Playing for money: Limit or No Limit

I've been dabbling with the $1/$2 NL Holdem. I was averaging $900 profit a day for about three days until the last few days where I hit my downsing and it's brutal. I get beat by quads, set over set, flop the king high flush twice and both times am beat by the ace high flush (caught on the flop as well). Get outdrawn with their gut shot straight draws. So I stopped playing for a day or so.

Then went to a $3/$6 limit table and made a nice $200 in about 20 minutes and I loved it because of the horrible players you find in limit games except that they often will outdraw you. They'll call you down to the river as long as they are holding two over cards so I got AJ suited and I flop a pair of jacks and I'm betting and getting called by this guy who catches a King (he has KQ) and rakes in the $60 pot. In another example my aces get cracked to a third ten on the river (which was middle pair for him, but called it down anyway). It's frustrating and it happens alot. Statistically I should be rich by now by playing these guys all the time. Time to tighten up and only play if i hit my hand strong (i,e set of aces). Or i could go back to NL and hope my luck changes.

I figure that Limit would be best for consistantly making extra money because you cant lose an entire buy in on a single hand. Then let it happen again 2 hours later.

Most pros make most of their money playing limit holdem if that helps you any.

I do well in Vegas on limit poker..............But it is different than nolimit.........We all have bad runs in poker.......Maximize your wins and minimize your losses on running bad................Rock

If you're a winning NL player, you will make way more money in per 100 hands than anyone could ever make in Limit. Like by a factor of ten.

Assuming your advantage vs. the opponents you play is about the same at both games, you'll probably experience less variance over the long run playing limit. You can win more playing NL, but you have to have the bankroll and the personality to ride out much larger downswings.

i dunno about you guys...but i absolutely hate limit poker...gives the fish an excuse i reckon. I love the nl and i am a constant winner when i play but we all lose. I'd definetly have to say that ive made 90% of my winnings ( cash games ) in pot limit omaha....so give that a go and c how u go.

let us noe.

cheeeers

What excuse does it give the fish? I don't follow. Punishing bad players at limit takes practise, and isn't as easy as just sliding a bar all the way to "all-in" but it's very doable. Limit forces you to exploit small edges, whereas no-limit is a lot about winning key pots.

Regarding winning more at NL or limit:

A good player, at the low-mid levels who practises some game selection, can usually sustain a 2BB/100 win-rate at limit hold 'em. This is not a measurement that translates well to no-limit, however, so I'll do this; I recommend you have a 300 BB bankroll to play with if you play limit. Your bankroll will double in 15,000 hands of playing.

For no-limit, you need a bankroll of 20 buy-ins, standard recommendation. One buy-in is 100 big blinds and a good player can sustain ~5 BB/100. Of course, there are no "BB" in NL, so PokerTracker defines it as two big blinds. In other words, a good player can sustain a 10 big blind win-rate per 100 hands, on average. Your bankroll consists of 20*100 BBs = 2,000 BBs, and it will increase by 10/100 hands => It will double in 20,000 hands.

If you're a 2BB/100 player at limit, and a 5PTBB/100 player at no-limit, it seems limit is your best bet. But all things are rarely equal.

Good point re: the bankroll condiderations and time to double up FP. I've never thought of it like that. I just looked at my 20BB/100 and assumed it meant I was winning 10 times faster than I would in Limit.

However in my case it probably is about 50 times faster because I suck at Limit.

Well i wanted to give limit a try because I figured you could take a more business-like approach to it. It seems to me that Limit is more about pot odds (getting the right price) rather than implied odds in NL. I also like to compare it to the stock market. Limit would be stock in vesting where-as NL would be options trading (volatile and risky but fun!).

Anyway, I've been giving it a shot but have been coming up short because people chase their hands too much and get lucky, cracking my aces three times so far. (And I dont mean flush/straight draws but more like completely missing their hand on the flop but gets two pair or three of a kind by the river)

And there's a big difference I find between a full ring game of Limit and playing it short-handed. Short handed more interesing, but I lose more, because I think it takes more skill, which I don't have.

Marklar,

NL is like bond futures trading, hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Limit is a bit more chilled.