Limit Vs. No Limit Holdem

I've learned to card count in blackjack and made money. I've learned optimum strategy in video poker and made money. Poker has caught my attention now probably for a lot of reasons. I'm caught in a decision though whether to learn no limit or limit texas holdem? Now I consider myself strong in math and like to know the statistics behind the games I play before i play them. But I am also disciplined enough to know a game fully before going out risking money like a lot of players do. They watch T.V. thinking they know the game and end up losing. Basically If i read up on whatever game I choose to play I wont step into my local casino to play until probably mid to late july. I'm only pointing and repointing out I turn the games i choose to play inside and out before even playing.

What do you guys think would be a better game for me to play and WHY?

As a math person, and a rookie, go with LIMIT poker.

The stakes are limited making bankroll management simpler. Plus, with fixed bet sizes, bluffing is harder, therefore it occurs less often if at all.

On the other hand, in limit poker, because the bet size is relatively small, a lot more players will see the hand to the end, so your chances are lower.


My personal preference is No Limit, because it's easier to fold a marginal hand when facing a big bet.


Before you do either, join a pub poker league. Generally, the players in a league will give you good advice. Not WHILE you're in a hand, but afterwards. In a casino, the only advice you'll get may sound good, but is really designed to keep you playing longer.

Thanks for the advice however, I refuse to take advice from players at the table or any form unless i find it knowledgeable. As stated before the games i learn to play i learn them inside and out before i even play at all. That means reading up on the games and knowing the math behind the games. I'm not one of those players to play the game and take advice from other players while playing because 90% of gamblers are stupid and i stand by that. What i mean is 90% of people who play the games they play dont have a clue about the game except a few basic rules. At the blackjack table, you hear all kinds of advice like take the side bet and o why did you hit that soft 18 against that 10? just its been my experience people are stupid and instead of learning the game and i mean really learning the game. They instead learn what they need to play and lose enough to either quit and bitch or lose and then learn a bit more and lose again. The other 10% person know what it takes to win and the time it takes to be good. I consider myself one of that 10% as i will not play on the knowledge of other players but instead play on the knowledge of math, a lot of books and absorb the best information and makes my own judegment as to what is best. Because knowledge is power in a way

I suggest first limit, then move on to no limit if it interests you. The reason is in limit games you can pick up a feel for the math, discipline and hand strengths, while in NL the costliest mistake for newbies is to stick around with borderline hands too often. In NL you may pull off some good bluffs or hit your draws, take down some large pots and stay afloat for much longer, while in FL games the odds will quickly force you to correct your play.

consider them 2 different games.
do you want bigger or smaller swing in bankroll.

thats all

Quote: jpprovance

consider them 2 different games.
do you want bigger or smaller swing in bankroll.

thats all

I would agree that they should be considered two different games. I disagree that the only difference between them is bankroll volatility. No Limit is fundamentally a different game, in that large stack bluffing can force small stacks or "pure math" players off of winning hands. "Reading" your opponents takes much more skill, and even knowing what your "pot odds" are, and how many "outs" you have doesn't help when you have anything less than the nuts.

With limit, folks chase all kinds of junk, even at higher stakes games, so a disciplined, mathematical approach may have more success. I would recommend that you start with limit. Small limit games are a good introduction, and you can last longer on your initial buy-in. However, do not think that you can step up to the no-limit game and use the same disciplines, some adjustments are necessary.

For a good introduciton to the games, Dan Harrington has written a few tomes.

No Limit is by far a more rewarding game, in terms of both excitement and winnings, but it's also by far harder. You won't be able to tell which you prefer before you experience both.

As for what to start with, easily Fixed Limit. The skills you pick up in FL will be highly useful in PL and NL. The skills you pick up in NL will kill you in FL.

