Is NO LIMIT the new King of Hold'em? [Archive]

RydenStoompala

02-08-2005, 10:25 PM

Grinding it out at a $10-$20 game last night I noticed that the card room atmosphere has definitely changed. In a 20 table room there was 1 10-20 and 1 20-40. There were a dozen low-limit games and then there was the REAL games. The three tables spreading no-limit were packed and drawing a lot of attention. At the $500 buy-in right next to us, the dominant player was "coloring up" for greens and blacks because he couldn't count the reds. I did a quick count and guessed he was up about $7 thousand with new people jumping into the game against him every time someone busted out. It was insane. I saw three consecutive pots with + $1,500 in them. Sweet!

I'm noticing there are more and more NL games in the B+M rooms. Is this where the trend is going? Is limit becoming a bore?

Derek in NYC

02-08-2005, 10:41 PM

In Essays 1, Mason Malmuth has written about the problems with NL holdem in terms of wiping out weak player bankrolls. NL cash games will not be here forever. The games are just too punishing on weaker players.

Photoc

02-08-2005, 10:41 PM

...in my best Mike Sexton voice...

No Limit Holdem is the cadillac of poker.

Luv2DriveTT

02-09-2005, 12:17 AM

With all due respect, I don't think anyone needs to ask this question. The answer is obvious, even if we don't want to belive it.

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

afish

02-09-2005, 12:21 AM

I wondered the same thing, but I've recently seen reports that the 1-2 and 5-10 no limit games in AC are starting to tighten up. I think that once the boom ends, these games will burn out.

Jurollo

02-09-2005, 12:30 AM

I have a question for the person who asked this...
where have you been the last 2 years? under a rock?
~Justin

Autocratic

02-09-2005, 12:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question for the person who asked this...
where have you been the last 2 years? under a rock?
~Justin

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah....the kids (read: me) who started playing within the last couple of years all play no limit. They could barely recognize limit strategy.

afish

02-09-2005, 12:34 AM

Based on what I've seen, I don't think they'd recognize no-limit strategy either.

Scorpion

02-09-2005, 12:38 AM

Small capped buy-in No limit is the thing today. $100- $500 max Nl games are the new "limit" games.

zaxx19

02-09-2005, 01:34 AM

Hmm, when the 2+2-SSHLE-pokertracker 16 tablers begin to kill the low limit holdem tables and the loose action there, will LHE "dry up" ??

The problem with limit is it is correct strategy for profit taking(unless you are tremendously gifted) is clearly robotic online play on multiple tables with PT . ....of course that also sounds alot like work or just some rudimentary high school level stats homework to most people...including those who have recently been drawn into poker in the "boom" since the WPT aired.

There just isnt the romance in Limit like there is in NLH; the adrenaline of a huge pot, the big bluff, getting it all-in preflop with AA...the drama just isnt there.

Shaun

02-09-2005, 02:10 AM

[ QUOTE ]
In Essays 1, Mason Malmuth has written about the problems with NL holdem in terms of wiping out weak player bankrolls. NL cash games will not be here forever. The games are just too punishing on weaker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

But when he wrote about that, there were no capped buy-in no limit games. No limit is here to stay.

TimTimSalabim

02-09-2005, 02:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]
In Essays 1, Mason Malmuth has written about the problems with NL holdem in terms of wiping out weak player bankrolls. NL cash games will not be here forever. The games are just too punishing on weaker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, right now I think the bad NL players are surviving off of the ultra-bad players /images/graemlins/laugh.gif.

willie

02-09-2005, 02:35 AM

i've only been playin for a year and a half and i started with nl tournies, and i play nl cash live.

i do find limit quite boring even though it can be lucrative, i just find no limit much more intriguing and punishing upon bad players. it requires real deep thought at times and you can win or lose a lot, not merely a big bet or 2....

i know it sounds cocky and is definitely stupid but i think that a lot of new players feel the way that i do....

