Max buy is hopefully not here to stay

[natedogg]

These pseudo-no-limit games seem to be quite popular online
and I've heard they are spreading one at the Commerce too.
Ironically, the lower buy in necessitates more conservative play. There is less room for maneuvering and less reward for experimental or risky plays.

It's not really a no limit game. It's a game with a limit that employs no-limit style betting.

I wonder, will these games become the no limit norm, or just an online phenomenon?

I hope that true no limit stays around. I feel this new version gives the bad players a bigger disadvantage than regular no limit. I've never agreed with the assertion that no limit games bust out the suckers too fast to remain consistent, but this new form of no limit with a max
buy in is particularly punishing to loose play. I definitely don't like it.

I would like to see some online games with no max buy in. Is there a reason there aren't any?

I think it's pretty damn funny that the max buy in was created to make inexperienced players feel safer about playing no limit when in fact it is a tougher game than regular no limit for someone who is inexperienced.

natedogg (yes I'm still alive)

[Yardbird]

You or I can look it up in my posting-history... Here it is! I believe that the consensus was that these pseudo-no-limit games were actually more of a detriment to the good players because the fish can't get their money in fast enough for us. :-( I'd like to see them go too...

[Matt Flynn]

Max buyins favor weak players. Maybe not as weak as we'd hope, but weak.


Matt

[PokerSlut]

They are spreading $100 max buy-in NL in pretty much all of the LA cardrooms now, and some also spread $200, $300, and $500 max games if there is enough interest.

I have no problem with them at all. In fact I've found these games to be quite profitable. Yes, you are initially limited by a shallow stack when you sit down, but if you play well enough it is not difficult to quickly build a bigger stack. After a couple of hours what you typically see is half to two-thirds of the table sporting $300-$500 stacks, with maybe the $700-$1k stack occasionally, and the rest of the shorter stacks in the $50-$250 range. These people are generally the "gamblers" at the table and don't mind rebuying again and again, making it easy to pick your spots and take them for their whole stack, without risking too much of your own stack if they happen to suck out.

[AdamL]

What are the blinds at these games?

If it's like the Paradise max buy-in games, where the blinds are only 1/100th of your stack size it's not so bad. It just sucks when people buy-in with well below the max in order to play "poker roullette" or if you have a huge roll and there is no action for huge stacks.

[jdl22]

On Party the buy in is 50 big blinds.

[PokerSlut]

[ QUOTE ]
What are the blinds at these games?

[/ QUOTE ]
It depends on the cardroom. At Hollywood Park and Bicycle (IIRC, it's been at least a month since I've played at either one), it's 2/3. At Hustler it was recently bumped from 2/4 to 2/5 to facilitate the flow of the game (a lot of time was spent making change every round as the game is played mostly with $5 chips).

It sounds like a 20xBB max buy-in would be a difficult hurdle to overcome, but IME it has had the opposite effect of what I expected at first. I find it is usually easy to double, triple, or even quadruple my stack soon after sitting down, at which point I'm not nearly as worried about the increased variance I keep hearing about.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a "good" poker player should have no trouble adjusting to this type of structure and taking advantage of the unique opportunities it offers. And, those who say it plays more like limit than no-limit are dead wrong. Half or more of the table has deepl enough stacks that hands against those players play like a typical no-limit hand. The short-stacked players are often looking for an excuse to rebuy up to $100 or $150, so picking up small pots of $50-$100 is extremely easy as these players will very often push their remaining chips in on the flop or turn with lackluster draws.

[TAFKAn]

The kinds of players who are disadvantaged by real no limit structure are different from the kinds of players who suffer in these max buy in games.

The max buy in games brutally punish pre-flop mistakes. The reason should be obvious.

However, the max buy in structure will help one particular kind of bad player. It helps the sucker who will call huge deep overbets when he's on a draw. That's the only guy this structure helps.

Unfortunately, these kinds of suckers are very rare. Even the worst and stupidest no limit hold'em players quickly figure out that you can't just make those kinds of calls. Please point me to where these guys are playing if you know of any!

So granted, those players will benefit from the max buy in. But they practically don't exist.

But there's another kind of poor player, the one whose mistakes are as egregious but are more common. He sees too many flops, and is often willing to overpay slightly, but not absurdly, for these flops.

These guys are absolutely brutalized by the max buy in game because they are constantly in a situation where they aren't getting the right implied odds for their flops.

In a real no limit game, these guys are playing roughly correctly when the stacks are deep. It's similar to limit hold'em where it's almost impossible to make a mistake when there's 7 people in the pot and you have any kind of chance to win. There's too much potential money at stake for you to fold. That's why the common type of no limit sucker is not nearly as disadvantaged as some theorists would have you think.

So, in fantasy land, the max buy in protects the very worst players, but in reality, it is a bigger handicap to the real community of weak players who are not foolish enough to play bad enough to benefit from the max buy in. They play just badly enough to suffer the most for the max buy in, and they'd actually do better in a game with deeper stacks.

Also, what is this about easily doubling or tripling up right away to get a deep stack anyway? Must be nice. Where do you find all those good cards, and the action to match, and the magic suckout repellent? I admit I have never played a live max buy in game, but in the online games, tripling up is hard to do and most of the players at any given time have less than twice the buy in. At least in my experience.

natedogg

[jdl22]

I'm now confused by the quantity of natedoggs in this thread.

Anyway, I think that will call obscene amounts on a draw is very frequent at party. This is even worse at the 6 max tables where people apparently think that less people at the table means you go even farther calling with your draws when you were already going too far. People regularly will call their entire stack on a straight draw with 2 flush cards on the board and no pair, backdoor flush or any of that.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
I feel this new version gives the bad players a bigger disadvantage than regular no limit. I've never agreed with the assertion that no limit games bust out the suckers too fast to remain consistent, but this new form of no limit with a max
buy in is particularly punishing to loose play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I absolutely fail to see how putting no max buy-in on the game could possibly make it EASIER for the fish to win and SAFER for them to play. What happens when there is no max buy-in is that a good player with a large bankroll can sit down and absolutely kill the rest of the table from the very start. The fish are at just as much of a skill disadvantage, but now they are allowed to buy in for even more $$.

al