Limit Nooooob

[DuderinoAB]

Mods, if this isn't the place feel free to move. I'm looking to get into LHE. I really have no idea where to start though. In the past I played NL cash. When I was a winning player over about a half million hands between NL25 and NL200. At that point I had the BR to easily move to NL 400, but I lacked the game (part of it was that at that time, I wasn't focused enough, and part of it was that I think my brain is a bit too mechanical for M-HSNL) to succeed at that level. For about two years now I've been playing almost exclusively NL tournaments. I've played over 10,000 SNGs from $11 to $109, and I've played MTTs from $11 to $109. I just need a change of pace now. As I said, I want to learn LHE. I have the BR to play 10/20, but obviously I'm not starting at that limit. I'd imagine that the transition can't be that hard from NL to winning at LLHE, but I just have no clue where to start. Basically I just need a few recommendations from you guys. What limits do you suggest starting at (considering I could drop 300bb at 1/2 and it would be like a semi bad day playing SNGs...I wouldn't really feel it)? What is a good win rate/100? What books do you recommend? Do you recommend 6 max or full ring? What site do you recommend (I would think obviously Party, but then the monster has made regular cash games a bit tougher)? What books would you recommend? Is there any other pertinent info I need to get started?

[Harv72b]

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What limits do you suggest starting at (considering I could drop 300bb at 1/2 and it would be like a semi bad day playing SNGs...I wouldn't really feel it)?

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Considering your bankroll & experience playing hold'em (limit is obviously a different game, but the basic principles remain the same--you just have to adjust to the new betting structure), you could probably get away with starting at 2/4. At least when I was playing it, there wasn't a huge difference between the 1/2 & 2/4 games, and it wasn't really until 3/6 when the average player started to understand proper aggression.

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What is a good win rate/100?

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Anything higher than zero is a good win rate. Seriously, though, if you play well & choose your games well, 3 BB/100 is possible. It's the extreme, but it's possible. Somewhere in the 1.5-2/100 range is probably more realistic for a solid small stakes limit player.

The advantage over NL, of course, is that it's easier for most players to play quite a few tables of LHE at once, thereby giving them a very respectable earn rate per hour.

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What books do you recommend?

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-Small Stakes Hold'Em by Sklansky, Miller, and Malmuth
-Hold'em Poker For Advanced Players by Sklansky & Malmuth

As you progress up the limits & get more comfortable with the game, I also got a lot out of "How Good Is Your Limit Hold'em" by Jacobs & Brier, but the examples it gives aren't really suitable for the lower limits (maybe starting around 5/10). I'm also assuming that you've already read "The Theory of Poker" by Sklansky.

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Do you recommend 6 max or full ring?

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As I'm sure you're well aware, the difference between a winning and a losing player lies in the relative amount of mistakes that they make. The more hands you play, the more opportunities you'll have to take advantage of your opponents' mistakes. Unfortunately, the same is true for them, and as you're adjusting to the limit structure you're going to make more mistakes than you're used to. So you're probably better off starting with the full ring games, where you'll get in fewer hands per hour and be faced with fewer thin equity decisions. However, generally speaking the 6max games are much jucier than full ring, so again as you get more comfortable with the game you should think about giving them a shot as well.

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What site do you recommend (I would think obviously Party, but then the monster has made regular cash games a bit tougher)?

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I only play seriously at Party these days, but other people swear on pretty much all of the other major sites. In all honesty, at these limits a halfway decent player can probably expect to win at almost any site...it's just a question of finding the opponents that'll give you the most money.

I really haven't noticed much of a change in game play since the Monster promotion started, and the extra rake hasn't really affected my win rate either. That might be different at lower stakes, where the flat rate monster drop represents a larger percentage of a big bet.

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Is there any other pertinent info I need to get started?

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It's going to be frustrating for you. You cannot effectively protect your big hands in most situations, while at the same time the comparitively great pot odds you'll be offered will often make calling down & losing the correct play. You're also going to have to adjust to your opponents being relatively fearless compared to what you're used to...free card raises, turn bets on a semibluff (or even turn raises on a semibluff), and going multiple bets on multiple streets with less than TPTK aren't all that unusual anymore, because a player just can't lose as much in a single hand of limit as he can in NL. These things, and more, really do make LHE a different game than what you're used to.

You're probably best off just sticking to a starting hands chart from one of the books to begin with, and then adding or subtracting hands as your experience grows. Oh, and let me just say as a caveat that I'm not a very good NL player, so take my advice with a little grain of salt where it relates to that game. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]