JoeC

02-09-2005, 02:46 AM

This is very, very true. I see absolute rocks hanging around the Party NL tables for long periods of time... I guess they're making decent money off the maniacs and stations. There are few "good" players in the NL100 game, and in lower stakes than that, there's next to none.

me454555

02-09-2005, 03:21 AM

I think I'm the only one who finds this in reverse. I"ve played a little bit of NL and definatly much more limit. In my experience, NL feels like much more a grind. I always have to be so careful on each and every hand. You can't push marginal hands the same way and I find 1 bad move costs you your entire stack.

Limit on the other hand is about pushing small edges over and over again. You need to take chances and play much more aggressive on the flop. In limit you can acutally draw to hands b/c your opponent can't bet you out of the pot. I find limit to be much more of a finess game than NL.

NL hold 'em may be the current game but limit will always have a place b/c some people just don't want to risk their entire bankroll all the time. After you get wiped out once or twice, how many fish will stick around? It's luck factor that keeps bad players playing. Its a lot easier to appear better than you are in limit than in NL.

Mason Malmuth

02-09-2005, 05:53 AM

Hi Derek:

I still see it that way. In addition, in the rooms that I play in there are still many more limit games than no limit. Also, the no limit that is being spread is almost always the max buy-in game which is not quite true no limit.

On the other hand, thanks to the TV shows, these no limit games are getting a lot of new players and I do expect them to last for some significant period of time.

Best wishes,
Mason

The Goober

02-09-2005, 06:05 AM

I don't think that in the long run NL is ever going to be as profitable for good players as limit is. I look at the consistent donors at my local B+M, and most of them are there to relax and have fun, and I think that limit is always going to make that easier for them. A lot of these limit players are basically paying me (and other good players) for their entertainment, and a good number of them basically recognize this (although they probably don't realize its the good players who take their money - they probably think that no one really wins in the long run). I just don't see no limit players cheerfully donating to the game this way - even bad NL players, in my experience, see themselves as fierce warriors.

I also think that bad no limit players are more likely to eventually get better, whereas I know guys who have been playing limit games for like 30 years and still have basically no idea what to do. The reason I say that is it seems like in NL the mental reward/punishment is more closely linked to the quality of your play. I.e. you go all-in preflop and I call you with AJo and watch you turn over AA or AK, I'm gonna get a sharp "don't do that again" mesage from my brain (even if I get really lucky and suck out, I probably remember that I made a bad call). Then I get more time to think about it as I buy in again.

In a limit game (especially a loose one) your brain has to be trained to recognize your mistakes beause they are much more subtle and often un-intuitive. Most mistakes cost less individually, but you can make much more of them. Its sorta like smoking - its easy to ignore the damage to your help because you do it a little bit very frequently.

Not that this will happen anytime soon - all the poker on TV is going to keep people trying their hand "making moves" and "getting out the kiddy pool" or whatever... i'm just talking about in the long run as the bad NL players get sick of giving all their money away.

That's my theory, anyway.

Sponger15SB

02-09-2005, 06:34 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Also, the no limit that is being spread is almost always the max buy-in game which is not quite true no limit.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is impossible to have true no limit. Do you see why?

YEM20

02-09-2005, 12:28 PM

Afish,

If you think the NL games in AC are drying up, you are crazy. I went to Bally's last night. I RARELY play NL, but my girlfriend smokes, so Bally's it was. They spread a 2-4, a 3-6 and a 1-3 NL.

I sat in the NL. I played for 8 hrs. This was the best game I have ever seen. The 4 seat brought it in for $20.....are you ready for this........100% of the time! Any position, every hand, for 8 hrs! He called almost every re-raise, and his only bet postflop was....ALL IN.

We determined after he finally got up that he lost in the neighborhood of 3 large, in a 1-3 game. Most of which went to another bad player.

I raise 2 questions:

1. He lost that $3 grand $300 at a time. Is that really NL?
2. Will bad players survive the oober bad players, thus keeping this "NL" game profitable?

