limit take more skill
 

I've been told by a well known friend that limit holdem takes more skill because hand selection is more fundamentally at the forefront. What are your thoughtsw on this and how would you use it to your advantage if you were playing a no limt type game? I believe fundamentally the two are quite different if not for the abovementioned reason alone.

Jake

Re: limit take more skill
 

I am wondering what you mean by 'hand selection'. I don't really think limit would be more difficult for this reason. I think hand selection might be more complex and difficult in the NL version of the game.

I agree that limit hold 'em would be a more difficult game to play and succeed at for those people who understand poker. I think this would mainly be because a player is unable to control the size of his bets. I think that, in LHE, a player must use a tremendous amout of skill to decide the correct course of action throughout each hand.

I think it would be considerably more difficult to play LHE correctly than it would be to play NLHE correctly.

Re: limit take more skill
 

In NL it's alright to miss a bet, as you can just bet it the next round. With limit you must decide on the optimal line (when ahead, or when behind) basically starting from the flop.

For example, on he flop I'm already deciding what I'm going to do against this specific player. Am I going to just call his flop bet, call his turn bet and raise the river? Or am I going to simply raise his flop bet and go from there? If I'm going to bet the turn and river myself anyway, I have to raise the flop or I'm missing a SB, etc.

Altough some of these concepts apply to NL as well. For example, when OOP it's pointless to c/c the flop if you know you're going to lead the turn. Either bet, or c/r, there's no point in the call when you know you'll bet the next round.

Re: limit take more skill
 

In the simplest possible terms, they are two different games which share the same basic format. Not unlike the differences between American English and the Queen's English--an American can get around alright in London and (eventually) get his point across to a local, but the Londoner has a distinct advantage linguistically.

I think the point you're trying to get at with "hand selection" lies in preflop play vs. implied odds. In limit you can't coldcall raises with as many hands because your implied odds, should you hit, are so much lower. The flip side is that in no limit you can't raise (or reraise) as freely, because you always have to worry about someone coming back over the top for all your (or their) chips.

When I do play NL (which is rarely, and mostly just in tournaments), I honestly don't think I get any advantage at all from my limit play. In the games I'm playing I often have an edge against my opponents simply because I understand the general principles of poker and pot odds, but my lack of NL experience hurts me, and I sometimes have to struggle to break free of my LHE mindset. On the other hand, what NL experience I do have has probably helped my limit game, in making me more comfortable with playing crappy starting hands in blind steal/short-handed situations.

Re: limit take more skill
 

I think a great NL player has a massive edge over a good NL player while a great limit player only has a small edge over most solid limit players. There are more variables in NL so I think it requires more skill (psychology, heart etc).

Re: limit take more skill
 

Theoretically NL should be more difficult because there are more options, choices, and difficult decisions.

However, if you are playing in a limit game with mostly sound players, you will have a harder time winning money than in a NL game with crappy players.

Since NL is much hardly to master, I would suspect many low limit NL games seem "softer" than limit games because of the lineups.

-J

Re: limit take more skill
 

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I think a great NL player has a massive edge over a good NL player while a great limit player only has a small edge over most solid limit players. There are more variables in NL so I think it requires more skill (psychology, heart etc).

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Limit is tactics. NL is strategy. Limit is lots of little decisions pushing small edges. NL is big decisions for stacks. Different games, but both are difficult to master.

I think the difference in skill level between the average players and the expert is greater in NL, too.

Re: limit take more skill
 

Contrary to what fans of their favorite game often say...
NL isn't all about pushing it all-in and getting people off hands.
Limit isn't about chasing and praying with crap cards.

Both require different skills. NL, I believe, requires more skill because of the ability to manipulate the pot and offer odds. Your ability to do that in limit is much less.

Deep-stacked pot-limit would be the most-skillful game.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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Deep-stacked pot-limit would be the most-skillful game.

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QFT

Re: limit take more skill
 

Why deep stack pot limit and not deep stack no limit ?

Re: limit take more skill
 

i'm off to bed right now so i dont feel like typing out the exact reasons but i will say this:

1) limit takes more skill
2) luck is a bigger factor in limit

these two points don't contradict each other.

Re: limit take more skill
 

Whichever game has the worse players in it takes the least amount of skill.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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Whichever game has the worse players in it takes the least amount of skill.

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Least amount of skill to play correctly? Or least amount of skill to win?

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1) limit takes more skill
2) luck is a bigger factor in limit

these two points don't contradict each other.

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I agree with this.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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NL, I believe, requires less skill because of the ability to manipulate the pot and offer odds easily . Your ability to do that in limit requires more skill .

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This is my first FYP. How lame was my effort?

Re: limit take more skill
 

Limit does not take more skill. It just requires a different set of skills than NL (or PL).

I definitely agree that a great NL player has a much larger edge in his game than does a great limit player, though.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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Limit does not take more skill. It just requires a different set of skills than NL (or PL).

