Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I jest, but it's gotten to the point where I spend more time reading the high stakes NL forum than this forum. I don't play no limit and have no plans to take it up any time soon. Just much better poker discussion over there.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

this forum has sucked for a long time, complacency?

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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this forum has sucked for a long time, complacency?

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I think that's part of it, although I think the complacency may be coupled with the fact after a certain point a player becomes hesistant to give up too many of his "secrets". I know that I've gotten more and more reluctant to share certain discoveries that could potentially make the games tougher, or reveal something important about how I play.

Needless to say, it's also the case that a lot of good limit posters/players have moved over to the dark side.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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this forum has sucked for a long time, complacency?

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I think that's part of it, although I think the complacency may be coupled with the fact after a certain point a player becomes hesistant to give up too many of his "secrets". I know that I've gotten more and more reluctant to share certain discoveries that could potentially make the games tougher, or reveal something important about how I play.

Needless to say, it's also the case that a lot of good limit posters/players have moved over to the dark side.

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agreed.... I was contemplating learning nl... word is that they pull 6 figures a month, where as we (those of us who are not yet on the 300/600 level) only pull half that on a good month.... I've heard it's easier money.... thoughts???

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Seems to be a ton of great limit players just don't post anymore or very rarely. It's sort of a shame but I totally understand it too. It is possible to outgrow these forums and I think a lot of people have a close network of fellow high stakes players they talk about stuff with in person or on AIM or whatever. Also the 2k NL players on Party that post in HSNL definitely seem more vocal than the 100/200 limit players who lurk in these forums. Not sure why that is.

-DeathDonkey

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

more fish, fewer sharks, no one really cares that much about improving the few sharks since there is such a high fish/shark ratio. makes for better discussion.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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Seems to be a ton of great limit players just don't post anymore or very rarely. It's sort of a shame but I totally understand it too. It is possible to outgrow these forums and I think a lot of people have a close network of fellow high stakes players they talk about stuff with in person or on AIM or whatever. Also the 2k NL players on Party that post in HSNL definitely seem more vocal than the 100/200 limit players who lurk in these forums. Not sure why that is.

-DeathDonkey

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No limit ring games as a whole are a lot less far along their learing curve. I think this means that people are more willing to share things because they're more intellectually engaged and are still learning more themselves.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I dont think so....It will prob be the game that lasts V NL in the long term.

It seems its to easy for a fish to lose all his money at NL Vs limit where he can donk around and win for a decent amount of time.

With poker slowly dying down I could see NL eventually dying more then limit. At least on the cash game side.

Just my thoughts though.

Evan

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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this forum has sucked for a long time, complacency?

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I think that's part of it, although I think the complacency may be coupled with the fact after a certain point a player becomes hesistant to give up too many of his "secrets".

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I think this is it. It's pretty easy to see how the forums made the game tougher. 30/20 is the easiest example, although for the life of me I don't understand how anyone with a PokerTracker doesn't naturally converge to 30/20.

I have a hypothesis that the most substantial posts are usually made by people on "message board tilt", because they are either running bad and are trying to build their confidence up by sounding smart, or running good and think they're invincible, even against educated opponents.

Message board wise, I have an advantage over someone like you because nobody reads my posts. Still, I personally limit my posts to 4 categories:

(1) Obvious stuff that everyone knows, but may help the OP.
(2) Stuff that I'm not sure about (and that I don't plan on thinking about), and I'm looking for someone to tell me I'm wrong, so I can decide
(3) Weird situations that occur once every 20,000 hands
(4) Game specific stuff, where the advice is tailored to game conditions that don't affect me much, such as how to play against a loose-passive, etc.

