Limit vs. no Limit

Tuesday, August 30th., 2005 (By the PokerStrategyKing)

Most novice players start out playing low limit hold em. Or at least they should. When you play limit you by the nature of the game limit your losses and risk when you play. In this article, I will discuss some of the considerations when one makes the switch from limit to no-limit. No-limit is not a game for the weak hear of heart. The thought of facing huge all-in bets, and losing your entire stack in one hand, and making one mistake that would cost a player months of profits makes the game too tough for most players. Even with the uneasiness this game causes, people still prefer it for much of the same reasons that makes them fear it. The opportunity to take down huge pots and take down a boatload of money in a single hand is too tempting to walk away from. It’s human nature to crave this action.

Think about it, even if you’re playing middle stakes limit poker, you can be certain of the bet sizes you will see. But, when you play no-limit, better players with good reading ability can make more money than just by relying on cardspeak. This is because unlike limit hold'em, no-limit enables the best players to play many more hands and rewards good player-reading ability more than limit hold'em.

When playing limit, a good player oftentimes will get a read that an opponent has a strong hand. However, this read does not often benefit the great player much since the pot is laying him such a large price that the read almost always has to be right to go against the pot odds and fold. The good player typically ends up going against his read and calls, even though he thinks he is very likely beat. Likewise, good players will read an opponent as being weak, but in limit hold'em, that often does not mean much. If a player has a marginal draw, the pot can be laying him the correct odds to try to outdraw a player with a much stronger hand. For example, a good player can be heads up in a limit game and has read his opponent as being weak, he can check a marginal holding, because even though his opponent is probably weak, if he has a better hand, he will often call the bet, and will fold a worse hand, making the bet accomplish nothing except lose another bet in the long run.

There are also implications when it comes to bluffing. An experienced player will bluff only when totally missing in this spot, hoping his opponent has completely missed and will fold. A good player will often bet the end of a pot if he is sure his hand can't win a showdown, since he can often pick up the pot if his opponent also missed. Thus, the good player would generally play the same way in both cases, whether or not he had a good read on his opponent.

In no-limit poker, these good reads would be greatly rewarded. In the first example, the good player would likely be facing a sizable bet possibly a pot-sized or double the pot size bet, sensing great strength in his opponent. In the second case, the good player would be able to make a large bet on the river and could likely push his opponent off a weak hand, as few players have the ability to pick off a big bluff with a weak hand when all the cards are out and they are facing such a huge bet.

Even with this player-reading ability, it is still a difficult technique to put to practice in limit because that fear factor just doesn’t exist. Players just aren’t as afraid to make calls because it won’t cost them their entire bankroll.

Let’s take an example of pocket Queens. In limit, even when facing a raise, you can re-raise in hopes of isolating without having too much worry if the initial raiser has Aces or Kings. After all, if you’re no confident post-flop, you can limit the damage by temporarily becoming a calling station. However, reraising with queens in this spot in no-limit hold'em, especially when the chip stacks are deep is a difficult move to make. Let’s say you re-raise someone’s bet to $30 and then someone comes back over the top of you for $1000, how good do your ladies look at that point? Going back to my example, if I make a very standard reraise with the queens, making it $900 total to go, my opponent will likely reraise me with aces or kings and fold weaker hands. They will likely fold weaker hands like AQ, AQ, KJ and KQ, giving me the chance to win there. But in no-limit, they can make a move on me and really make me think. So basically, the reraise with queens in no-limit when the stacks are deep can get you into tons of trouble. Just calling in this case would probably be a stronger play against a good opponent, whereas in limit poker, reraising would generally be the best play.

One other thing to consider when moving to no-limit are the trap hands like AQ, AJ and KQ. With these hands, it is quite common to flop top pair and still be way behind in the hand and losing lots of chips. I can’t even count the times I’ve seen players holding AQ lose their entire stacks to someone holding AK when an Ace flops. You can get yourself into a world of hurt with these hands in no-limit while in limit it isn’t quite as painful. For example, if you raise from early position with these hands and someone called only to have you dominated, it is much less grief-causing. In limit poker, you would even be ok to call a raise with these because you would be getting great pot odds to see the flop even with the worse pre-flop hand. In no-limit hold'em, it is often correct to fold these types of hands, even for only a moderate reraise before the flop because of the possibility of being dominated. Furthermore, if you and your opponent have deep stacks, these hands may be some of the worst hands with which to call in this spot. Seeing a flop with a potentially dominated hand when out of position in no-limit hold'em is one of the easiest ways to go broke or lose lots of chips, since it is so easy to flop a big second-best hand, and when you do flop the best hand, you usually do not make much money.

A-Q is the perfect example of this. Let's say that if you raise from early position in no-limit with A-Q, your average opponent will reraise you a modest amount with A-K, kings, queens, jacks, tens, or nines, and you will call his reraise. Now, if you flop an ace and it is the best hand, a pair of aces is such an obvious hand that even your opponent's strongest possible second-best hand (pocket kings) will probably not give you much action. Now, if you flop an ace and your opponent has A-K or makes a set, you are likely to lose lots of chips, if not go broke. Thus, you're rarely going to put yourself in a good situation by calling with A-Q in this spot, and should fold preflop against even a modest reraise.

You would be much better off calling re-raises with hidden hands like connectors or suited cards because you wouldn’t have the chance to be so thoroughly dominated.

(For more poker strategy and tips, please visit the PokerStrategyKing’s website at www.pokerstrategyking.com )

 

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