I hate to say it, but I may be making the switch soon. Last night was just sick. (I saw a $3100 pot, no joke)

andyfox

02-09-2005, 12:40 PM

"the no limit that is being spread is almost always the max buy-in game which is not quite true no limit."

It almost becomes a spread limit game with a big spread. But even if the game were "true" no limit, I think the concern you had, that the bad players would get wiped out, is less of a concern than it was when you first wrote it. There are so many more people playing that there's no chance that the pool of fish will dry up. I believe I read where one million people are now playing poker on-line. Anecdotally, within the last six months, my dentist, my dermatologist, a half a dozen parents at my son's school, a half a dozen more at work, and sundry others, knowing I'm a player, have asked me for poker advice because they've started to play. (Little do they know how bad the advice is, usually unwittingly, but in the case of my dentist, on purpose; I'm finally going to get even with that damn plaque bastard). And I notice quite a few of the long-time regular limit players at Commerce now play no-limit (real no-limit) at least some of the time, if not regularly.

Don Olney

02-09-2005, 01:38 PM

I think NL will run for a while -- BUT ---
Most wil find they can not handle the swings, are no good at it and will find their way back to limit ----
A true NO LIMIT game will not be offered by amny places and it will not last the test of time. NOt many can handle that size of GAME ----

RydenStoompala

02-09-2005, 02:15 PM

Interesting series of responses so far. I, for one, have not been under a rock for two years. The trend that started two years ago is now exploding; that was my only point.

When I think of No Limit, I recall TJ Cloutier's assessment of the game. Like Doyle Brunson, he likes to "put someone on a hand, put them to the test." The "old school" players were not, and still aren't, as sensitive to blowing an entire bankroll in one night as are the more modern poker specialists, especially the limit experts. For TJ, the comparrison comes down to a simple analysis. If he's down in a limit game, it's too much work to get even or go up. He likes the swings and the ability to change the status of key players at the table with a single card.

It's not the same game. After playing limit for years, I am drawn to the NL table because of the added volatility and the influx of new players attracted by the TV glamour of the game. As several posters have noted, these games can be very profitable. All I thought, while watching the guy next door to me win thousands of dollars this week, was "that could be me...I see what he's doing!"

I think the cycle is in its early stages. I see NL as the explosive growth area for established and new cardrooms. The maximum buy-in does create a hybrid no limit game, but in general terms, it's NL... it's not a limit hold'em experience.

revots33

02-09-2005, 02:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Is limit becoming a bore?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I like to play tournaments but I prefer limit... good luck finding a limit tournament at a B&M cardroom. They're few and far between. NL is king and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Even though I prefer limit, I agree that NL is more exciting and more profitable - to players who are good at NL. Sadly I'm a lousy NL player so I pretty much stick to the limit games where I've had success.

If I can ever manage to learn the skills that make a good NL player I might play more NL. But I tend to be conservative and methodical in my play and that translates better to limit. I'm sure there are other players like me who actually like to see more than 2 cards before they risk their whole stack.... so limit will still be around, although less popular than NL.

I think both games will continue to have their fans, but NL will continue to be more popular because it's more exciting and it's pretty much the only game on tv.

canis582

02-09-2005, 03:07 PM

limitsucksnolimitrulesgoodnightnow

I just got back from vegas and all I did was play the $200 buy in game at bellagio, there were at least five tables going in the afternoon, ran between semi-tight and very loose very aggressive. Trip report coming next week...Im going to naples tonight. FORE!

Yads

02-09-2005, 07:32 PM

I think NL will eventually die off like it did in the 80s and early 90s. Big bet poker punishes bad players at a much faster rate than fixed bet poker.

bdk3clash

02-09-2005, 09:16 PM

"Most wil find they can not handle the swings, are no good at it and will find their way back to limit"

Ah yes, the dull grind and low variance of limit hold'em, bastion for those that can't handle the swings of no-limit.

