Any and all advice is welcome....

I have played primarily 1/2 and the occasional 2/5 NL games and tournaments for as long as I have been playing poker. I was thinking about trying some limit poker when I visit in July.

The questions are:

1 should I even bother playing limit poker at all

2 what would be a good starting point? I was thinking 4/8. However I am not sure exactly how the games play out. I don't want to play a limit where it is a call fest to the river for 4-6 people every hand.

I am not set on playing any limit at all but I thought it might be a nice change of pace.

i've been in 15/30, 20/40, and 30/60 games that were all call fests to the river. now add drunken tourists at the 4-8 level....

the pots are much, much bigger, and the variance is much higher.

it's basically a preference thing.

it's a very low stress change of pace tho. "oh whoops, i made a two BBet mistake lol" vs "oh whoops, there goes 100bbs." gl

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"I would rather make the gravest of mistakes than surrender my own judgment. "

I don't have an opinion on whether you "should" or not. A lot depends on your individual temperament, and maybe what you are expecting from it. Just know that it is a different game, and not the same game with different chips. You may be a relative novice there even if you are great at NLHE, and it could be helpful to be armed with an extra supply of humility in that way. Trying to run over a LHE table in a NLHE kinda way often turns out to be rather expensive over time, and sometimes upsetting and confusing to some doing it in the same way as trying to play hockey in the middle of a baseball game. The game is more about the math, you will more frequently be needing to assign a range of likely hands to a range of players rather than one, so relative hand strength is different, and you will have to be best at showdown to win pots more often than not.I'm inclined to think that your thinking is sound on that. I play mostly LHE, and my observation has been that folks who are used to NLHE tend to get most frustrated by the games at the smallest stakes in which play tends to be the most loose-passive. If you are on-Strip, the primary venues for 4/8 would be Venetian & Bellagio, with Bellagio also having the option of several levels of bigger games running up through 40/80L.

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Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

I may be off base here, but it sounds like you want to play some limit poker and feel like you're playing *real* poker against at least somewhat skilled opponents. If you've never played limit before and find a mid-limit game against such opponents you may get skinned. The following is a cautionary story I wrote on the topic...

http://www.blindstraddle.com/kat-martin ... er-better/

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Kat's Monthly Poker Column: http://www.blindstraddle.com/category/kat-martin/
Twitter: @TheGameKat

That was VERY good, in writing and reasoning. Thank you.

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Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

Glad you enjoyed it.

Cheers ~ Kat

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Kat's Monthly Poker Column: http://www.blindstraddle.com/category/kat-martin/
Twitter: @TheGameKat

I would not only echo Local Rock's observations, I would stress one important point: It is a different game entirely than NL. And the reason is that, fundamentally, you often make different decisions for different reasons.

While not many games will see 4-6 players at the river, in many, especially at lower stakes, you'll see that many see many flops. So starting hand selection is more important in LHE than NL. Your math skills will be tested more than your people skills. YOu will likely encounter more "bad beats" in LHE than in NL--but not all beats are as bad as they may seem. IN a game with 5 or 6 players seeing a flop, and especially if they all called a preflop raise (as most are wont to do), the math often dictates a flop call with as few as 4 good outs.

Many will claim that bluffing is impossible in LHE> I can tell you from experience that this is a complete falsehood. But the opportunities to do so are fewer, and the success rate can be chancy.

Bottom line, the answer is, as with many poker questions, "it depends."



The bottom-level limit game in Vegas is typically either $3/$6 or $4/$8. (The occasional room spreads a $2/$4 game.) In general, you'll find more recreational players at the rooms that spread $3/$6 games. Typically, the rooms that offer $4/$8 as their entry game are the "luxury" hotels, Venetian, Wynn, Bellagio, etc., plus the Orleans. My experience at the Venetian is that this can be a very tough game, with many more aggressive players similar to what you'd find in a NL game, but many are also locals who are quite good poker players. Outside Vegas, you'll often find a $6/$12 game as the next step up, but in Vegas, you have to make the jump to either $8/$16 or $10/20. At most places that spread this level. the games will be tough. (I had some success at the $10/$20 game at the Mirage a couple of years ago before it finally dies out there, but I had to adjust my normal TAG game.)

Note that some games just get crazy, at least at the levels $8/$16 and below. While it doesn't happen as often at the "recreational" $3/$6 games, I've seen other games not only get many preflop callers on a routine basis, but many callers of multiple bets. These games can have a very high variance, but they create huge pots.

If you really want to dip your toes into LHE, I'd suggest reading a LHE book before you do so you can see and understand LHE-specific concepts. The gold standard is still, I think Small Stakes Hold Em, by Sklansky, Malmuth, and Miller. While it was written a long time ago in poker years, many of its principles still apply. The Kindle version is <$15 on Amazon.

One final thing: don't expect big bankroll swings playing limit. LHE is much more a "grinding" game; if you get good at it, you'll see bankroll increases, but not as steep. You may find many sessions where you're a winner, but just some fraction of your buy-in. YOu just build on that, session by session, decision by decision, and if you're tracking your play, you should see good results in the long run. Because LHE is very much more a long run game than NL.

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- Low-limit limit poker @ Artichoke Joe's ($6/$12) & 101 Casino ($4/$8 w/ 1/2 kill)
- Poker blog, good writing, OK poker: http://chuck.martin.name/poker/
- Tweets from the felt: twitter.com/chuckspoker

GameKat, great article. Thanks for the link! And you are exactly right, I want to play in a game that has competent players but I don't want to get rolled by regular players.

My idea behind playing LHE was because it is different from NLHE but not so different that I would be lost doing it.

Thanks everyone for the info and input. You have all given me a lot more to think about! Luckily I still have 50 days to decide!

Warpigs,

I'll second what everyone has said on the games being totally different. I've done the opposite of you, been mostly a limit player and trying to work on NL. The games are extremely different. I once read (in SuperSystem?) that limit is a card game with betting and no limit is a betting game played with cards. So, if you decide to play some limit, realizing the difference going in will be a huge advantage to you.

Dave

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The opinions in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Poker Atlas, AVP or PokerTrip Enterprises.