No Limit has just as much math, and more complicated, but fundamentally the same math at that. The difference is that in NL you can tailor your play to that math much more precisely, and you can advertise your math to manipulate the table. If you try to play NL without knowing this math, you are playing deaf and dumb - you can see people at the table talking through their bets, but you don't understand their language.

As for biggest noob mistakes, I'd say that right after you learn not to be a calling station, it's bluffing. This is especially so when you bluff without knowing this mathematical language of pot odds and implied odds, and instead of "Keep throwing money in, my straight is pat!" your message comes out as "I'm so desperate to win at least once, ple-e-ease!"

The safest way to get your feet wet is by playing in tournaments. Usually on a weekend as there are more fish the. Playing
tournament during weekdays will pit you against the regulars. Players who know each other's styles, There is a reason new players prior to say 2001 were refered to as dead money at the WSOP. Of course once the fields go so large the Vegas crowd seldom had 2 locals at a table their advantage soon disappeared.

Tournaments, particularly SNGs, are heavily math based. Playing MTTs requires some other skills, but tournaments(particularly where you are shorter stacked) are very similar to other forms of advantage play.

One difference is that its likely cardcounters or Video poker players simply memorize every scenario. The combinations of payout structures, stacksizes, players remaining,etc make this pretty difficult. Not to mention you have to adjust to the ranges of your opponents.

You will obviously memorize a ton of spots, but I think its also important to be able to extrapolate for situations you haven't studied.

Quote: saginaw10

What do you guys think would be a better game for me to play and WHY?

I didn't vote, because I think it depends alot on what people are playing at your local casino! If there are several tables of 1-2 NL and one table of 4-8 limit, that should influence your decision on which to master. The other is which you like better, but that is hard to tell without trying the games. You might want to play a session of each before you devote a lot of time to study. Perhaps just read through "Getting Started in Hold'em" (Ed Miller et al) first, then play, then decide which to master. Given your experience with blackjack and strength in math, you might prefer limit, but not necessarily.

I'm resurrecting this old thread as the topic was recently re-introduced in another post.

Most poker pros feel that medium and high-stakes Limit Hold'em is a dry hole. Basically, the optimal playing strategy for Limit Hold'em has been developed via computer analyses and adopted by most top players - it is a game that has been solved by computer analysis much like chess. The level of play by your opponents in most large casino poker rooms will be too good -too close to perfect - to allow you to overcome the house rake.

This is not true in No Limit Hold'em. The game is far more complex with many more options. And no-limit hold'em tournaments offer a much lower net rake than cash games and are easier to beat -although with greater variance, as noted by other people.

So long as you can multi-table there is still good cake to be made at the sng, no-limit tournaments, hey hey.

Oh my.

First, I can find something to agree with. It is absolutely true that the introduction of NLHE as a common structure for cash game play had a big effect on the highest stakes of LHE and spread-limit format tables about 10 yrs ago, siphoning off the influx of new drunks, lunatics, imbeciles, douchebags impressing their dates with their studly chest-thumping chip-puking daring-do, and generally diverting a lot of the needed influx of the emotionally lame & mentally crippled bearing fresh chips that every poker table needs, away from the upper level stakes of the LHE format. Which means that high to upper-mid stakes LHE went into a grim state of famine. Though not so high stakes, not so much at all.

But, pardon me for inserting some stubborn annoying commonplace arithmetic that's widely disseminated and routinely updated among numerous poker boards. The concrete numbers need to be mentioned just in case someone stumbles into this thread who isn't familiar with the subject. Here is the actual tournament juice (admin charges + staff fees witheld from the prize pool expressed as a percentage of the the total buy-in) charged for a slew of tournies making up a large chunk of the NLHE tournaments commonly played in the Las Vegas area, comprising by far the overwhelming bulk of the tournament tables active in regularly scheduled events in Nevada other than a few big one-off annual circuit events. (In some of those very large infrequent events, such as the WSOP, the juice can get down into the range of about 7-10%)

