Should You Switch to No-Limit Hold'em?

It is certainly the hottest game around, and many players have made the switch from limit hold'em. Some are winning much more money than ever, while others are unwilling to try it, or have played a few times and given up.

This series will discuss why you should or should not change, and what you must do to adjust successfully.



Why Even Consider Switching?

Today's limit hold'em games are so soft that many players are winning more than ever. They, naturally, see no reason to change games. If you feel that way, you may be missing a chance to win even more money.



Your profits can grow because no-limit hold'em is the weakest players' favorite game. They have seen it on TV, and they love its apparent simplicity. Just get a satisfactory hand (and some define "satisfactory" very loosely) and push in your stack before or on the flop.



But no-limit (NL) is much more complex and subtle than they believe, which gives good players a much larger edge than limit does. The combination of that edge and all those weaker players can give you greater profits with lower risk if you can play NL as well as you play limit. However, being a good limit player does not guarantee that you will play NL equally well.



The biggest downside to switching is that today's NL games can be extraordinarily frustrating. The weakest players often make ridiculous plays, causing extremely painful bad beats. I have never heard so many extremely angry bad-beat stories. With so many players calling before the flop and chasing after it, horrendous beats occur very frequently.



NL enables you to protect your hand much better, but that protection is far from complete. You will experience fewer bad beats, but they will be much more costly and painful. Having your aces cracked by trash has always been upsetting, but – when you lose your whole stack – the pain can be excruciating.



There are other reasons for and against switching that I will discuss later. Now I'll just make an obvious point: NL is not for everyone. It demands different skills, psychological traits, and mental abilities, and not much has been written about these demands.



Many writers have described the skills needed for both games, but relatively little has been written directly contrasting them. Each game emphasizes different skills, and these differences are not at all obvious. Barry Tanenbaum's recent columns were among the first to compare the skills that each game requires. You should read them at CardPlayer.com.



This series will discuss a few skill differences, but will emphasize psychological traits and mental abilities. Before switching, ask yourself three questions:

• Do I have or can I develop the right skills?

• Do I have or can I develop the right psychological traits?

• Do I have the right mental abilities?



If one answer is "no," you probably should not switch. If two or three answers are "no," you definitely should stick to limit poker.



You also must remember a central principle of all of my writing: Most people overestimate both their talent and their ability to change themselves. No matter how well you think you play limit hold'em, don't assume that you will quickly or easily become a good NL player.



Some of the skills required can be hard to improve; many of the psychological traits required are difficult or even impossible to develop; and your mental abilities are essentially fixed. You're stuck with what you've already got. If you're not the right kind of person and player, NL may be wrong for you.



The Right Skills

Since Tanenbaum has already described the skill differences, I won't repeat them. However, his short columns could not tell you how to execute or develop those skills. And because NL is more nuanced, some of them are very hard to develop.



As my friend John Tollison put it, "The learning curve for no-limit is much flatter than for limit." Because the game is more complicated and subtle, it takes longer to become a good player. This curve is flattened further by the lack of good written instruction for today's no-limit games.


Most games have a cap on the buy-in, and that cap has enormous effects. In addition, today's players are very different from yesterday's. When buy-ins were not capped, the weakest players quickly went broke, so most games had only a few very weak players. Today's games are full of beginners and near-beginners.



They just want to gamble, and the caps on buy-ins let them do it without going broke too quickly. Some of them play NL just like it seems on TV, never adjusting to the fact that those shows are edited. They play too many hands, go too far with them, and make absurd moves.



Unfortunately, because most major poker writers have little or no experience in capped games, the literature is almost entirely based on "real no-limit games," (those without a cap). In those games, you almost never have:

• Eight limpers seeing the flop

• Three or more players going all in before the flop

• Standard opening raises of eight to 15 times the big blind

• People calling all-in bets and raises with weak draws, top pair, weak kicker, or even worse hands



In many capped buy-in games – especially the smaller ones – these things are routine. That is, the game has changed enormously, but the instructional material has not kept up with the times. Doyle Brunson, the author of the most famous chapter on no-limit, openly admitted, "I have trouble winning where's there's not much money on the table." He defined such a game as one where "everybody has $5,000 or $6,000." (Super/System 2, Page 600) That is, his book and most others tell you how to play in games that you may never encounter.



One example of current books' obsolescence (or irrelevance) is the emphasis upon starting-hand selection. Virtually every book devotes many pages to this subject. Some books even have matrices stating that you should fold, call, or raise with certain hands in certain positions. Some books devote more pages to starting hands than to any other subject. However, that subject is much less important – and much less formulaic – in NL than it is in limit.



To win in limit, you have to take down a lot of pots, but your no-limit results are driven primarily by a few big ones. And those big pots are often won by playing against the weakest players and deceiving them. You can double or triple up most easily with small and medium pocket pairs or even trash hands, especially if you play them against people who can't get away from hands like overpairs, top pair with top kicker, and top two pair.



When players' cards were just starting to be shown on television, Russ Hamilton, former World Series of Poker main-event champion, told the Wednesday Poker Discussion Group in Las Vegas that he disliked those cameras. He did not want people to know how often he played trash hands like 9-7 offsuit.



Why would he play such trash? Because if the flop is A-9-7, some players will lose their entire stack with A-K. If it is 8-6-5, he will bust the same people when they hold pocket kings. Of course, he would play such hands against only the right people in the right situations.



I can't count the number of times I've seen players limp in or make a small raise with pocket aces or kings, then go broke to somebody with trash. They whine and complain, but frequently have no one to blame but themselves. They let people draw too cheaply, or they didn't get away from the hand when they were clearly beaten. Instead of accepting responsibility for misplaying the hand, they attack the other player: "How can you play that --?"



Russ' position was supported by a recent poll of my weekly No-Limit Discussion Group. I asked them about the relative importance of various skills, psychological traits, and mental abilities in NL and limit. They clearly stated that the most important limit skills were related to having the best hand, while the most important NL skills were related to deceiving opponents.



You do not deceive them by waiting for big hands and then playing them in a textbook manner. In fact, the deep-stacked player who calls your standard three-big-blinds preflop raise with trash is far more likely to bust you than you are to bust him.



In today's games, with so many people seeing the flop, aces and kings get cracked all the time. The poker literature does not tell you how to adjust either your play or your attitudes. Future columns will address both of these adjustments.

Dr. Schoonmaker ([email protected]) coaches only on psychology issues, such as controlling impulses, coping with losing streaks, going on tilt, and planning your poker career.