I think most forum traffic is similar. That being said, there is a *LOT* of ground that hasn't been broken yet on Limit Hold'em on 2+2. At some point, if I'm either financially set, or if I give up on poker, I for one will start making more interesting posts. But every day I don't see it here, I'm happy. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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With poker slowly dying down

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What are you talking about

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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I have a hypothesis that the most substantial posts are usually made by people on "message board tilt", because they are either running bad and are trying to build their confidence up by sounding smart, or running good and think they're invincible, even against educated opponents.

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Pure f'ing genius. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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But every day I don't see it here, I'm happy.

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There are LHE concepts that 2+2 completely misses? Or do you just mean the level of detail isn't sufficient to get a forum reader very far?

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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I have a hypothesis that the most substantial posts are usually made by people on "message board tilt", because they are either running bad and are trying to build their confidence up by sounding smart, or running good and think they're invincible, even against educated opponents.

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Pure f'ing genius. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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But every day I don't see it here, I'm happy.

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There are LHE concepts that 2+2 completely misses? Or do you just mean the level of detail isn't sufficient to get a forum reader very far?

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(Because hand-reading is so important) Keeping in mind that lots of people on this forum are better poker players than me... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

There is probably minorish situational stuff that 2+2 outright misses, but this is something that the better players here keep to themselves, not me. I'd love to see that stuff on here, but I'm not holding my breath.

I think there's enough information on these boards for anyone to use. It's just not available as a cohesive whole in a digestable form, I guess that's for the individual to figure out. Half of it could be solved by rewriting HEPFAP (hope I got the acronym right) but why bother? I think some people here see the overlying concepts but obfuscate the issue by saying what to do in this situation, that situation, etc. The rest is just squeezing an edge here or there. But there's lots of that to do too.

Anyway I haven't put my money where my mouth is because I don't play high enough yet.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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There are LHE concepts that 2+2 completely misses?

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Try and find anything that would help your play from SB and BB...GL

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I read HSNL x5 more than any other forum, and I primarily play limit.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Nate,

I think it's largely because there's just a fundamentally smaller domain of situations to consider in LHE.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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Nate,

I think it's largely because there's just a fundamentally smaller domain of situations to consider in LHE.

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Winner

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I just started reading Ed's and David's NL book. I have also read LGB.

Intriguing stuff. I can't believe that Mason used to claim that limit poker was more complicated than NL. Well, maybe "complicated" was not the word he used but his general gist was that Limit required more skill than No limit.

I just don't see it that way albeit I have yet to play a single NL hand in a cash game. All I know is that I am spending a lot of time digesting the material in Ed's book. The stuff is hard.

BTW, I see that your name is in the book. Nice.

A question for you though: I have often read that NL has less variance. That seems counterintuitive. I mean, one poorly played hand could see you get stacked. One stroke of bad luck could do the same. I would have thought that variance would be greater in NL.

What am I missing? (and I ask that seriously because I know I am missing something - maybe it's the definition of variance...lol).

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

The winrates in NL are significantly higher which results in lower variance. Basically the fish are going to make significantly more huge mistakes than you are which is going to drive your winrate up.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Overall bankroll fluctaions are a function of both standard deviation AND winrate.

Say at limit you win at a rate of 2BB/100 and your standard deviation is 18BB/100, the ratio is 9:1.

But an expert at no limit can win at a significantly higher rate, say 6-8ptBB/100 (probably not at higher limits), with a standard that is say only twice as high of 36BB/100. Now the ratio of deviation to winrate is 6-5:1.

While my math may not be correctly utilized, basically it boils down to the fact that while the standard deviation is greater at no limit, your win rate is even greater still, so the overall bankroll vairance is lower.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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Intriguing stuff. I can't believe that Mason used to claim that limit poker was more complicated than NL. Well, maybe "complicated" was not the word he used but his general gist was that Limit required more skill than No limit.


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Here's my take on it:

When playing against the clueless, NL is simpler than limit.

When playing against winning players and losing players who make life difficult on you, no limit is more complicated than limit.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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A question for you though: I have often read that NL has less variance. That seems counterintuitive. I mean, one poorly played hand could see you get stacked. One stroke of bad luck could do the same. I would have thought that variance would be greater in NL.

