Is NL the game for you?

Hi... recently i have been playing NL holdem... whenever i play OMAHA or Horse or Stud i do decently well... However, when i play NL Holdem i normally make poor reads on people... my question is... do you think NL Holdem is the right game for me...

A little background... i only played NL holdem for the first 3 years of playing poker and would win a little and lose a little, no big deal. After a while i got pretty serious about poker an got up to 1000 dollars playing low limit games.... I soon started blowing the money playing in too large of tournaments... and took a year off from poker and just recently started playing again. I feel myself overwhelmed with the ammount of all in bets from people with top pair early in the tournament. I am the type of player who likes to see a lot of flops, but is eaisly pushed off hands because I believe other players really have it.

Do you think Pot Limit or Limit holdem is for me? Or Omaha or Stud? Do you have any suggestions... i know this is a vague questions.. but has anyone else felt this way?

I play any game, but looking at my stats on www.officialpokerrankings.com I should play more Omaha, where I have 1000% roi

get back inot limit hold em for awhile...till you get the feel back.

There is quite of bit of money potential in playing other games. Pot limit Omaha, expensive to play, has a lot of inexperienced holdem players willing to give up their money during the learning curve. I think mixed games such as Horse, Hose and 8 game is the future of poker. I hated the Razz portion of Horse and would sit out most of that section when I played. Then I concentrated on learning how to play Razz and it is now the strongest part of my Horse game and if I sit out at all it is in the Holdem section.

Thanks... thats a lot of help... i will concentrate learning the games with play money... because i am not familiar with Razz.. if anyone could point me to the direction of a good Razz forum.. that would help or suggest any books that explain some of these games from a good player that i could read... that would also be helpful! Thanks for the quick response and hope my future will be brighter for poker haha...

i think i'll always feel like 5draw and 5stud are my favorites because those were the games we played growing up. but i never felt they were much more than luck games, they don't seem to have any more of a strategy in comparison to holdem. plus, i don't see any 5stud tourneys anywhere. always been something almost mystical about that game to me though, haha. i have almost no exp in omaha, not sure i want to either. i've played some play money sng's that had omaha mixed with hold em, i've won some, but i folded right away in omaha...or bet like a maniac and just got lucky. hold em has become quite a fun game for me though. always gives me something to think about

if you think you're seeing too many flops, you are. early in big tourneys, stick to only playing big hands, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs. also, when you fold that marginal hand and see that you woulda flopped the nuts, you can't let that get you frustrated. folding gets you another set of cards to look at. it's about building your stack over time, not doubling or tripling up constantly. also, in late position, u can start expanding your starting hand requirements to suited connectors and middle pairs when you get more comfortable.
I wouldn't suggest practicing with play money, more, i'd play smaller buy ins, play money gives you a false sense of the way players really deal with hands. they don't focus so much on pot odds and counting outs and such.
good luck!

Regarding NLHE cash games, I think the determining factor is how you handle variance. If you're accepting of the fact that there will be some depressing times but are willing to slog through it, I would advocate taking the time to learn it and practice it. I think that's where the real dough is.

Unfortunately, I can't read people there like I seem to be able to do a better job of in tourneys and I get bugged by beats there in a way that I don't in tourneys. Just because in a tourney I know what I'm putting at stake and busting only costs me that. Dropping a large amount of money on a beat, even if it was a small part of my bankroll, just wouldn't fly with me. Luckily, I know that and stay away.

But if you can take the variance, make a go of it.

I like the idea of playing HORSE HOSE and 8 game etc tables that way your not only working on a particular aspect of your poker game/ education so that if and when the public interest in poker carries you down another path because X is now the hot game your prepared.

Just play the level youre most comfortable at. If you don't think you can consistantly win at NL or don't like NL then play PL or FL.

There is a good amount of razz discussion for free on 2+2. As for paid sites, I think Stoxpoker has the best razz discussions going (and the best instructor).

Really only 'you' will know which games you feel you will excel in. For myself it's usually the game that I'm most interested in, thereby willing to put in the time to continually improve.
Lately I've found the online tournaments that I'm rolled for to be really crap - $26buyins on Fulltilt and it seems half the table will limp in with any two-suited cards and then call a 8xreraise.... 'to see a flop'. I've found it quite frustrating as I actually prefer to play on tables where 2/3 of the table are decent players and also don't like playing ABC poker but know it's a necessity at times. ["Just tighten up when on an exceptionally loose table.... make larger re-raises in position to isolate the LAG-tard,... check-raise more often,... etc. etc. etc." - - - doesn't seem to matter.... when J-2s is limping Utg and flatcalling a 4x 3xbb 3-bet and then calling a monstrous check-raise from BB with bottom pr. and then hanging on and rivering a set.... blahhh]
Solution.... who knows. Perhaps it's back to SNG's for awhile til' I can play in $50+ buyin MTTs.
For sure the tables seem to be full of noobs who will play hyper-aggressive in early levels and many times this can be quite profitable. Also seems to be a ton of players who play tourney play as if it were cash game and are spewing chips off with just about any two. Seems many have loads of cash that they just like to throw at the sites.... ie. I go out last night when Q-3s 3bets my KK O.O.P. and then calls a 4-bet shove. Of course he hits two 3's, lol. So I search him and see he's down over $7k and runs at ROI -87% in MTTs.... but.. he's having 'fun'!! Am I???

I'd say if you have an interest in other games aside from NLHE then why not give them a go for awhile.
Personally I far prefer the game of NLHE as there is just so much to it once you really get into it and always seems like there's more & more & more. This is probably what I like most about the game. Winning is pretty cool too... those rare moments when the 80/20's hold that is.

GL to you with whatever you choose to play!

I LOVE PLO, but i find that the MTT's in NLHE are more intresting.