From the Vault: Why I play Limit Games

c9h13no3

c9h13no3

Is drawing with AK
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Total posts
8,819
Chips
0
As stated in my last thread I have only played poker once since Black Friday. I had previously written some articles that I never posted.

Here is another one:

========================Why I play Limit Games========================

Hi, I'm C9, and I used to be a NLHE player. I played 6-max, with a super laggy, 4-bet bluffing, screw you I'm taking you're money style, and I was okay at it. Not great, wasn't a huge winner, but I was earning some decent money. However, after playing 100NL for about a year, I realized that my game was actually getting worse. I used to win 2EZ, but for some reason, the money wasn't pouring in anymore. Run bad, play bad, my opponents got better, whatever. I could probably keep playing NLHE and be okay, but that's not the point of this little memoir. The point is to tell you why I think I'm better suited not to play NLHE.

About a year ago I switched most of my play from NLHE to limit games. And while people will tell you that you can make more money playing big bet games, and that limit games are a bad choice, I'd like to offer three reasons why you should at least consider playing these silly min-bet/min-raise/no-fold'em-hold'em games:


There is Edge

In poker, the object is to earn money (ldo). And the way you earn money is by using your skill advantage to make your opponent make a mathematical mistake. This is called your "edge". My Skill * Opponent's Mistakes = Money (or at least Sklansky Bucks) or something like that.

Thus, every NLHE player will say "No Limit has bigger bets, and thus the mistakes our opponents make are bigger, and thus No Limit games have a bigger edge". And while its totally true that No Limit games do give your opponent a chance to make some really colossal mistakes, they neglect the other part of the edge equation: the skill of your opponents.

Because limit games have far less exposure, and far less written about them than any of the other games, your opponents playing limit games (or capped games, or other non-hold'em games) will not have nearly the education that your opponents playing NLHE will.

Additionally, while you can't get your opponent to make that colossal "put all your money in drawing slim" mistake, they do offer up small edges... TONS of them. While the mistakes fish make in this game are smaller, they compensate for this by making tons of them. You won't win very many giant pots playing limit, but you can win a shit-ton of medium sized ones.


I Don't Like Folding

Playing NLHE, I had two really big leaks:

1) I bluffed too much.
2) I tried to catch bluffs too much.

I just didn't like folding, and I would find reasons to make that optimistic river call all the time. After playing NLHE for a year or two, I got better at suppressing this type of thing, but I was never able to make it go away.

Looking back now, an easy solution to this problem was to switch to a game where making a speculative bluff or call wasn't as big of a mistake.

NLHE promotes a lot of folding. You're usually getting odds around 2:1 on a call, which means your hand has to be good around 33% of the time, which, is an awful lot!

Fixed Limit games, on the other hand, you're often getting more than 10:1 odds on a river call. A series of events like this will show a profit:

Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose, Lose, Win, Lose, Lose

Nine losses to one win when we're getting 10:1 odds sounds like a winner to me! The same thing applies to bluffing, when you spend 1 big bet to win ten, it doesn't have to work very often.

So by switching games, I was able to turn leaks into... smaller leaks. And since no one ever folds in these games, I've almost all but eliminated the bluffing problem from my game.



I have more fun

This one is easy to explain. I played NLHE for years. I was bored. When you get bored while playing poker, you'll often do stupid things to entertain yourself, which costs you money. After playing a session one night, I had won $200, but I realized that I was just absolutely irritated by NLHE, the variance it put me through to win that money, and how I thought it was an absolute drag. It was a big turning point that caused me to play other games.

The big take away message from this section is, you'll play better if you're having fun.


So yeah, in conclusion, consider the other games. While NLHE is certainly the most popular game, it might not be the best game for you.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
xdeucesx

xdeucesx

Bar Master
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 7, 2010
Total posts
7,139
Awards
3
Chips
21
Always fun to read c9

I forgot about this "series" on the "other games of poker" you started awhile back, damn BF was almost a year ago :(

Write more plz
 
bgomez89

bgomez89

Resident Thugmaster
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Total posts
3,127
Chips
0
This explains so much
 
R

RamdeeBen

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 9, 2010
Total posts
7,745
Chips
0
Liked this post very much, kind of made me want to go back to playing limit - and I did for like half an hour ;)

The only problem I have with limit, is unless it's a mixed game with limit mixed in to the frame then I find it boring. Maybe it's boring purely based on the stake levels and frustrating 6 handed pots you're involved in ;)

I'd love to play limit at say 200nl+ I think it would be much more interesting.


Nice post again good work!
 
M

MrEncryptor

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Total posts
11
Chips
0
Nice write up and I can definitely see where you're coming from. And you're absolutely right when you say that you can't win in poker unless you're having fun and feeling comfortable.

I'd like to share my personal experience which is the complete opposite: I lose more money when I play limit games and I'm more prone to going tilt if I get rivered... The main problem I find with limit games is that you can't price out opponents. This means I'll have to win more frequently (hard to do when you can't price out the marginal opponents) if I want to see a profit. So if I win, I win small, if I lose, I lose small.....however, it seems like I lose more often than I'll win because I'll always get multiple callers with marginal draws and at least one of them will somehow always seem to hit on the river. I can't even count how many times my set or two-pair was killed on the river by a flush or a straight.

This is the biggest difference between Limit vs NL: Limit is favorable towards draws while NL is unforgiving towards missed draws.

My personal playing style is that I avoid draws unless I already have at least a pair, or straight/flush draw and only if the bet to me is within my comfort zone. Because of this, I excel more in NL than I do in limit.
 
Ezekiel162

Ezekiel162

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 28, 2012
Total posts
788
Awards
1
Chips
5
Good Article...

I've always had a problem with limit games for the same reason. That it's frustrating when you can't force the marginal hands out more often when you know you probably have the better hand at the moment. Maybe I'll get better as I've been playing a few h.o.r.s.e. freerolls lately. Looking forward to more articles...
 
Top 10 Games
Top