Is NO LIMIT the new King of Hold'em?

[RydenStoompala]

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]

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.

[Shaun]

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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.

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

[TimTimSalabim]

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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.

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

[JoeC]

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.

[Mason Malmuth]

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

[Sponger15SB]

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

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

[pubz r 4 nubz!]

God can play true no limit.

[andyfox]

"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.

[Lawrence Ng]

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The games are just too punishing on weaker players.

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Which is why there is a cap buy-in.

Lawrence