Limit VS NL Question

[Madjohnny]

I'm just curious here, assuming you have two players with about the same poker knowledge, bankroll and free time to play poker. One of them chooses to focus on the 6max limit tables within their bankroll, and the other plays 6max nl within their bankroll.

Would both of these people average about the same $$$ in the long run or is there an advantage to one game over the other?

[UnblinkingEye]

Playing at the same blind levels, the NL player should make probably 10-15% more than the Limit player, however, the swings will be much larger playing NL.

As a general rule, I normally play about 2-3 levels higher limit than NL. For instance, using a $1000 BR, I would play NL$50, which is $0.25/$0.50 on most sites, but I would usually play $1/$2 Limit, occasionally $2/$4 at the right table.

But then again, I'm a more +EV player playing limit than NL, so this advice may or may not be valuable to you.

~Mike

[SmartBugger]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm just curious here, assuming you have two players with about the same poker knowledge, bankroll and free time to play poker. One of them chooses to focus on the 6max limit tables within their bankroll, and the other plays 6max nl within their bankroll.

Would both of these people average about the same $$$ in the long run or is there an advantage to one game over the other?

[/ QUOTE ]


I am going to assume that your asking this question because you are seriously thinking about making money with poker. You probably want to know which games offer the best rewards with least variance.


While some may disagree with this advice, NL is often a better game for the novice. Why? To be good at limit, you need to be able to calculate pot equity, implied odds, as well as hidden outs. The difference between a good limit player (that simply plays tight and aggresivly) from a great limit player (which understands the somewhat complex mathematics of the game) is great. A lot of people pick limit because MOST people play it wrong. If you pick limit, it will simply take longer to have a solid foundation for the game.


So why NL? NL has a bigger psychological factor than limit does. Everyone understands psychology to a degree becomes it comes natural to us. Therefore, you can benefit big time in NL by trapping/inducing-bluffs/ and making the player play on scared money. This is why its not unusual to see a "shark" at a 1/2 game when its his first day playing poker. If you can grasp psychological factors (which everyone understands to a degree), you have the most important foundation for a NL player.


Now this is not to say limit is all math but most people miss +EV opportunities in limits because they don't understand concepts like pot-equity.



Another misconception is people think NL has more ups and downs than limit. A lot of people disagree on this.... many think limit has more variance because you must act on less information (set bet amount). In limit, your mistakes will cost less but new players tend to make THOUSANDS of the same mistakes over and over again without knowing it.

[AKQJ10]

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Playing at the same blind levels

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That's not even close to apples-to-apples, though. A $2/4 LHE game might have average pots of $40-60. A loose $1-2 NLHE, with the same blinds, is going to be toward the top of that range, and that only because so many pots are taken down on the flop or before. Unlike limit the NLHE game will have occasional pots of $200 or more.

A better way to look at it might be using conventional wisdom about bankroll. With $3000 a winning player is considered bankrolled to play $5/10 limit. That same $3000 puts the winning NLHE player somewhere between 50c-$1 and $1-2. The blind structures aren't even similar, because the blinds are such a tiny fraction of any NLHE pot with any action.

For the past few years I'd believed that NLHE had much more dead money (i.e. bad players) coming into it. Online that may be starting to turn back around. Live, I still think there's more profit to be had in NLHE.

[pzhon]

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Playing at the same blind levels, the NL player should make probably 10-15% more than the Limit player, however, the swings will be much larger playing NL.


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No serious poker player compares games with the same blinds, since NL results in much bigger pots. You can see that the small stakes NL forum covers games up to NL $200, with a $2 big blind, while small stakes limit covers games up to $5-$10, with a $5 big blind.

Second, typical solid winning NL players win much more for a given size of average pot, or for a given bankroll and safety level, than typical solid winning limit players. Of course, the average player loses in both games. If you lose in one game and beat the other, you can only discuss safe bankroll management in the game you beat.

