Stirring Up an Old Debate

Several months ago, I wrote a column called "Disagreeing With T.J." In that column, I analyzed two situations as described in the Cloutier/McEvoy books Championship Hold'em and Championship Omaha, and discussed what other – perhaps better – possibilities existed, other than the ones T.J. gave. The moral of the story was: Even if you are reading strategy advice that's coming from one of the biggest names in poker, one of the most successful pros on the circuit, you should never take anything for granted, but stay critical and analytical at all times. Even though I expected my column to stir up quite a controversy (after all, who am I to disagree with a proven champion like T.J.), it didn't happen. Most people understood that disagreeing with someone's advice is not the same as having no respect for them or their accomplishments, and that being exposed to alternative opinions can be healthy and a great help in improving one's game.

This brings me to today's topic: the ongoing debate about the skill level in limit, pot-limit, and no-limit poker. Recently, quite a few people have argued that even though no-limit hold'em (NLH) is considered the Cadillac of poker games, it might not be the most skillful game of all. Since one cannot always go all in before the flop in pot-limit hold'em (PLH), as is possible in NLH, they claim that PLH is in fact a more skillful game than NLH, because you have to make difficult decisions on all streets, rather than just before and/or on the flop.

While I think these people might actually have a point, I also think their reasoning applies mostly to tournament play, where people often have smaller stacks in relation to the blinds, and where one mistake or one unlucky beat may be enough to bust you out. If you are holding pocket queens in a NLH cash game and are facing a large all-in bet from someone who you know holds A-K, you would gladly call (being a small odds-on favorite over the A-K), while in tournament play, it might not be worth it to get involved in such a high-risk situation, because if you get unlucky, you are out of the tournament. Also, in NLH cash play, most people have larger stacks in relation to the blinds than they do in tournaments, and therefore the all-in-before-the-flop strategy is not of that much use here. While picking up the blinds may be a reasonable goal in tournament play, in cash play you can pick up the blinds five times in a row and still have not added that much to your stack. So, all in all, I would say that in live-action play, both pot-limit hold'em and no-limit hold'em are extremely skillful games, in which the edge good players have over weak players is huge. It is for this reason, as Mason Malmuth has claimed in some of his excellent works, that these types of money games will never last long and will almost certainly die out. After all, when the better players almost always win and the weaker players almost always lose, there won't be much of a game in the long run, will there? I agree with this reasoning, and even though I am known for my big-bet play, I don't get many chances to play in PLH or NLH cash games, precisely because of the reasons Malmuth gives. Over the past few years, I have played mostly pot-limit Omaha (high only), in which experts sometimes get creamed while even the weakest players can experience huge wins, meaning that these games will tend to thrive in the long run.

But now let's get back to the debate. Even though most people would agree that there is more skill to no-limit hold'em than to limit hold'em, it was once again Malmuth who claimed that this did not mean limit hold'em is automatically inferior to no-limit. In his book Poker Essays, he actually called limit hold'em much more "complicated" and "complex" than no-limit hold'em. Even though he agrees that the skill edge good players have over weak players is not as big in limit as it is in no-limit, because of the small size of the bet in relation to the size of the pot, your best move is not always as clear and obvious as it is in no-limit, where you can simply bet enough to protect your hand. He wrote (Poker Essays, "Limit Versus No-Limit Hold'em," pp. 85-86):

One of the things I've been told is that there is poker and there is no-limit poker. "The great players play no-limit." "It is a game of heart, mind, and courage." "You do more thinking in one hour of no-limit than in 24 hours of limit." "You are not a real poker player unless you play no-limit."

Is this really true? Should you be ashamed of yourself if you are just a limit player? Are you intellectually inferior if you don't push all of your chips into the pot at one time? Needless to say, I don't think so.

Taking a simple example from Texas Hold'em, let's compare limit with no-limit play. Suppose in a multiway pot you flop top pair; it is a pair of jacks, and you are in an early position. How should you play this hand?

In Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players, which I co-wrote with David Sklansky, and which was written for limit play, we point out that this is a tough situation. Specifically, in today's modern structure, the bet on the flop in limit hold'em is often not large enough when compared to the size of the pot to make it correct for drawing hands – including holdings such as bottom pair – to throw their cards away. On the other hand, if you try for a check-raise, hoping to reduce the field to a small number of players, and no one bets, the free card you have given may easily cost you the pot. In reality, the situation is usually much more complicated than what I have described. You also must consider the size of the pot, the texture of the flop, the number of players you are against, their playing characteristics, your kicker, whether the pot was raised preflop and its implications, and a whole lot more. Given these factors, it doesn't seem that limit poker is an easy game; in fact, it is not an easy game to play at the expert level. No wonder some of the old-timers complain that in limit hold'em you cannot protect your hand.

Now, suppose you are playing no-limit hold'em. The same situation would be quite easy. You would simply bet enough, perhaps about the size of the pot, to make it incorrect for a drawing hand to call. If someone does play, he is either making a mistake or you are in trouble. It is as simple as that, and bad players do make a lot of costly errors in no-limit hold'em.

These remarks provoked quite a controversy, with some successful big-bet players disagreeing completely – one actually called Malmuth's piece "rubbish" – and in general questioning why good players would want to play limit, anyway: After all, big-bet poker is where the real money is. Being somewhat in the middle here (coming from a limit hold'em background, having stepped up to big-bet play, but still liking limit as much as when I first started), I can understand both viewpoints. Limit players would claim that limit poker is more complicated, as they have more decisions to make, while big-bet players would claim that even though this may be the case, their decisions are much more meaningful, because one single mistake may cost you your entire stack, rather than just a single bet.

To tell you the truth, I actually like Malmuth's viewpoint, even though I think he takes things too far when he claims, "No-limit was too easy to play well … " (Page 86) and " … no-limit hold'em is not that difficult to play" (Page 90). When he says things like this, I believe he is way off base, because playing at an expert level is difficult in any form of poker. If it were that easy to play NLH well, he probably would have focused his attention on that game himself (after all, good big-bet players make a lot more money than most high-limit players), rather than grind things out in the Vegas middle-limit hold'em games. Still, all of this doesn't take away the fact that limit hold'em also is hard to master, and that it is far from easy to become more than only a marginal winner when playing for stakes that matter; the same as it is in pot- and no-limit play.

In the pair of jacks example hand, Malmuth makes it seem that there's an obvious best way to play that hand in no-limit. I disagree. While playing the hand in the manner described here will almost certainly win you the pot if there are no better hands than yours out there, you will win just a little if this is the case, but you will lose a lot when there is a better hand than yours out there. (Plus, what do you do with your mere top pair when your big bet gets called. How do you play from there on the turn, and what do you do when someone plays back at you. Are you willing to risk your entire stack with just a pair of jacks, or are you going to fold against a big bet that for all you know may very well be a bluff. So much for those who claim that no-limit hold'em is "not that difficult to play.") This is not the optimum way to maximize your expectation, which should be the core of any man's game, whether it's no-limit, pot-limit, or limit. What can be concluded from all of this is that while it is hard for someone to become an expert in one area of poker, it is even harder to become an expert in different areas (that is, limit and no-limit poker). Therefore, in my opinion, it doesn't make much sense to make comparisons between entirely different disciplines in the form of "A is better than B," especially if one doesn't excel at both games. Or, as a friend of mine always says: "Just because things are different doesn't mean they are better or worse. Oranges are not the only fruit."

I hope Mason Malmuth doesn't take this column as a "stab," because it's not. I've got tons of respect for what he has accomplished, and I am the first to recommend all of the great works he and David Sklansky have produced over the years. In fact, even though my poker results over the past few years have been better than I ever imagined possible, I am certain there is still a lot left for me to learn from all of the great player-writers. But, as I wrote in my column on T.J., stay critical and analytical at all times. By doing so, you will get the most out of someone's advice and will think on a deeper level than most of your opponents, which in turn will help you to lift your game to a higher level.