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I used to think the same thing, with the same reasoning, but what that really says is that your best/worst per hand wins/losses are greater. Usually variance refers to the standard deviation of BB/100 or BB/hr. But first, you need to determine which stakes are comparable between LHE and NLHE. (I asked this in a post awhile back.) So what I think people are really saying is that if you for a given pair of LHE/NLHE stakes, your SD(BB/100) will be greater for NL.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I also seem to remember Mason saying that he felt limit was a tougher game. Maybe it's that I'm stricktly a limit player, but it seems to me no-limit if far more complicated. Speaking to a seasoned pro the other day, I asked if she was playing much no-limit. She told me she's getting close to retirement and finds that the game requires too much concentration for her at this stage of her life. One mistake, one thing missed, and the whole week is a disaster. Whereas in limit, she can relax more. I think that in itself makes no-limit more difficult.

On variance: they play a $2,000 buy-in 20/40 blinds no limit game at Commerce. When I play 40-80, I buy in for $2,000. A famous pro in the no limit game told me he had dropped $33,000 in his two previous sessions and was still up for the month.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I think that for a lot of good players, discussing limit poker becomes boring after a while. Plus their thinking is at a higher level than the rest of us, so they aren't getting much out of the forum, thus they don't fequent it much; or they've moved up to higher stakes and/or no limit.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

BTW, I see that your name is in the book. Nice.

Could you point me to where in the book this is? I just bought the book, haven't worked through it yet, but would like to look up the reference. Thanks.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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I think that for a lot of good players, discussing limit poker becomes boring after a while. Plus their thinking is at a higher level than the rest of us, so they aren't getting much out of the forum, thus they don't fequent it much; or they've moved up to higher stakes and/or no limit.

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Well, discussing limit poker is boring to me, but I seemed to have missed this part about thinking at a higher level.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Interesting - I emailed Jim Brier yesterday with some questions. Part of his reply was
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"In my current article in CardPlayer I have observed that middle limit games seem to be drying up since all the new players are playing no limit." Jim Brier

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I have not read the rest of the thread yet. My reply was that I played NL $200 for 9 months last year and although I did well I do not like the game. Too slow and everyone is out to trap you for your stack - I think that pot limit (ring)is a better game than limit and NL.

For me, it seems to be easier to lose your stack with AA than it is to double up. JMO FWIW.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I probably shouldn't have said "than the rest of us." But a lot of great posters who used to post here (El Diablo, Clarkmeister, SKP, Backdoor, Colean, Snakehead, to name just a few that come readily to mind) were certainly on a higher level than I was and am. My point was that they might well have thought that they weren't getting as much out of the forum as they were giving.

Another point is that a lot of top notch posters are not professional players and their interest in poker and/or poker/posting might wane from time to time.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

good thing we split the forums.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Once you start playing NL seriously you realize that Izmet was on the money with a point he made about limit in the early stages of 2+2.

On the subject of making big laydowns in limit games, he said something to the effect of the guy who makes the calls ends up banging the lights out of beautful women and buying fur coats for them. While the guy making the big laydowns ends up buying lunch for his buddy. You realize the question of whether or not to call a bet on the river in any decent sized pot in limit is many times beyond ridiculous.

The catastrophic fold in limit is true. Like Andy's 77 hand where he made the river call.

To continue with bottom or middle pair on the flop in NL, instead of having to call the 1 SB like in limit, having to call a 3/4 to a pot sized bet to continue is frequently the case. Huge difference for the peeling crowd of check callers.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

Nl and Limit river decisions are not comparable. Namely, the air factor is inexistent in limit when facing 9-1 decisions. Also, when facing those decisions a lot of information did circulate through betting actions. The range of an opponent can be quite narrow on the river, even aginst tough opponents, and that's why those "tough" folds can be very profitable.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

"the guy who makes the calls ends up banging the lights out of beautful women and buying fur coats for them . . . Like Andy's 77 hand where he made the river call."

