[PseudoPserious]

Hi Larry,

<<It's hard to say- you keep changing the conditions of the game. You make up a scenario to represent nofold holdem, but then you say sometimes they fold and sometimes they don't jam it.>>

I don't think I changed the conditions of the game that much -- just how they were presented. In the original post, I said that people folded: 9-handed game, 6 or 7 to the flop, 3 or 4 to showdown. The only change was that rarely (maybe once per orbit, but that's probably more it actually happened), one of the streets wasn't capped. That was the river, and it was almost always for 3 bets instead of 4 (although I did see it go only 2 bets one time). This has the effect of reducing your implied odds a bit, but I wanted to ignore that effect to concentrate on the overall picture.

<<You don't talk about the hands they play- it can't REALLY be random hands, can it?>>

<shrugs> Not completely random I guess, but how many deals in a row can 6 to 7 people get quality hands worth taking a flop?

<<It may be that your $0.50/$1 game plays just like your made-up scenario, in which case there actually may BE little difference. However, I doubt this is true.>>

I firmly believe that it does, which is why I posted the way I did. I wanted to avoid this entire line of conversation and focus on the adjustments that needed to be made. But, you did ask nicely about how such a variant of poker could be developed, so that's why I explained the real situation -- it's hold'em, but always capped on all streets.

<<Next time, just give us the facts and ask the questions you are looking for.>>

Point taken. My main question was which style of play was better -- waiting for premium hands or playing speculative hands like Axs and 33.

<<Don't make up some bizarre pseudo-structure that you think represents the same thing- look at all of the replies that responded to Silly Structure without answering your question.>>

I still don't think it's that bizarre. It makes you focus on the essential differences -- a small blind compared to the size of the bet and the inability to manipulate the size of the bet -- without changing the nature of the game or getting into distractions like why people would choose to play like that (no clue), or am I exaggerating (no), or if sometimes you could sneak in for cheap and get lots of action later on if you hit your hand (not a chance).

For what it's worth, I imagine that if I posted about a game where multiple players were willing to call a cap on every street with hands as weak as a single overcard, the game would be described as a gold mine, not as a card-holding contest that I should stop playing in.

Cheers and happy holidays!
PP