Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

Well written reply. Thanks

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

I don't play NL and don't even think about playing it before I learn to play limit but I have wondered, how much is a deep stack? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

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Contrary to the quote above, hands that can make top pair, top kicker actually are much less valuable in NL than in limit.

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I would have to disagree here. I think many people (not neccessarily you) misunderstand where the big card make all their money. People seem to think that they are entitled to win just because they have AK. You often see people spewing chips when they miss the flop in an attempt to win the pot that they feel is theres. Hands like AK, AQ, KQ win most of their money the same way sets win most of their money, when they dominate a player who thinks they have the best hand. For example the other day I busted someone who had KQ with my AK when the flop came KKx.

I would say that the top 3 of the big hands are more valuable in NL, since you can often take someones entire stack. The next ones like AJ, KJ, QJ can be more difficult to play but I'm not sure how much value they would lose in the hands of a good player.

I think that big cards are the hardest cards to play in hold em, and NL punishes the bad players much more than Limit does. I think this leads to the 'danger' of playing these hands in NL.

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

its not how good you play before the flop in NL, its how good you play after the flop.

I'll take a 57s and play it UTG.

I'll take a QQ and fold it preflop.

I'll take a AA and fold it on the turn

I'll take a AT and go all in on a Q K J flop.

I'll take a 45 and bet 1/2 the flop on a 6 2 K board.

I'll take a 99 and limp reraise all in.

I'll take a J9s and check call on a K 2 2 flop.

I'll take a QQ and fold on K A 3 flop.

I'll take a 29 and fold on an all in on a 993 board.

I'll take a bat to someone's head to talks crap to me online.

I'll take a bath whenever the games get tight.

I'll log back on when the avg pot is 30% of a players stacksize.

I'll cut my hair when my beautician gets back in town.

I'll head down to AC to play NL while my friends plays on his laptop in the hotel room.

I'll shave maybe 1 or 2 times a week.

I'll wear the same shorts while changing my underwear for 6 days straight.

I'll act like I'm interested in someone when they tell me how they live there life.

I'll tell people that I'm still looking for job, while I basically sit home and snap my carrot while logging into different websites.

I'll wake up at 12 midnight and go to sleep at 3pm.

I'm capable of many different things.

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

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I don't play NL and don't even think about playing it before I learn to play limit but I have wondered, how much is a deep stack? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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What constitutes a deep stack is open to debate. I guess you could think about it as follows:

If you have the sort of stack that is likely to be all-in on the flop or before the flop (without a massive overbet) then you are short-stacked. E.g. If the blinds are $1 and $2 and you have $30 in your stack then you are a short stack. If you raise pre-flop then you will be all-in on the flop if you decide to continue with the hand. In fact, you sometimes might choose to raise all-in pre-flop with this size of stack (depending on game texture/action) - and if you re-raise someone else pre-flop it will almost always be all-in.

If you and your opponent are likely to still have chips to bet on the turn/river then you are medium stacked. E.g. with blinds of $1 and $2, $200 would be a medium stack. You could raise pre-flop, make 'normal size bets' on the flop and turn, and may still have a few chips left to bet on the river.

A big or deep stack is when you have much more than this. In other words, there may be chips left for a bet, raise and re-raise on the river. In many peoples' eyes, over $200 would class as a big stack in a game with $1 and $2 blinds. However, real deep stack play requires a stack much bigger than this.

Of course, you can always scoot all your chips to the centre at any stage, regardless of stack size. I play a great deal of pot limit rather than no limit. The idea of a bet, raise and re-raise on the river is perhaps more apt for pot limit since at NL one player may have massively overbet the pot and moved all in prior to this.

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

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Since you can protect your hands in NL, top pair hands go up in value and speculative hands go down in value.

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This is totally incorrect, as has already been pointed out by other replies. Im fact, things are the other way round.