Are you quoting "Rounders" on purpose or subconsciously?

chucksim

02-09-2005, 09:22 PM

NL will cool off relatively soon. The bad players will run out of money and/or get so frustrated they'll find other outlets for their money.

me454555

02-09-2005, 09:37 PM

I doubt the bad players will just leave and go back to limit. Although I'm not a fan of NL poker, it does provide something that limit does not. Action. The adrenaline thrill of NL is that any time you can double up your entire stack. This is somewhat different than the limit game which has smaller swings.

To the bad players, NL poker is like craps. They think they can beat the game but cannot and ultimately play b/c they like the action. If they wanted to win, they would simply read and play better.

The other thing that NL has going for it is that it is "the cadilac of poker". Theres a certain level of respect that NLers believe the game entitles and these same people don't like limit b/c its a lesser game. They believe that limit hold em is all about luck b/c you can't prevent the suck outs and they happen so often.

For those reasons I think NL hold em will be here for quite a while. On the flip side, I will be playing limit b/c I just enjoy the game more. I don't think there will be any shortage of fish @ either game.

Voltron87

02-09-2005, 09:38 PM

I do not think No Limit will cool down like everyone says, yes it is a more brutal game but there are also hundreds of thousands of new players with millions of more dollars to lose. The old poker economy could not sustain NL but I think the influx of new players who want to play it can. People who have good jobs and who watch poker are still going to gamble and play NL even if they lose, since there are so many new recreational players there is more money to be lost.

Last time I checked there are not many casinos and sportsbooks going broke.

So my $.02 is that while NL does seperate the winners from the losers faster, there are so many more losers with so much more money that they are not going to dry up like the poker economy would 10 years ago if everyone played NL.

turnipmonster

02-09-2005, 10:40 PM

as for true NL games, in my opinion they've only grown and gotten better since relatively recent boom. the pot limit game where I play used to be the same people every week, now it's switched to NL and there's a constant new influx of players, and this is a deep game with no max buyin.

it sounds like the 10/20 NL games at the commerce and bellagio are healthy, as are the games in northern cal which have been going for years, no?

bobbyi

02-09-2005, 11:00 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Last time I checked there are not many casinos and sportsbooks going broke.

[/ QUOTE ]
Obviously, you didn't check with Donald Trump.

Voltron87

02-09-2005, 11:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Last time I checked there are not many casinos and sportsbooks going broke.

[/ QUOTE ]
Obviously, you didn't check with Donald Trump.

[/ QUOTE ]

Trump Casinos werent going broke because the edge casinos have is gone or people won't gamble anymore, you know what I mean. Vegas is still there.

DesertCat

02-09-2005, 11:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Last time I checked there are not many casinos and sportsbooks going broke.

[/ QUOTE ]
Obviously, you didn't check with Donald Trump.

[/ QUOTE ]

Trump's casinos made lots of money, just not enough to pay interest on the massive debt Trump borrowed to build them, esp. after the Borgota opened.

sfer

02-10-2005, 11:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Trump's casinos made lots of money, just not enough to pay interest on the massive debt Trump borrowed to build them, esp. after the Borgota opened.

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to define "lots" because in a typical business no one defines "lots of money" as barely covering current expenses with zero hope of paying long term debt.

Shaun

02-10-2005, 12:52 PM

CountDuckula

02-10-2005, 01:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I also think that bad no limit players are more likely to eventually get better, whereas I know guys who have been playing limit games for like 30 years and still have basically no idea what to do. The reason I say that is it seems like in NL the mental reward/punishment is more closely linked to the quality of your play. I.e. you go all-in preflop and I call you with AJo and watch you turn over AA or AK, I'm gonna get a sharp "don't do that again" mesage from my brain (even if I get really lucky and suck out, I probably remember that I made a bad call). Then I get more time to think about it as I buy in again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, what about the guy on the other side who gets sucked out on in that situation? I was in a tourney at the Orleans last month (granting that a tourney isn't quite the same thing as a ring game), and went all-in with AKs before the flop (I was short stacked and needed to make some moves to try to recover). One caller, who had AJo. Flop gives him a J, neither a K nor enough of my suits hit, and I'm out.

