into players who think that they can run over you. (This will only work for a while. . . )


Do not let your pot limit game interfere with your limit game. Pot limit games are rare, special, and tend not to last because the good players have such a huge advantage over the bad players. Good habits in pot limit can be terrible habits in limit.

Thanks for the advice guys,


Just to clarify a few things,


Some key differences from limit are ...


Being able to pet the pot and destroy peoples odds on drawing hands when you have hands like (pocket pairs) or (top pair+kicker).?


Being able to bet the pot and create very intimidating bluffs.?


Effect of seat charge and size bank roll are too hard to judge because it depends on the how much action is going on and what sort of people your up against.?


Ok,

Here are a few follow up questions.


What sort of situations (if any) would you not bet part of the pot and not the whole thing.?


How should you play your drawing hands seeing as they are now worth less, do you have to fold hands like say J,10s alot more.?


What do you do when it doubt?. For example, say you flop top pair and bet the pot and then someone responds by raising the whole amount of the pot. Mabey there's a 50% chance he's bluffing but your just not sure. Is it better to fold and err on the side of caution or to chase ?

I see what you're saying Rolf. But often, after the flop it is easy for a guy with a huge stack to steal the pot with a huge bet, especially from the late position. Especially if the board is not paired or otherwise threatening.


About destroying someone's pot odds: Someone on a flush draw has a 35% chance of completing their hand by the river and a double ended straight draw is 31%. If you have top pair with a good kicker and make a pot size bet they would have to be stupid to try to chase and complete their hand because after ten such draws they will have lost a lot of money. Occasionally a sucker who calls the big raise will complete his hand and that's just part of the game. Sometimes the swings are rough but within a comfortable limit these games are profitable.


I have a lot of trouble with structured games but do pretty well in PL.

About the bullying thing, let me give you an example. Say you have 5x as much money as the max buy-in and are in the late position. The flop appears not to hit anyone right and when it's your turn you bet the pot. Just for this example let's say the pot contains $20. The other players are going to be hesitant to call the raise unless they have a fantastic hand and if you are checkraised you can just fold. If you pull this off 4/5 times you will have stolen $80 and lost $20, for a gain of $60. If you are called or checkraised and proceed to blindly follow your hand to the river then you will lose it all, but not this way. It depends on the quality of your competition more than anything of course, but I've found that a lot of people with poor judgement play PL games while structured limit games seem to attract people who have read all the lit.

Remember Pot Odds. If someone calls a pot size bet (1 bet), then raises the pot (3 bets), it is three bets to you to win 6(the original pot, your pot sized bet, and their 4 potsized bets)so you are getting 2-1 odds. If the chance of their bluffing is 50% you have an even odds situation, but if the chance of their bluffing is less, you don't have a call.


If they have more chips left, remember they may bluff (or bet for value if they are not bluffing) on the future rounds of betting, so calling too much can be quite expensive.

Stu Ungar had a huge chip lead in the finals of the WSP and he at one point raised 9 hands in a row. Noone dared to call. The stack size is very important and coming up with a player's bluffing odds and applying it to pot odds is an extremely dangerous proposition.

VK:


I think that in tournaments stack size matters