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[rose]

[Poker Question] Want to play Low Limit Hold 'Em?

[MelonCandy]

Low limit sounds like fun, I'll be on later tonight looking for you.

On a different note, I havent been able to find many/any bots since the reset. Seems like youare having better luck. Does any one know how sparse people need to be before they show up?

[cynarion]

My experience of the two is that at low limit, it's much more difficult to communicate to others through your bets.

Say I have QK as my pockets, and the flop turns up QQA. If I bet a sizeable amount, I may indicate to the more canny people out there that I have either a Queen or an Ace.

Or even more subtle. Say I have 45 as pockets and the flop turns up 567. A 3 or an 8 will get me a straight. I bet a reasonable amount on the flop and scare a couple people off. The turn comes up a 3. I'm betting several hundred bucks at once. You'd have to be blind to figure I wasn't gunning for the straight. The smart ones fold (or call me if they have a stronger hand, such as a flush), the less experienced ones will put in a bunch of money on three of a kind or two pair.

(Of course, knowing my luck, the river comes up a six and someone beats me with a full house.)

My point is that I can't communicate like that on a limit table.

If I was gunning for the straight on Offsuit City ($3/$6) then I'd be betting $3 on the flop and then $6 on the turn. Hardly very concerning for the other players, or very good at telegraphing my hand (which is actually what I want to do, to get the experienced players to fold).

Plus, when I come away from a winning hand on Offsuit City (frex), I come away with what, a maximum of a couple hundred dollars? As opposed to winning a couple thousand on a good hand on one of the smaller ($5) no limit tables.

I'm not game to play the Monster tables yet. People like J_dot_J (and more recently Dante) scare the pants off me (not least of all because they usually have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around on the table so my usual intimidatory tactics don't work). But I like the NL $5 tables a lot.

[StarkRavingMad]

I'm HORRIBLE at low limit, and I consider myself a pretty decent player at no-limit. It's a whole different game. In no-limit I can take a couple big hands and make up all my losses from the past two hours. I just can't get a pot to juice like that at a low-limit, and because I can't read the players as well and can't narrow the field with big bets, I get suckered into playing second-best hands with no chance to bluff the best hand out (since the pot odds are so good by the time the turn hits, a limit bet is hardly ever going to push a decent hand out). And after you eat a few of those, it's hard to recover because you're never going to get that big "all-in" hand where you have the nuts.

In my opinion, low-limit depends almost entirely on what cards you get...no-limit is a lot more dependant on play style, aggressiveness, etc. Not that it's a bad thing, I don't want to sound like some sort of poker elitist here, it's just a different game. I think the mathematicians like David Sklansky do better at limit tables, while personality-driven players like Doyle Brunson or Dan Negreanu do better at no-limit. It always surprises me that Lederer does so good in no-limit, because he's a classic limit player.

Cynarion: The Monster tables really aren't that bad. You can't sit down with more than 10k, so most people aren't going to have THAT much money unless they've been there awhile (you'll see guys like JJ there with 100k, but that means he's been there like 8 hours). In reality the betting isn't that crazy most of the time, and you do have the chance of a really big hit. That's why the Monster tables are so crowded...with one week to make the leaderboard every time, you really need those big pots to get there, unless you're going to play 24/7. There's still a lot of really bad players at the Monster tables, too, lots of people who are freaked out by sitting at the big table and make bad moves.

One piece of advice: don't sit at the same table as Dracula and Drusilla. It's okay to play against either of them solo, but I'm pretty sure if they are at the same table, they're colluding. Steer clear. And if you sit down at the same table as J.J., watch him carefully and don't be thrown off by his patter or the fact that he types like a 10-year old. Watch how he plays...he's loose and aggressive, and that makes it fairly easy to take money off of him if you get a feel for his style.

rose, I'll probably look for you on the limit tables (my LCP name is Madman), and let you take some of my money

[toongoon]

Re: [Poker Question] Want to play Low Limit Hold 'Em?

[rose]

I agree. Low limit is a totally different game. There seems to be more to it than just what cards you get, but you can't bluff or bully your way through a hand.

[Dorkmaster]

Limit ensures that the cards dictate the winner more often than the betting.

No-Limit, if played well, often doesn't matter whether you have the cards or not. It's all about positioning and betting strategy. You'll often find books on the subject of how to bet no-limit hold-em online and in bookstores. But with limit, it's really a matter of "do I have something worth staying in for or not?" And if you do, you bet. The cards dictate the winner of limit, and the guts dictate the winner in no-limit, with the cards being a tiebreaker of guts.

[flo]

I find the low limit tables a bit frustrating.
I actually started playing some hold'em poker games on yahoo this summer (i had some really boring days at work!) where all tables have limit, and it is very difficult to make any kind of gain there. You really need to know when to fold early, and any sort of bluff is close to impossible.

The $2 and $5 NL tables suit me well I think, so you'll generally find me there.