Speculative hands go up in value since the implied odds are bigger at NL. However, you can't commit too much of your chipstack pre-flop on card like 78s, suited Aces, or small pocket pairs. Ciaffone and Reuben suggest the rule of 5 and 10. If you have to put in less than 5% of your stack with these hands then you should strongly consider doing so. If you have to put in more than 10% of your stack you should probably pass. Between 5% and 10% it is a judgement call. The idea is that you need to be able to win a huge pot if you flop a set or a flush or a straight or whatever - so you need to have plenty of chips left to bet after the flop. Of course, it is no use calling a raise in position with 67s if the raiser himself does not have plenty of chips - even if you do.

The big pairs (especially Aces) go up in value at NL. However, this is mainly because of the occasions that you manage to get all-in pre-flop against KK, QQ etc. In a deep stacked NL cash game, you must play AA very carefully after the flop if you haven't managed to get all-in. Sometimes in limit you might just shut your eyes and see the hand through to the end since you will only lose a few bets if you are beaten. In NL, what are you going to do with your Aces when your opponent smooth calls your flop and turn bets on a raggedy board and then raises you all-in on the river? I'm not saying you'd always pass - it is read dependent - but all you've got is one pair and you've got a decision that will cost you all your chips if an opponent has hit a set like his betting suggests. At limit you'd be much more inclined to call the last bet (even if you think there is a good chance you're beaten) than at NL when it is for your entire stack.

That's precisley why the small pairs and suited connectors go up in value at NL (provided the stacks are deep enough) - you can occasionally break an opponent holding a big pair if you hit a good flop with your 67s, 88 or whatever.

Contrary to the quote above, hands that can make top pair, top kicker actually are much less valuable in NL than in limit. By this, I mean hand like AK, AQ, AJ etc. The same is true for KQ, KJ etc. The reason for this is because having top pair in NL is nowhere near as good as it is in limit. It is true that you can 'protect your hand' more easily on the flop - this allows you to pick up a large percentage of the pots when you flop top pair. However, the x% of pots when you meet resistance after flopping top pair can prove very expensive and can sometimes end up with you losing your entire stack. In a deep stacked NL game you simply cannot take too much action with only top pair - if you end up getting your whole stack in on the flop or turn with only top pair you will usually find that you are beaten (although this is obviously dependent on your read). This is why top pair, top kicker type hands lose value in NL - because they are likely to either win a small pot, or lose a big one (the poster I quoted did allude to this, perhaps without realising its significance).

Of course, being suited makes a difference because of the implied odds of flopping the nut flush. So a hand like AKs both gains and loses value at NL. The high card strength aspect of hands like this loses value since your opponents get implied odds from you. On the other hand, the fact that it is suited increases in value since you are getting much higher implied odds than at limit.

Most of the above is explained much better than my efforts in Ciaffone and Reuben's excellent Pot Limit and No Limit Poker. This is an amazing book.

By the way, thinking in terms of 'hand groups' (as in the Sklansky hand rankings etc.) is not really very useful even at limit poker. At NL, a 'hand ranking' way of thinking is absolutely no use at all. You just don't think about things in this way in a NL game. Everything is much more situational - things like position, table image, reads on your opponent, stack size, game texture etc. are hugely important in deciding what hands to play and whether to call or raise with them. For example, think about how you'd play QQ in a NL game:

Most of the limit books put this in the 'top group' of hands and would suggest that you raise or re-raise with this hand. You would probably not be too wrong if you always followed this advice at limit (there are exceptions - I am trying to make a general point here though).

At NL, it is totally different. There is no 'general strategy' for what to do with QQ - or even a strategy that you can follow most of the time. Each and every time you get dealt QQ you must make a decision based on all the factors that are relevant at the time, not based on what a book tells you to do.

