[mikech]

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I think caps are essentially irrelevant, with only a very few exceptions.

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i usually agree with your thoughts, clark. although you come from a limit background, you don't share the old-time limit players' dinosaur mentality that no-limit is somehow "eventually" going to die out again, and that shows me you're a progressive thinker. with regards to the question of capped buy-ins at small-stakes-nl, however, i think you're wrong here and that they're healthier for the games. the reason is that novice players have no concept of *effective* stacks; they see someone sitting with $3k at a 1-2nl table and get intimidated. they don't understand that if they buy in for $200, then the big stack also has, effectively, $200.

this sort of lack of fundamental understanding isn't confined to ssnl games, of course. in fact, just a few weeks ago i overheard a bellagio floorman talking to a player who was considering sitting down at the 10-20 game i was in: the stacks at the table weren't huge that night, maybe $5k on average, so i heard the floorman tell the customer something to the effect of, "you should have a shot with $2000, you won't get totally run over."

if even floormen running the high-limit games at the bellagio think in terms of short stacks getting "run over" by big stacks in a nl game, then obviously this type of misconception is prevalent. so capped buy-ins serve to alleviate some of the anxiety and intimidation many novice players will feel when they're deciding whether or not to sit down.