I'll go through some math with stats I believe are typical in some games. The figure are not set in stone, and different assumptions will produce different bankroll requirements. However, the conclusions and the consensus of informed players are both strong, that NL players have a greater proportional advantage. NL cash games were rarely spread in casinos before a couple of years ago. Many people pointed out that NL wasn't as good of a gambling game because the advantage of good players was too great. Bad players would bust out too rapidly. The capped buy-in helps to reduce that, and the TV coverage means many casual players find NL more exciting.

While you could compare win rates when you have 300 BB and 20 buy-ins, this is a bad idea. The reason is that 20 buy-ins is typically much more conservative in low stakes games than 300 BB is. The proper analogue (say with the same risk of ruin) of 300 BB depends on your assumptions, but it might be 10-12 buy-ins. (By the way, these are 100 big blind buy-ins. You typically need more buy-ins if you buy in short, and fewer if you buy in for more than 100 BB.)

More sensibly, you should use games with the same comfort level, where

comfort = bankroll * win rate / (standard deviation^2)

or

bankroll = comfort * (standard deviation^2) / win rate.

The comfort level you require depends on your personal risk tolerance and ability/willingness to move down when you hit a bad streak. Most people are happy with a comfort level between 2 and 4. If you play at your current level forever, your ROR is about e^(-2 * comfort) ~ 0.135 ^ comfort.

A solid low stakes full ring NL player may win 16 big blinds/100 with a standard deviation of 80 big blinds/100, and thus needs a bankroll of comfort * 80^2/16 big blinds, or comfort * 4 buy-ins.

A solid low stakes full ring limit player may win 2 BB/100 with a standard deviation of 15 BB/100, and thus needs a bankroll of comfort*15^2/2 BB, or comfort * 113 BB.

Choosing comfort=3, the player needs about 340 BB or 12 buy-ins. At $2-$4 limit, that is $1360, which is over 12 buy-ins at NL $100. The player would win $8/100 hands at $2-$4 limit, and $16/100 hands at NL$100. Limit hands are slightly faster than NL hands, and some people find they can play more tables of limit than NL, but it would take twice as many hands to win as much playing limit as NL. If you are a typical solid winner in both games, NL lets you hit the long run faster, and lets you double your bankroll faster.

[pzhon]

One way to summarize the conclusion is that NL $100 may give you the win rate of $5-$10 limit with the variance of $3-$6, so to play it you might only need the bankroll of $2-$4.

[AKQJ10]

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While you could compare win rates when you have 300 BB and 20 buy-ins, this is a bad idea. The reason is that 20 buy-ins is typically much more conservative in low stakes games than 300 BB is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point taken. It was just a back of the envelope calculation to get us closer to the right comparison, but I'm glad you've supplied some more suitable numbers. I've heard some people state a number closer to 10 hundred-BBL buy-ins than 20, and now I know why.

As to the short buy-ins, my understanding is that, say, with 20 BBL buy-ins instead of 100 BBL, your proper bankroll will be MUCH lower in dollar terms but SOMEWHAT higher in buyin terms. In other words, in comparison to 12 x 100 x $2 => $2400 bankroll for a $1-2 game, a short-stacker might want 18 x 20 x $2 => $720 or even 24 buy-ins / $960 for the same game, but not anywhere near the same dollar amount.

I'm curious if you agree.

[fadedstar]

In limit, you mostly have to push every single edge you have (small and big ones). In NL, you first need to learn how not put yourself in a dangerous situation.

Limit drive me insane because of all the suckouts. I'll stick with NL where you can actually protect your hand.

[AKQJ10]

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I'll stick with NL where you can actually protect your hand.

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After having charged a price that makes it wrong for draws to call, you're pulling for them to call.

Now, you can certainly charge a more appropriate price so it won't be correct for them to draw. (In limit the made hand and the strong draw are probably both getting correct odds, reaping the benefit of all the other junk hands people played -- thanks, Lee Jones, for first explaining this concept.)

But every time I'm at the table and hear someone gravely express the need to bet big to chase all the draws out, I nod knowingly but inwardly rejoice. If I have a draw against that guy's made hand, he's going to make it very clear that I'm not getting odds instead of charging me a tempting but wrong price. I'll have a very easy fold.