HU NL vs Limit: Which is the best test of skill?

[jay_shark]

I told ya so :P

Maybe we should start a new thread on this .

[Quanah Parker]

NL is the best test of skill.

Limit as the name implies, is exactly that.
A limit of the amount a player can bet.
A limit on one variable of the game, reduces the amount of skill required to play.

Same reason chess requires more skill than checkers.

[thechainsaw]

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This is given in sklanskys tounament poker book, I think its with blinds of 25-50 and stacks of 1000 the player pushing all in every hand will win 40% if his opponent plays perfectly, it does take a while to get to these levels in a sng though. As for pushing in as a strategy google sklansky-chubokev listings (spelling is probably wrong), these show how deep the money has to be with a hand, before you can push all in & show your opponent your hole cards without showing a loss. This is a dull way to play and might not be the best way, but against certain opponents it can work very well when shortstacked, and is a handy fallback when against a stronger opponent.

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I've run the numbers for an sng with fixed blinds of 1 and 2 and starting stacks of 40 (equivalent to the game described above), and with perfect play we only defeat the "always push" opponent 57.8% of the time. So oppo winning 40% is about right.

With fixed blinds of 1 and 2 and more reasonable starting stacks of 150, we still only win 66% of the time, which isn't that much more.

green_tea

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How did you do this? - I'd love to know!

Im happy to discuss on a new thread - also to maybe consider sklansky's ideas about a partial "permajam" strategy.

FWIW, I think NL by far is the more skillful.

[Gonso]

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I've run the numbers for an sng with fixed blinds of 1 and 2 and starting stacks of 40 (equivalent to the game described above), and with perfect play we only defeat the "always push" opponent 57.8% of the time. So oppo winning 40% is about right.

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You can get to 40% with if you tailor the variables to get there, I don't dispute that (you can get to even money with the blinds high enough). What I DO dispute is that you automatically get to 40%, which was was originally stated as a "mathematical fact" by Jayshark... which is absolutely wrong.

I'll demonstrate with an EASY strategy to counteract this:

Wait for any broadway hand or any pair 66 or better. This range wins around 64+ percent of the time against a random hand, and you'll get dealt one of these hands 16 percent of the time or so, which means you'll usually have one of these within the first 5-6 hands on average, so the blinds aren't a terrible concern at a normal level.

Chances of getting one of your needed hands by:

1st hand: 16%
2nd hand: 30%
3rd hand: 41%
4th hand: about even
5th hand: 58%
6th hand: 65%

With a normal structure, you'll cripple this guy long before you really have to worry about the blinds. And the thing is, I'm sure the hand selection could be improved, this was just my first guess at it.

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With fixed blinds of 1 and 2 and more reasonable starting stacks of 150, we still only win 66% of the time, which isn't that much more.

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A six percent jump seems pretty significant to me, but in any case I agree with the figure which destroys the 40 percent theory. Remember that the all-in guy will likely have a couple of your blinds from the first couple of hands, so he'd probably have you slightly covered. There is always a chance he could double up X times and win it, but that's a pretty long shot statisitically.

[BobAllinSki]

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Wait for any broadway hand or any pair 66 or better. This range wins around 64+ percent of the time against a random hand, and you'll get dealt one of these hands 16 percent of the time or so, which means you'll usually have one of these within the first 5-6 hands on average, so the blinds aren't a terrible concern at a normal level.

Chances of getting one of your needed hands by:

1st hand: 16%
2nd hand: 30%
3rd hand: 41%
4th hand: about even
5th hand: 58%
6th hand: 65%


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The key point is, even with this fairly tight range of hands, your not often going to be that big of a favourite against 2 random cards, combine the fairly small edge with the wait to get there and you end up with a simple strategy that is probable going to be more successfull than a poor limit player.

As for which requires the most skill, there is no definition of what makes fora skillfull game, but I would define it as a combination of the complexity of the decisions you have to make and the frequency with which you need to make them. Limit forces you to make a lot of decisions but they are often simpler than no-limit, while with short stacks no-limit gives you the option to remove all later decisions from the equation, which also makes the individual decisions simpler because less thought needs to be given to later streets, in my opinion what form of poker requires the most skill comes down to how deep the money is, I'd say

with 300bb or more, no limit requires the most skill, at this depth pushing without the nuts will be a mistake and pushing with the nuts a waste, you have to make complex decisions on all streets.

with 50bb or more pot limit is the most skillfull, you still have to make complicated decisions but you cannot cut off later decisions by pushing all in.

with less than 25bb then limit is the most skillfull as you will have to be able to play every street well, while at pot limit at this level players will often be all in by the flop or turn.

[Gonso]

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The key point is, even with this fairly tight range of hands, your not often going to be that big of a favourite against 2 random cards

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You'll be exactly that big of a favorite on average. There are times when you'll be a marginal favorite, but those are offset by the times you're a huge favorite. It will work out to 64.5 (or whatever it was) in the long run.

You could do better, maybe even 70-30, by figuring out what hand selection is optimal (relative to the stack and blind sizes), but this was enough to make my point.