You Should Play NL (Seriously)

[GrunchCan]

In NL, you can't play even breakeven poker unless you can read the opponent. In limit, you can still be quite +EV without reading well. If you could read better, you'd play even more +EV.

This is kind of like saying that you can be moderately +EV without being terribly good at late-position and blinds play. You'd be more successful if you were better at it, but you won't go broke if you're not.

The fix for the later problem is to play 1/2 6m type games a lot. When I used to tell people this, I got a lot of strange looks and "meh" responses. Now everybody is doing it, and I can tell from the posts that the quality of play has increased.

Now I'm going to tell you that you should play the 25NL games, too. Just like playing 1/2 6m hard both emotionally and on your bankroll at first, starting out at 25NL will be hard too. But it will teach you things that 50k hands in limit won't. Reading your opponent. Knowing when to get away from a bad position. The effect of implied odds (and reverse implied odds) on strategy. These are things that effect your +EV in limit, but not as much as other things do, so they are deemphasized. NL is like boot camp for these skills.

So, everybody should play 25NL. That is all.