Irrefutable Southern Logic

Over the past century, poker has been dominated by six different variants with dozens of sub-variants within them. It all started with five card draw. That game turned into lowball and then five card stud came along. Five card stud lead to seven card stud which lead to Texas hold’em, and they were all usually played with limited stakes. As recently as 2006 a World Poker Tour $10,000 main event was played as limit hold’em, and my friend Mike Schneider won the thing for a million dollars. He stashed the giant check behind his washer and dryer where it sat for a long time. Poker is constantly evolving, and games are the best when nobody knows how to play them well.

For as long as most of us can remember it’s been all about no-limit hold’em, thanks to television coverage and tournament poker. I can remember the day that limit died and I was forced into big-bet games. It was the fall of 2006. I got clobbered thinking one pair was the nuts. I was forced to adjust, and I had a period of feeling like a fish out of water when my rent depended on booking wins. Thank goodness everybody else sucked at no-limit hold’em too back then, so I managed to survive.

Had I planned ahead however, I would have been on the cutting edge of big-bet games and likely won a lot more money back then. Even though all my experience was in limit games, I should have actively acquired knowledge and experience in the big-bet games so that if a great game ever offered itself to me I could take it and if limit hold’em ever became obsolete, I would still be ahead of the curve.

The state of poker is a funny one here in 2014 especially in America. New money is not coming in like it used to, and with the demise of online poker, new players are barely coming into the market. Everybody that remains from the poker boom has either moved on to something else or is better at the game. We’ve reached the point in Las Vegas where I believe the average maximum win rate at $1-3 and many $1-2 no-limit hold’em games is higher than $2-5 games. Everybody used to crush $5-10, now it plays like $25-$50 used to, so those who couldn’t crush $25-$50 then and played $5-$10 instead have moved down to $2-$5, have too much pride to move all the way down to $1-$2, and thus you’ll only find the tourists at the bottom and varying degrees of experienced players everywhere in-between.

Fortunately for us however, the “Second Biggest Game Theorem” (the second biggest game in any room is tougher than the biggest) holds true now as much as it did before poker had money falling out of its pockets. The second biggest game is always the toughest. Picture the Bellagio; rich fish walks into the poker room wants to play. Yes sir, we have $2-$5, $5-$10, $10-$20, $25-$50, and $100-$200 no-limit Texas hold’em. He sees the $25-$50 game out in the open, sees the big game in the fishbowl, and the difference between $5,000 and $20,000 is negligible to him. He will almost always sit in the big game. I’ll never forget the first time I played $400-$800 live. I had been playing $100-$200 live and the game was OK but I was winning. The first game of $400-$800 I played live was better than the $100-$200 game I had been playing and the Theorem stayed consistent.

Now, this doesn’t mean that there’s any merit to the idea of moving up in stakes to play with opponents who respect bets. We should always seek to play with opponents losing the most money no matter how they lose it. Therefore, it is becoming more and more imperative every day to be a versatile poker player. Much like the days pre-boom when game selection and bankroll management were extremely important, those days are returning and the ability to sit in the most profitable spot day in and out is becoming essential.

There’s going to come a time when no-limit hold’em will become obsolete, just like limit hold’em. It may take a long time due to media influence, but the days when no-limit games are often tough and/or unprofitable are upon us. Most of us have played more hands of no-limit hold’em than any other game, but if there is a different game in the room that’s better than we should be sitting in that game. The problem comes when you’re learning the game along with everybody else. Open-face Chinese poker exploded on the poker scene recently. In those first six months through the 2012 WSOP, anybody who knew the game was rewarded with free money while everybody else caught up.

Study games you don’t know and learn everything you can about them. Then, spend time acquiring experience in that game. If your no-limit game is no good, but you’ve been reading about Omaha eight-or-better (O/8) for a while, then take a seat in that $10-$20 O/8 game and spend your session there. Do whatever it is you have to do to be able to play in the best game in the room at any given time, and do your best to anticipate what that game will be in a year so you’re ready for it.

It’s a shame that online poker isn’t around really anymore in the States, because this process used to be easy. Learn a new game every month, get 5,000 hands under the belt, good to go. Now it’s a much harder process, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it’s hard for you to get information then it’s harder for them. Still use internet tools like the forums and training videos to establish your foundation. Have somebody to talk to about the game that’s better than you. Then play whenever the opportunity arises. Maybe start a home game with a bunch of friends and learn the game together. Learn games like pot-limit Omaha, pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better, seven-card stud, stud eight-or-better, open face, and all the goofy draw games, deuce, badugi, badeucey, and badacey. They’re fun, people are bad at them, and any one of them could be the next most common game you see in the poker room. Choose your games and opponents wisely, and know the games before anybody else does. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade and has more than $2 million in tournament earnings. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.