Does NL ruin card rooms? (longish)

[SplawnDarts]

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No, it saved them. It is the most exciting game and what people want to play. young people do not want to play limit or even undrstand why people play it. NL is real poker as it is meant to be played, not an artificial game like limit with no room for creative thinking or individuality.

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That sentiment is all well and good (I like NL too), but when some NL expert strips every $ out of your game, the game breaks. Doesn't matter what the kids want to play when they're broke.

You're also incorrect about the nature of limit. There are top winning players with wildly different styles - Giang and Harman for example.

[SplawnDarts]

Another aspect of this problem is that winning NL players are doing a worse and worse job of disguising their success.

If you look at the style presented in SS, Doyle plays winning poker but if called USUALLY HAS THE WORST OF IT. It would be easy for his opponents to look at his big hands and conclude that he's a sucker because usually the money goes in when he's behind. Of course, they forget that he's semi-bluffing and that he won numerous pots where his opponents had a big edge and didn't know it. Of course, those hands are never shown so they don't stick in memory. This style lets the sheep go home broke yet believing they had the best of it. So when they regrow, they come back. Hell, someone watching the game might even stake them thinking they had the best of it.

Today's nittier, lower-gamble in-with-the-best-of-it breed of NL players doesn't allow the sheep to deceive themselves the same way. Hence the games collapse much faster. The fact that many of these same players are antisocial and thus annoy their opponents doesn't help.

[Percula]

I think a lot of thinking on this subject is too all or nothing. There also seems to be a lot of thinking that is really only relevant to serious players, when on any given day, the vast majority of players in a card room could not be considered "serious".

NL is the current "flavor" of poker most that the recreational players want to play, rather it is a MTT, SnG or cash game. If a room, denies their customers desires, they will sooner or later lose that customer. Phoenix is a prime example, as NL is banned by the state compact on gaming with the tribes. As a result there are TONS of smaller NL and PL games being spread all over the city. We are even seeing "no rake" rooms opening that their primary "business" is running games, despite the cover business.

Just because NL can destroy the limit games, does not mean that it has destroyed them for ever and ever. And just like the idea that if your customers want NL and you don't provide it, the same goes for limit, the customers will find alternatives to give their business, be it online, home games or private clubs.

Also, there seems to be this line of thinking that the average recreational player has a bankroll. Most do not have a bankroll at least in the terms that you and I think of a bankroll. They have money set aside to play poker with, they will use it to buy a LCD TV or make a down on a new car, or buy Christmas presents too. If they hit a big win, while it may cross their mind to move up in stakes or something along those lines, it is more likely that they are going to spend it on something. They look at it as their "play" money, if they lose it all playing NL the first week of the month, they are upset because now they can't play until their next pay check or two. But they will be back.

[KreellKeiser]

Depends on the card room I think. Where I play, there are still a few tables of 4/8 LHE running all the time. The no limit list is usually pretty long, so all the no limit players take short turns in 4/8 waiting for a no limit seat. Since these guys are already awful at no limit, they are just absolutely horrid at limit. Free money if you play the 4/8. OF course the no limit game is pretty soft too.

I think overall, the NL craze is helping card rooms. Sure these new guys come and ONLY want to play NL, at the expense of other game, but without NL they probably would not have come at all. So, follow the fish. Take their money at NL (or limit too if they spill over like at my place).

[Cactus Jack]

What an interesting thread, guys.

I think a lot about this, and have come to no conclusions. Everyone has a piece of it, I think.

I do believe that NL damages poker, in general. It's a short term gain for a long term loss, I believe. Capping the buy in helps, but only to a degree. A friend says the casinos here are raising the cap because players want a bigger game. I dunno, but it may be true. They may want it to play bigger without incurring greater risk.

No limit is no more "real poker" than tournament poker is not. It's a different game. Many who play for recreation are looking for all the rush they can afford. If there were nothing but limit games, they'd be playing at the highest limit they could afford. A $25/hand blackjack player might play $15/$30 LHE or $2/$5 NL? If there were no NL game, he'd not be playing $3/$6 limit. So those with more stake are playing the NL games, to the detriment of the limit games.

Someone said the side games at the WSOP were much better when there were no satellites into the ME.

The big question, in my mind, is what's the best for the future of poker? I think limit is going to be here when NL is gone, despite the fact that NL seems to be the game of choice right now.

I do know the NL games are as profitable as they were. The limit games are not so much different.