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Are you saying the two games are equally difficult? Surely this isn't true. Or are you saying NL is more difficult?

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I definitely agree that a great NL player has a much larger edge in his game than does a great limit player

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I think the vast majority of people to have played both games will agree with this. I agree with it. I just don't think it follows from this that NL is more difficult. That is, it could be that the best players is a NL game gain their large edge more easily than the best players in a LHE game gain their much smaller edge.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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Are you saying the two games are equally difficult? Surely this isn't true. Or are you saying NL is more difficult?

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Neither. I'm saying it's like comparing apples to oranges--for some people, NL comes much more naturally. For others, LHE. Overall, I don't think that anyone could quantify which is the most difficult for the average person.

For me, personally, limit came much easier. Although I don't claim to be great at either game.

Re: limit take more skill
 

Here is the overall consensus which I've normally heard: NL is easier than limit, but more emotionally tolling. It is tough in the sense that you can lose your whole buy-in on one bad call, but you can just as easily lose as much by a string of bad calls in limit.

If this is the case (NL is easier but harder emotionally), then shouldn't you factor the emotional difficulty into the overall difficulty of the game?

Re: limit take more skill
 

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Why deep stack pot limit and not deep stack no limit ?

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Because pot limit combines some facts from NL and limit: you have to bet to build a pot. In NL there are times when a c/r is pointless as you could've just pushed. With PL a c/r has some advantage as it allows you to bet more.

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Limit isn't about chasing and praying with crap cards.


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True. It's about never stopping to fire [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: limit take more skill
 

seriously, whats the point of the question? 100% the answer is subjective. What takes more skill, MotoGP or F1 on the same track?

Re: limit take more skill
 

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seriously, whats the point of the question? 100% the answer is subjective. What takes more skill, MotoGP or F1 on the same track?

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Thata depends on the track [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: limit take more skill
 

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i'm off to bed right now so i dont feel like typing out the exact reasons but i will say this:

1) limit takes more skill
2) luck is a bigger factor in limit

these two points don't contradict each other.

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I have to disagree that "luck is a bigger factor in limit" simply because in NL, the consequences of bad luck (or good luck) can be so much greater.

For example, when someone makes a bad call against me in limit and hits a 2-outer, I only lose a few chips. When that happens in NL, I lose my whole stack.

Re: limit take more skill
 

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I have to disagree that "luck is a bigger factor in limit" simply because in NL, the consequences of bad luck (or good luck) can be so much greater.

For example, when someone makes a bad call against me in limit and hits a 2-outer, I only lose a few chips. When that happens in NL, I lose my whole stack.

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Short term, yes. Long term, a skilled NL player enjoys a much greater advantage over an unskilled ("lucky") one, because he will gain more from every mistake his opponent makes.

Re: limit take more skill
 

well, i've played both LHE and NLHE for a living. unfortunately my NLHE experience is skewed by being almost exclusively live, so it is tough to compare since most of my LHE experience is online. they truly are different animals, as has been pointed out in this thread.

the biggest difference between the two for me is variance. i could play an entire session of NL and catch very few cards and make up for it in a single hand, or be able to utilize my tight image in profitable bluffing situations. in LHE if you go card dead or run bad it often takes a substantially longer period of time to recover the bets lost.

even though you might miss value by making a particular play in NLHE(nothing is more frustrating than checking a turn or river or betting 2/3 the pot and realizing you could have been double or tripled up if you would have shoved or put someone else all-in), in LHE since the bets are not as quickly recovered it is often crucial to not spend more on a hand than it's value relative to the pot suggests is profitable or miss out on value with a hand that, relative to your opponent's range, is putting money in with the best of it.

so the answer is, they both take skill. at one point in time, NLHE was behind LHE in terms of skill-set development so maybe there was a day that LHE took more "skill" to beat an average game. with the recent poker boom and revitalization of NLHE, i think the game has progressed in a short period to the point it has caught up with limit in terms of required skill-sets so i would speculate that, as has been pointed out, to be successful in both varieties they require equal levels, but different types of skill.

Re: limit take more skill
 

Well said James.

Not really comparing apples to oranges but more like comparing Red apples to Yellow apples I guess. Similarities but differences as well.

I still play low limts of both games live. At first it was a bit hard going back & forth between the two games but now I find it easier and each game tends to help the other one because they both make you think of various ways to play hands. I think that perhaps one of the problems that some NLHE players have with playing limit is that some of them tend to dismiss LHE as just a luck chasing game when they are used to having hands like big pairs hold up in NLHE vs. getting drawn out on in LHE in a multi way pot. You can usually spot them pretty quickly as they say things like, "It is no godd to raise pf with my 2 Kings because I get drawn out on anyways!" That is when LHE gets dismissed as a non-skill pker game. Kind of solidifies the idea of starting out first playing limit and then NLHE. I think it is easier to transition from Limit to NL than the other way around. Skill is needed for both games