Internet No-Limit Hold'em

When Internet poker first arrived, it was all limit play for several years. This has changed radically in the past year. The number one reason for this is the success of the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. I know plenty of people who like to watch these tournament events who are scarcely poker players at all. Wherever I go, Travel Channel poker often arises in the conversation – and I usually am not the subject's initiator. People love to watch these telecasts. The World Series victory of Internet poker player Chris Moneymaker has also helped poker a lot.

To give you an idea of how much times have changed, I would like to compare the book sales of my Middle Limit Holdem Poker with my Pot-limit and No-limit Poker. MLHP is the newer book, coming out in January of 2002, whereas PL came out initially in 1997. It is only normal that the newer book sells better, so it went as expected in relative sales of the two books last year. This year is a totally different story, as the PL book has actually had slightly better sales than MLHP. I am sure this is mainly due to the big interest these days in no-limit hold'em, even though my PL book covers many poker forms.

You may be thinking, "Aha, this is mainly due to the fascination in tournament no-limit hold'em, like the big boys are playing." This is partly true, but the fact is that no-limit money games are booming, as well. As I wrote this column, late in a September afternoon, I checked out a popular Internet poker site to see what money games it was spreading. At $1-$2 limit hold'em, there were 14 games going. At the same time, for $1-$2 blind no-limit hold'em, there were 12 games going. Some other higher- and lower-stakes tables showed about the same relative ratios between limit and no-limit. Limit hold'em was more popular, but not by much of a margin.

I am not one to extrapolate trends too far out from the present, but it certainly would not be surprising to see no-limit hold'em eventually exceed limit hold'em in popularity among Internet players. (I do not see this happening in American brick-and-mortar cardrooms, for a number of reasons.) It is my opinion (more like a guess) that lots of Internet NLH players can easily afford the stakes they are playing for. I am sure many of them gain and lose far greater sums on the stocks they own. They are no strangers to gambling, but many are simply new to poker. I would think almost everyone can see there is much more excitement for such a person at no-limit than limit poker.

There is also a cultural factor at work on the Internet: the foreign influence. Europeans have a strong predilection for pot-limit and no-limit play. I am sure this preference is carried over to other places around the world, like Asia and South America, as well. As more of those places accumulate money and get Internet access, the increasing likelihood is that limit poker will be mainly an American game. I am not prepared to say that no-limit hold'em will become a popular game in brick-and-mortar cardrooms in America, but I will predict that the Internet will favor the game over limit hold'em for money games in two to three years, as judged by the number of tables in action. And don't think that no-limit players are going to switch back to limit play later on. That would be like going back to holding hands after having a torrid love affair.

I think a big obstacle in the past to the spread of no-limit hold'em has been the large sums of money that the game has usually been played for. A regular poker room would never consider spreading a 50 cent-$1 blind game, as is done on the Internet. Such a game could not be raked enough to make it worthwhile. One of the virtues of Internet poker is that these small games can be put down at virtually no extra cost to the house. (There is no dealer, no increased security, and no use of floor space.) In this way, poker is now reaching out to nearly everyone in terms of affordability. No longer does a newcomer have to pay a fortune in order to learn a poker form. He can learn in a cheap game and move up when he is ready.

I have been playing some no-limit hold'em lately on the Internet at $1-$2 and $2-$4 blinds. Each game seems to have its own character, but none of them are remotely like the no-limit games I cut my teeth on in Dallas during the early '80s. In one Internet game, nobody ever made a preflop raise. If I raised, no one reraised, not even with pocket queens. In some games, lots of people stay for the flop; other games are comparatively tight. In no game did I see more than a couple of players betting enough to protect their hand properly. Internet players are long on deception and short on technique. You have to be careful about reaching out with bets to pick up pots against them, because there is a lot of slow-playing, and a lot of calling.

Of course, the play is poor because so many Internet people are recent discoverers of poker, and brand-new to no-limit hold'em. Also, there is not much decent advice available on the game (a situation I will be attempting to remedy soon). For example, in an online poker school, I heard a teaching tape on no-limit hold'em whose main point was that the proper size bet in many situations is less than the size of the pot, and not the full size of the pot. Even though this statement is true, it is not likely to improve the play of a group of people whose number one failing is betting enough to protect their hand.

Online, they do not bet enough, and they also do not raise a sufficient amount. Raising in no-limit allows an opponent to come over the top for his whole stack, if he wishes. You have to weigh the benefit of getting a little more money into the pot against the possibility of getting driven out by a big reraise. Yes, you sometimes see wimpy-looking raises from someone who is trying to lay a trap, but you see them much more often from someone who has only a moderate hand and has no business reopening the gates.

For those of you who are already good limit players and want to learn how to play no-limit, this is a great time to add that new knowledge by playing on the Internet. Think of it as on-the-job training, where you get paid to learn. You will also see that playing no-limit makes the game a lot more fun.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's latest book, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, co-authored with Jim Brier, is available (332 pages, $25 plus $6 shipping and handling). This work and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered through Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected] or call (989) 792-0884. His website is www.diamondcs.net/~thecoach, where you can download Robert's Rules of Poker for free.