Aria 19%
Bally's 29%
Bellagio 20%
Binion's 22%
Caesars Palace 22%
Excalibur 29%
Flamingo 27%
Golden Nugget 26%
Green Valley Ranch 33%
Hard Rock Las Vegas 29%
Harrah's Las Vegas 20%
Linq 33%
Luxor 29%
Mandalay Bay 31%
MGM Grand 29%
Mirage 15%
Monte Carlo 30%
Orleans 22%
Planet Hollywood 27%
Red Rock 20%
Rio 30%
Sam's Town 27%
SouthPoint 17%
Stratosphere 27%
TI 24%
Venetian 17%
Wynn 15%

For poker rooms with multiple varied tournies with differing juice, I listed the regular one with the smallest % taken out of the prize pool, which in every case was also the biggest multi-table event with the highest buy-in. Such is the nature of the basic economics of the business that nobody running any poker room can get away from. The ones in bold are by far the most prominent regular ongoing tournaments in the Southern Nevada region IMO, and they generally dwarf the others added together in size, amount of play & average time to complete. They are also among the more expensive ones to enter, in the sense of having the highest buy-ins.

In contrast to all that, at cash game poker tables, the value of any chips removed for the house rake can NEVER exceed ten-percent of the pot. Not for a single moment in any cash game, ever. If that ever occurs it is a serious Nevada Gaming violation subject to fines and suspension or revocation of gaming licenses for those involved, both individuals and organizations. The actual effective rake is therefore ALWAYS less than that, and as a practical matter is never higher than about 8% in even the smallest, tightest, most passively played little short-handed small stakes game, and in many popular cash game stakes and formats it amounts to significantly less than that.

I think it is probably best to mostly just avoid engaging with the "my thing is the bestest kind" since that (recently) well-worn pronouncement always ends up as simply a matter of opinion that's really drvien by individual temperament at the root of it. And what I've seen over about the past decade-plus of this kind of thing is that those patient learned souls who still from time to time attempt to point out some of the fundamental problems with those kinds of wild assertions, on much more astute sites for poker discussion than this forum, get nowhere in dealing with the belief systems involved. An attmept at discussion always quickly degenerates into rounding up the usual suspects of dueling citations of authority, and then gets worse from there.

Suffice to say that poker was not just suddenly invented on television 12 years ago with the quick overnight change to suddenly making NLHE into a common format for cash play. The differing complexities and flaws inherent in NL and in the other structures that have been the root of the game for much longer, remain very much subject to dispute in the serious literature on the subject. But crowing that "I say format ABC is superior to XYZ format" and "you SHOULD play this not that" is always pointless anyway. Play what you find that you like, which will end up being what suits your inner nature best. And that's what you'll end up being best and therefore most successful at. I like to play some tournaments, among other things. But low rake or juice is sure not a reason.

If you are new to casino poker, I think limit is still a better way to get your feet wet, just as far as game mechanics and such. Some casinos don't always offer low-stakes LHE any more, though, since NLHE is so much more popular.

I agree that you should try them both and see which one you like more.

I think they're both dull and overblown. Omaha 8 is much more interesting. And much more mistake-prone. Learn the math of that, you're ahead of most at the table. JMHO.

Quote: beachbumbabs

I think they're both dull and overblown. Omaha 8 is much more interesting. And much more mistake-prone. Learn the math of that, you're ahead of most at the table. JMHO.

Does any casino spread low-limit O8?

I'm not sure that the average O8 player in a casino is going to be worse than someone playing NLHE. I would assume anyone who chooses to play O8 knows roughly what they're doing, since why else would you pick O8? Wouldn't most bad players just want to play NLHE? O8 is complex, and most casual poker players probably have very little experience with it. I think of NLHE as the "default" poker game.

For what it's worth, I'm just guessing because I've only played O8 in home games, but that is what leads to my point--I am not great at it, so I avoid it in the casino, which I don't think is always the case for people who want to play NLHE.