NL with a Cap...thoughts?

[dismalstudent99]

I was thinking of using a cap, but how would you implement it in practice?
Do players separate out the cap amount before each hand? Or does someone keep a running total of how much chips the active players have put in during the hand?

-ds

[dismalstudent99]

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It wouldn't be NL if you had a cap. Maybe you should try Pot limit holdem it sounds like what you are looking for.

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The mechanics of a Pot Limit game are more complicated. I think it's too much trouble for a home game. Just limit the buy in for a NL game. And limit the rebuys.



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I play Pot-Limit Hold'em and Omaha in my home game and it's not hard at all to manage the pot. You should know how much is in the pot anyway. Pot limit plays great.

The purpose of pot-limit is not to limit losses-- you can loose a lot in PL! (Which is why there is also "CAP PL")
The purpose of PL is to make the game more about post-flop play. PL also weakens the effect of having a maniac at the table (which usually means people play tighter and fewer flops are seen, which I think makes for less interesting game).

At the beginner and intermediate levels (at least), PL increases the reward to skill and lowers the luck factor.

Ciaffone is a proponent of PL hold'em cash games, and Negreanu is a proponent of PL hold'em tournaments for these reasons.

-ds

[Rottersod]

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I was thinking of using a cap, but how would you implement it in practice?
Do players separate out the cap amount before each hand? Or does someone keep a running total of how much chips the active players have put in during the hand?

-ds

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For your typical home game crowd you would have to get everyone to agree not to splash the pot and to keep their bets in front of them. It may take a while for people to get used to it but after 1 or 2 nights everyone should adjust (except there is usually one player who for some reason never understands new concepts).

Another option for some people is to have them seperate their stacks into the capped stack and the rest and only bet from their capped stack. After each hand they adjust their stacks accordingly.

[Lottery Larry]

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Another option for some people is to have them seperate their stacks into the capped stack and the rest and only bet from their capped stack. After each hand they adjust their stacks accordingly.

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Better idea for most home games, especially starting up, until people get used to the flow.

Of course, watch for any ahole angle-shooters.

[Lottery Larry]

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Or does someone keep a running total of how much chips the active players have put in during the hand?


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Since almost everyone won't want to put in more than the cap, if no one else will, I think it will self-regulate.

[Small Fry]

Wow..didn't relaize there was going to be such a heated discussion about "cap".

The game we'll play has blinds of .25/.50 and a cap of $30 for the first 3 hours of play and then the cap goes up to $40. Planned start time is 7 pm so the cap should go up at 10 pm. The cap is the most that can be bet by any one player during the course of a hand. So if a player bets $3 preflop, $5 on the flop, $10 on the turn. If it's before 10 pm the max left to bet on the river is $12.

Playing with a cap was the idea of one player. I tried to set the cap fairly high - (60 and then 80 big blinds. Full Tilt uses a ridiculously low 15 big blinds). I also told this player he needs to monitor the bets (he wanted the cap he can keep track.) I'll probably cut out the max from my stack so I also know what I have left to bet when I'm in a hand.

Somebody mentioned players sitting on their stacks. I've heard the opposite happens but we'll see. Having a max buyin also protects the big stacks, (Say 100 bb is max buy in....If you double up then the most players can rebuy for is half your stack. But as the night does on others will also get large stacks and going up against them you risk a lot. With the cap you can have a large stack and not fear getting into it with another large stack.

I'm still of the opinion that there is no need for a max buy in amount. Having players with say , 2-3x the cap, then they always have the max for you to win. So let them buy in for $100, $200 whatever.

Game is this Friday. I'll update after about how it goes.

[Rottersod]

There's no need for a max buyin since the cap is what the player plays. The buyin is irrelevant in a capped game.

As I wrote earlier I'd recommend that you all cut off the cap to a separate stack and play from that for every hand, at least until you all get used to the game.

Let us know how it goes. I'm going to predict that it will be a wild game and I'll also predict that there won't be many hands where there will be any room left for a river bet.

[Small Fry]

Game report: overall it went well. We played 6 handed. Most of the players are rather tight so there was still room to play on the river but a lot of hands didn't get there. We did get our share of all ins (I think I lost the first one thanks to flopping a flush when another player flopped a higher one. Ironically this may have also been the first family pot (unraised). I was in the bb with 7h,2h. Small blind, with A,5 hit two pair on the Ah, 6h, 5h, flop and lead out with $10, I know him well enough to know that he didn't hit the flush, so with the $30 cap I push all in, raising him $19.50 to $29.50 total. Next 2 fold but the 3rd guy thinks for awhile and calls. I'm hoping for a bare Kh, but he had Jh, 8h. I got him back later when the cap had gone up to $40... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

As for tracking the bets. A couple of us did cut out the cap from our stack. But as I was the dealer for the night when I would rake in the bets I would just cut out a seperate stack in the pot to keep track. For example: Preflop there's a raise of $2. As I rake in all the chips for the pot I would make a small stack of 2.50 (blinds we're .25/.50 so total bet was 2.50). If $3 was the flop bet when I pulled in those bets to the pot I would add $3 to the 2.50 stack. And so on. Worked well. There were a few times the less experienced players had to ask how much they had left that they could bet. They could say all in but what exactly did that mean? It depended on how much they started the hand with and how much had been bet so far.

Overall I think it generated some action. If you were lucky enough to win some pots your stack had some protection. It's a little work keeping track of the cap but I'd recommend playing this style ,especially if your group isn't used to risking a lot on a single hand (or you just want to keep from going broke when your AA gets cracked). I'll definitely do it again.

Pat

[Rottersod]

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Game report: overall it went well. We played 6 handed. Most of the players are rather tight so there was still room to play on the river but a lot of hands didn't get there. We did get our share of all ins (I think I lost the first one thanks to flopping a flush when another player flopped a higher one. Ironically this may have also been the first family pot (unraised). I was in the bb with 7h,2h. Small blind, with A,5 hit two pair on the Ah, 6h, 5h, flop and lead out with $10, I know him well enough to know that he didn't hit the flush, so with the $30 cap I push all in, raising him $19.50 to $29.50 total. Next 2 fold but the 3rd guy thinks for awhile and calls. I'm hoping for a bare Kh, but he had Jh, 8h. I got him back later when the cap had gone up to $40... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

As for tracking the bets. A couple of us did cut out the cap from our stack. But as I was the dealer for the night when I would rake in the bets I would just cut out a seperate stack in the pot to keep track. For example: Preflop there's a raise of $2. As I rake in all the chips for the pot I would make a small stack of 2.50 (blinds we're .25/.50 so total bet was 2.50). If $3 was the flop bet when I pulled in those bets to the pot I would add $3 to the 2.50 stack. And so on. Worked well. There were a few times the less experienced players had to ask how much they had left that they could bet. They could say all in but what exactly did that mean? It depended on how much they started the hand with and how much had been bet so far.

Overall I think it generated some action. If you were lucky enough to win some pots your stack had some protection. It's a little work keeping track of the cap but I'd recommend playing this style ,especially if your group isn't used to risking a lot on a single hand (or you just want to keep from going broke when your AA gets cracked). I'll definitely do it again.

Pat

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Glad to hear that it went good. My experience playing capped NL is that if there is still a lot of manuever room on the river then you aren't playing it well. You need to be more aggressive to get as many of the draws out as you can and to extract the max when you do have a hand against hand showdowd like TPTK vs 2P or TPTK vs TPMK.

[Barfunkel]

If you are worried about players going busto why not just play with lower stakes? I'd much rather play an NL50 with no cap than NL200 with a 50 cap.