I was watching the livestream of the 5k Players Championship from the WSOP (you can watch the archived streams at wsop.com) and the guest announcers, who are high-limit players, were talking about how limit games are making a comeback. Players are finally tiring of no-limit hold’em (NL) and are branching off into the limit and mixed game arena. NL has always been the game of the WSOP Main Event, but beyond that, prior to 2003, NL was rarely spread in cash games and was not nearly as dominant in tournaments as it has been since 2003. The first 20 years of my career were spent playing primarily limit games and this is a trend I’ve waited patiently for ever since the poker explosion of 2003.
Limit events require different skills than NL’s. At the start of both it’s pretty much like a cash game, although some players choose to establish a table image, either tight or loose, at the early levels that they can exploit at later levels when it means more. Once it gets to the later stages, NL events often become a contest of push/fold preflop strategies, and the players who win the most races usually final table or win. This is the weakness Lee Nelson and I wrote about in Kill Phil. If we we able to delineate a strategy that would allow even the rankest beginner to have a realistic shot in a NL tournament, there’s something fundamentally wrong with the structure. Our solution was to structure it pot-limit pre-flop, or even limit, and no-limit post flop, where the skill level is more of a factor. But, NL events are entrenched as they are, and change to NL structures will come slowly.
Limit tournaments, on the other hand, become much more strategic at later stages as the average number of big bets shrinks and every bet is important. I can’t imagine a simple strategy where a beginner could prosper in limit events. And mixed game events require the most rounded skills of all!
There’s another reason I like non-NL events. They’re much more fun! The occasional isolated NL event is fine, but when part of a tournament with a long series of events, like the WSOP, the limit events are a needed breath of fresh air. The games are interesting, players talk more and it’s often an enjoyable experience.
One the other hand, NL events basically suck! Sunglasses and hoodies are everywhere, few players talk or joke; there’s the stalling, staring and Hollywooding. NL events are long and very stressful (try constantly 3-betting light or making big bluffs for three long days and your stress levels will sky rocket). When I get done with a limit or mixed event, win or lose I’ve usually had a pretty good time. When I finish a NL event, I feel like I’ve been through a war!
I really hope the trend away from NL continues, both in tournaments and cash games, until we reach a balance similar to what we had prior to 2003. I think it will be better for everybody in poker.
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Good article. NLHE seems to be the main flavor of poker out there no doubt. At this poker club I play at on occasion I tried to get the guy who runs the games to put on a PLO game one evening since the only poker games they run are NLHE. He declined to where the players suffer. Playing NLHE all the time gets boring.
They have a poker venue coming into town next week and the only games their putting on for the players in the tourney are ALL NLHE games. Every single game is No-Limit, it’s like the people putting on this event are really not challenging the players enough by only running NLHE games. The good thing about this venue coming into town is that the cash games will be going strong with limit games being offered and PLO games available besides NLHE.
Mason Malmuth says that even limit tournaments resemble no-limit in the final rounds when limits are high. Perhaps the point is that early stages of no-limit tournaments waste time with trivial limits and tight play, and the outcome is then determined by a few all-in confrontations at the end. It is like a long 0-0 soccer game that is decided by penalty kicks. We want a structure that is strategically interesting throughout.