CJ

[AKQJ10]

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No, it saved them. It is the most exciting game and what people want to play. young people do not want to play limit or even undrstand why people play it. NL is real poker as it is meant to be played, not an artificial game like limit with no room for creative thinking or individuality.

[/ QUOTE ]

That sentiment is melodramatic flame bait (I like NL too), but when some NL expert strips every $ out of your game, the game breaks. Doesn't matter what the kids want to play when they're broke.

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And I'm actually more of a no-limit specialist nowadays. But I know everything said here is true. Fortunately, these days the fish are very happy to play a kind of poker that allows them to lose quickly, but it won't always be thus.

Only partially on-topic, having just moved south I was surprised to see the limit:NL ratio much higher in Tunica than I had become accustomed to at Foxwoods and AC. That's not to say that you don't have a ton of little rooms with their $1-2 or $2-5 game, of course, but it seems like there's been either an active policy to keep the red-chip limit games going, or a very cohesive player base relative to the overall player pool. I'm very interested in observing more so I can speculate why this is.

[Teetster]

Its in the nature of a "gambler" to want the opportunity to win the largest amount possible, even if the likelyhood of winning is small.

As anecdotal proof I provide:

State Lottery
Bingo
Roulette

In their mind, everyone who plays these games knows (if only at a subconscious level) that their likelihood of winning is small, but if they do win its going to be big.

That is why NL is popular. The possibility of the "big win". I think the TV exposure brought the players, yes, but NL is a lot more fun for a recreational player. It probably will remain that way for a good long time.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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Capping the buyins help a lot towards slowing the kill rate of the fish. As soon as the casinos begin to remove the caps, NL will die out again. (Mason had an article, 2+2 mag I think but maybe a post, talking about how some of the Vegas casinos are removing the caps from their larger NL games and what was about to happen.)

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Here is a link to Mason's "Publisher's Note" from the December issue. IMHO Mason is essentially correct here (although huge clubs such as Commerce can have a lot of both types of games).


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I have a personal observation from Caesar's IN. The $2-5 NL was uncapped and was a huge game for a while but slowly began to die and was dead for all practical purposes. They added a $1,000 cap and the game quickly recovered and now goes on a regular basis.

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I hope more of the NL "purists" read your observation or comment.

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

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Could it be that limit players don't bust out as fast so they pay more rake over a longer time? Anyone heard anything like this before?

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That's the key. If I sit down at a casino table with 10 inferior limit players and we play till the money is gone, I get 20% of it and the house gets 80% (ignoring for now the fact that even in favorable freezout circumstances I won't always be the winner). Now if we do that same experiment @ NL, I get 80% of the money and the house gets 20% because it will take a much smaller number of hands to bust them all.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good analysis but the house gets plenty of money in both games. It's just that in capped buyin NL most players sit down able and willing to rebuy several times (and maybe a dozen times in the very small capped games such as the 1/2 blind $40 buyin game). In limit people will generally rebuy once or twice (assuming they start with a rack ($500) in a game such as 15/30). They rarely rebuy more than three or four times.


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Additionally, in a non-tourist economy, where there aren't big influxes of cash into the room, people who go bust at NL aren't going to be easily replaced. The seat will just sit empty until they grow some more wool or a new sucker moves into town.

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That's why games are so good in big money areas such as Los Angeles County or tourist spots such as Las Vegas. My guess is the first place the NL games will go bad is a place such as Foxwoods. Foxwoods isn't that touristy and most poker players have to drive a long way to visit. There also aren't that many rich fish who live nearby; most fish that drive a long way will tend to play the other games first.

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
Another aspect of this problem is that winning NL players are doing a worse and worse job of disguising their success.

If you look at the style presented in SS, Doyle plays winning poker but if called USUALLY HAS THE WORST OF IT. It would be easy for his opponents to look at his big hands and conclude that he's a sucker because usually the money goes in when he's behind. Of course, they forget that he's semi-bluffing and that he won numerous pots where his opponents had a big edge and didn't know it. Of course, those hands are never shown so they don't stick in memory. This style lets the sheep go home broke yet believing they had the best of it. So when they regrow, they come back. Hell, someone watching the game might even stake them thinking they had the best of it.

Today's nittier, lower-gamble in-with-the-best-of-it breed of NL players doesn't allow the sheep to deceive themselves the same way. Hence the games collapse much faster. The fact that many of these same players are antisocial and thus annoy their opponents doesn't help.

[/ QUOTE ]

This post is so good it probably should be rerun as an OP.

~ Rick