For example, you may be on the button and facing a raise with QQ. Perhaps the raiser is a very tight player and has raised from UTG. What are you doing with your QQ? The (limit) books say to re-raise, but this might result in losing your whole stack in this situation. The UTG raiser might very well have AA or KK (after all, he is a tight player who has raised UTG) and have you in terrible shape. True, he might also have a few other hands that you can beat (at the moment), but do you want to take the risk and raise? Probably not. So you should throw your hand away? Well, again probably not. You are not definitely beaten, and you have position on your opponent. Also, even if you knew (perhaps his ears only waggle in that way when he has Aces [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) your opponent had AA or KK, you might still call if there were plenty of chips still to bet. You'd be hoping the flop came Q high and you could break the overpair with your top set. But, if either you or your opponent were short or medium stacked you'd not be able to play this way if you knew an opponent had AA since the implied odds would not be there. So, in this example you are taking into account a range of factors that go way beyond what hand you have - your position, the nature of your opponent, your read on opponent, the position of your opponent and how this reflects his likely starting hands, the stack sizes of both you and your opponent etc. None of this can be worked out by referring to Sklansky's hand rankings and seeing that QQ is in 'group 1'.

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Ok, first of all, I have written above that small pairs and suited connectors are playable in NL (the latter are are more difficult to play). If you missed that, then read it again.

Second, do you really want to claim that it is impossible to protect your hand in No Limit? Your posting indicates that this is the case.

If you can protect your hands by making a potsized bet for example, then draws don't get the odds anymore and therefore go down in value....right? Right!

Now you could argue with implied odds, because implied odds are the miracle reason to make even the worst play work, but you need at least two things to make it correct:

A. Your opponent needs to have a big enough stack to pay you off on the river without having to go all-in
B. Your opponent needs to be a calling station or at least dumb enough to pay you off whenever you hit your miracle cards. Implied odds vary from opponent to opponent. They are not "just there".

Can you guarantee that? Should you lose 99 small pots in a row in the hope of busting your opponent for all of his money on the last hand when you hit your mircale gut-shot only to watch him make a "great laydown"? I guess the answer is obvious.

Therefore, unless you are sure to play a complete donkey, I suggest you reconsider the value of what I wrote above. "In NL top pair is usually good enough to take the pot, but ironically this is also the way to win small pots and lose big pots" - means, think twice before you risk all your money on just a pair postflop.

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

Already some great replies here... just wanted to add that suited 1-gappers and 2-gappers can be very profitable (not to mention fun) to play in NL. Good luck!

excellent thread: position is everything in no-limit
 

very much enjoyed this thread... seems against good players in no-limit (tournament even more so), that position becomes even more important.

people were right about pocket pairs. they are excellent.. suited connectors and so forth, i think good players will make you put in alot of chips to see your draw(s).

haven't thought it thru, but i think AJo are acceptable hands... if you want to get into the risk of people hitting 3 of a kind on flop then really AA and KK are very vulnerable too.

Re: Starting hands in No Limit compared to Limit
 

Great Post Curry! This is quality NL cash game advice.

Re: excellent thread: position is everything in no-limit
 

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very much enjoyed this thread... seems against good players in no-limit (tournament even more so), that position becomes even more important.

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Position is always important of course. However, in many ways it is actually less important in a tournament, compared to a deep stacked NL or PL cash game.

In a tourney even the chip leaders are 'medium stacks'. They do not have enough chips to bet, raise and re-raise on the river. Positional advantage is most important when it can be used on every round of betting. The fact that there is often little betting on the river in tourneys (because one or both players are already all-in by then) means that positional considerations are perhaps slightly less important in a tourney. It is impossible to use a positional advantage once one of you is all-in!

In most tournaments (and many cash games for that matter) there is no real deep stack play possible. I'm talking about times when both opponents have 1000xBB or more. Position is most important when the stacks are this deep since you will be able to exploit your position on every round of betting.

By the way, position is probably more important at PL than a NL (this is a point made by Ciaffone and Reuben, but I can state that it is definitely the case from my experience in deep stacked PL cash games). The reason for this is that, at NL an out of position player can negate his positional disadvantage by scooting all his chips to the middle. This is often how you might play a huge draw at NL (e.g. straight flush draw + overcards). At PL, things are not this easy. Even a check raise on the flop will only allow you to get a small portion of your chips in the pot at PL (since you cannot overbet the pot). Then you will be out of position with only one card to come on the turn. Even a big draw is usually a dog with only one card to come. In NL, you could avoid all this by check raising all-in on the flop if you wanted to do so.