From your lips to God's ears . . .

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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Seems to be a ton of great limit players just don't post anymore or very rarely. It's sort of a shame but I totally understand it too. It is possible to outgrow these forums and I think a lot of people have a close network of fellow high stakes players they talk about stuff with in person or on AIM or whatever. Also the 2k NL players on Party that post in HSNL definitely seem more vocal than the 100/200 limit players who lurk in these forums. Not sure why that is.

-DeathDonkey

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10/20 NL is not neary as big as 100/200. You still don't see much discussion about 25/50 and bigger online NL games on 2+2.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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10/20 NL is not neary as big as 100/200.

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then why do they require similar bankrolls? i think diablo nailed it. good limit hold'em is just not that interesting most of the time. once you get to the point where you can play good limit hold'em there's no need to discuss 99.99% of situations

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

My opinion is - that lesser pool of active players in high stakes limits in compare to NL forces people to hide their knowledge. I'm also find myself thinking more about how much given info can hurt me before posting here. This thing didn't really bothered me when i played 15/30.

Also there could be another reason. Mistakes in NL cost more than in limit, so mistakes in rare situations, that seems to be non-critical for limit (though i think at high limit games such things are critical also) - are critical for NL . Not much people cares about losing a fraction of BB, but a lot cry and try to find the answer after losing stack. Though this could be also the mistake that cost you only fraction of BB, but NL-situations are more notable and hurting. So this also can be a reason why NL-structure of betting provokes discussion of wider range of situations/opponent's styles.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

i think all of you should continue to take up NL. that is all.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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10/20 NL is not neary as big as 100/200. You still don't see much discussion about 25/50 and bigger online NL games on 2+2.

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I think 10/20 is slightly bigger than 100/200. 5/10nl is roughly 30/60 or 40/80, using rough analogies like winrate and bankroll.

I don't think there is much discussion about 5knl+ because party doesn't spread it.

FWIW, I've been thinking about learning limit, if only to eventually play nosebleed stakes live. Also, limit seems "funner" - more information, play 3 streets every time, etc. NL tends to go ch ca, ch ca, bet ca; or bet, raise, allin - booooring.

also, nl won't be popular forever, the fish are dying [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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I think 10/20 is slightly bigger than 100/200. 5/10nl is roughly 30/60 or 40/80, using rough analogies like winrate and bankroll.

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The average pot in a 10/20 NL game is on the order of $300. The average pot in a 100/200 limit game is on the order of $1000. A typical bankroll for 100/200 limit would be 500 big bets, or $100,000. A typical bankroll for 10/20 NL would be about 25 buy-ins, or $50,000. So how is 10/20 NL the bigger game?

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I think 10/20 pots are more like 400-600 depending how good the game is. And a suitable BR is closer to 100K than 50K. But who really cares? The games are probably pretty comparable in size but 10/20 is probably a bit smaller. The dynamics of the games and players is probably pretty similar, though, which is what's important for this discussion.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

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The average pot in a 10/20 NL game is on the order of $300. The average pot in a 100/200 limit game is on the order of $1000. A typical bankroll for 100/200 limit would be 500 big bets, or $100,000. A typical bankroll for 10/20 NL would be about 25 buy-ins, or $50,000. So how is 10/20 NL the bigger game?

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Everything I've seen suggests that $50,000 is way too small of a BR for 10/20 NL. At least on party the game plays such that 10 buy-in downswings are pretty normal. I think most 10/20NL pros have at least a $100,000 BR and at least some decent percentage have $200,000+.

Re: Is Limit Hold \'em Dead?
 

I doubt the 100/200 regulars' bankrolls are generally only 100k too though. I don't really see 10/20 being the bigger game either, though of course it doesn't matter much.