Common No-Limit Hold'em Errors Made by Limit Players - Part I

Many former limit hold'em players, either enchanted by the excitement of no-limit hold'em cash games or living in places where no-limit hold'em has become the game of choice, are spending more time at the no-limit tables. Some of them make errors because their limit backgrounds prevent them from seeing the differences of playing in the two games. This and subsequent columns will explore some of their more common errors.

Fundamentals: Limit and no-limit cash games look alike. The tables, cards, and procedures are much the same. You still see a flop, turn, and river, and have four betting rounds. These superficial similarities seduce many limit players into thinking the transition is easy, and that lessons learned at the limit table readily translate into the no-limit hold'em environment.

This is false. Limit hold'em is a game that centers on frequency, and develops into a battle for fractions of bets. If a hand will win often, or often enough to justify the pot odds, you play it generally by betting and raising. You win some and lose some; but, because the pot sizes are similar, if you win more pots than you lose with a particular holding, you will show a profit. If someone overtakes your hand and you pay him off, you lose an extra bet or two.

No-limit hold'em has very little to do with frequency. You need to avoid those situations of when you win, you win a smallish pot, and when you lose, you lose all of your money. No-limit hold'em centers on those few times per session when your entire stack is involved. If you win those confrontations, you generally will have a winning session regardless of the smaller pots. If you lose those all-in situations, you are in for a bad time no matter how well you do in the less significant hands.

Limit players at no-limit hold'em tables sometimes lose sight of this, and play as if frequency rather than major pots were the central focus of the game. This tunnel vision leads to other common errors that this series will explore:

• Failure to account for stack size
• Inappropriate preflop raising
• Inability to lay down what may be the best hand
• Overplaying one-pair hands
• Playing too tightly before the flop in deep-stack situations
• Playing too loosely before the flop in short-stack situations
• Failure to control pot size
• Excessive value-betting on the river

While some of these overlap conceptually, they are worth exploring one at a time. This series of columns will discuss them all.

Failure to account for stack size: In limit, stack sizes almost never enter into consideration. Typically, all players have enough chips to play out a hand, and nothing else about stack size matters.

In no-limit, stack size enters into almost every decision you make, for two main reasons:

1. Your stack is in jeopardy on every play of every hand.

2. The hands you play and the sizes of the bets you make are often controlled by stack size.

Even though I am discussing your stack size, your opponents' stacks are just as important. If you have $500 and all of your opponents have $200, your decisions are controlled by the effective stack size of $200. A decision that may make sense for a player with $500 will not make sense in your situation because you are effectively playing $200.

For example, you have $500 in a $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game, and everyone else has $200. A middle-position player open-raises to $40. Everyone folds to you in the cutoff, holding pocket fives. If you think, "That $40 represents only 8 percent of my $500 stack, so I am clearly getting the right price to try to hit a set," you are wrong. Because you can win only $200 if you hit your set, you need to think of that $40 as 20 percent of the amount you can win. Since this is too much to risk with a small pair, you should fold.

Stack issues comprise much of the rest of this discussion of common errors, so we will deal with them individually. When I refer to your stack size, assume that your opponents have equivalent stacks unless otherwise specified.

Inappropriate preflop raising: In limit, preflop raising is done primarily to control the number of opponents, isolate opponents with weaker hands or lesser playing ability, create dead money, or simply add money to a pot that you are a favorite to win. While controlling the size of the pot does enter into some advanced limit considerations, it is rarely the key factor to consider in preflop raises.

In no-limit hold'em, primary reasons for preflop raises are to limit the number of opponents when you hold big but risky hands, add deception to your game, and control post-flop pot size.

In fact, controlling the size of the pot is a major consideration in deciding whether - and how much - to raise preflop. Many situations that would appear to call for an automatic raise in limit games call for less preflop aggression in no-limit. The type of hand you have, which dictates the likelihood that you may want to play a big pot, controls much of your preflop decision.

For example, you are in the cutoff with A-K offsuit after three players limp. What should you do? In limit, you raise. In no-limit, you cannot possibly answer that question without thinking about everyone's stack size, how likely the players are to fold to raises of various sizes, and how well or poorly your opponents play. If you are playing a short stack, you may decide to push all in and take your chances if you get any callers. If you are deep-stacked, you probably do not want to raise at all.

The reason for this is that you will have a difficult time playing your hand if you hit it. With A-K offsuit, you generally are trying to make one pair. One-pair hands play very well in limit, where top pair, top kicker wins most of the time (frequency). However, in deep-stack no-limit hold'em, they tend to play poorly against all but the weakest opponents. If you hit your hand, you will get little or no action most of the time, and if you do get a lot of action, you often will be beat. Thus, you will win many small pots but lose a few or just one large one, which is exactly the opposite of the pattern you want. You do not want to be pot-committed, or to be making large bets post-flop in this situation, and the way to avoid it is to keep the pot small to begin with.

In the next issue, I will continue this discussion of common errors made by limit players in no-limit hold'em games.

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold'em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies, both available at www.CardPlayer.com. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].