Should that pain teach me not to move all-in with a group 1 hand when I'm short stacked? If not, why should the pain of seeing a better hand call my all-in in another situation teach me not to make the same move again? Sometimes, the right move is as painful as the wrong move, and you can be unlucky or lucky with either one. The reward/punishment aspect of learning gives very mixed signals in poker, so improvement is not necessarily a given. IMHO, of course. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-Mike

DesertCat

02-10-2005, 04:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]

You need to define "lots" because in a typical business no one defines "lots of money" as barely covering current expenses with zero hope of paying long term debt.

[/ QUOTE ]

Essentially you are right. In fact there was a bond analyst who announced before the Taj Mahal was built that it would be unlikely to repay it's debt. I think the analyst got fired for his impertinence.

But Trump's income from operations was $45M in in first 9 months of 2004. That's a great deal more than "barely covering current expenses", though less than it's generated in the past. With interest expenses at $54M for the same period though, the chances of ever paying that debt are remote.

pubz r 4 nubz!

02-10-2005, 04:27 PM

God can play true no limit.

The Goober

02-10-2005, 04:47 PM

Well, what I meant was that you must have had a good feeling (however temporarily) when he flipped over that AJo, whereas in a limit game, you probably wouldn't even see his AJo unless he won. Of course, tournaments are a different beast, because with the right stack sizes its very possible that he made the correct move even if he knew that you had AKo.

I see what you saying though - all forms of poker give mixed signals that are hard to interpret. I'm just arguing that in NL its slightly easier to learn from your mistakes because a) most players can pretty easily learn to recognize a dominated heads-up, all-in situation, and b) you make fewer but more significant choices so you have less of the "small but frequent" leaks that can fly completely under one's radar in limit.

Benjamin

02-10-2005, 05:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The adrenaline thrill of NL is that any time you can double up your entire stack. This is somewhat different than the limit game which has smaller swings.

[/ QUOTE ]
A couple of people mentioned the 'lower variance' / 'smaller swings' of limit poker as compared to no-limit. But I thought that the reverse is true. Variance is higher in limit ... one of the main reasons the fish keep coming back in the game is that they have winning sessions with some frequency. In no-limit the experts win more consistently and the fish lose more consistently: lower variance.

Kind of at odds with the win/lose your whole stack aspect of no-limit, but true, IINM.

B.

me454555

02-10-2005, 06:51 PM

This is true, but it doesn't feel the same. Loosing your entire buy in in one fowl swoop is a lot different than loosing it 20 bucks at a time.

While the swing may be wilder in limit than NL, it doesn't seem to hurt as bad.

Benjamin

02-10-2005, 09:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This is true, but it doesn't feel the same. Loosing your entire buy in in one fowl swoop is a lot different than loosing it 20 bucks at a time.

While the swing may be wilder in limit than NL, it doesn't seem to hurt as bad.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah I agree the big bets make a real difference in the psychology of the game.

B.

Lawrence Ng

02-11-2005, 04:25 AM

[ QUOTE ]
The games are just too punishing on weaker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is why there is a cap buy-in.

Lawrence

pokerswami

02-11-2005, 08:59 AM

[ QUOTE ]
This is true, but it doesn't feel the same. Loosing your entire buy in in one fowl swoop is a lot different than loosing it 20 bucks at a time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe only CountDuckula may be able to do this.

CountDuckula

02-11-2005, 11:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is true, but it doesn't feel the same. Loosing your entire buy in in one fowl swoop is a lot different than loosing it 20 bucks at a time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe only CountDuckula may be able to do this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, I can do that with depressing regularity. /images/graemlins/blush.gif I've had a hard time every time I've tried to play NL ring games. I seem to do ok in tournaments and SNGs, but for some reason, I haven't been able to make the connection. I'm trying to build my roll in limit and SNGs, so I can afford the tuition for NL. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Mike