I love playing $4/$8 Limit, i always have a great time but i do not win as much as playing $1/$2 NL, in fact i am down 3k playing $4/$8 Limit this year whereas I am up 1.5k playing $1/$2 NL. I do not enjoy NL at all, i feel like i am caged and can not get out, i am depressed and bored when playing NL even though i win.

I do not know what to do.
money or enjoyment

You have to ask this question?

So you are a recreational player... so play for the enjoyment

I'm sure in time you will start to make money/break even - and your hobby will be even more fun

4/8 is often unbeatable due to disproportionately high rake. But if you play well you can usually break even, which is fine for recreation.

I pick money. OTOH, maybe you're rich and can afford the losses and be happy, IDK. Or maybe you can move up stakes in LHE if there's a game spread. I do sympathize, tho, can hardly bear the pace of NL.

Learn to play Limit better?

Do you like to gamble it up a bit too much?

You figure it can't hurt that much in Limit (but it does, only in small chunks compared to NL) but you know you can't do that in NL?

And this is why it's more fun...

If he learns to play better limit poker then it won't be fun either.

Which is why the OP needs to look into Gamblers Anonymous. If playing winning poker makes you depressed and feeling caged, it is a bad sign. Almost certainly it is due to having to fold a lot of hands in NL where he can sustain the buzz from seeing the next card cheaply in limit.

Trick question?

Uhhh, stop playing NL. Why are you doing things that make you depressed and bored? You aren't making enough for it to be a 'job', where at least some of us have to do things that make us depressed and bored (the royal us).

Its still fun as long as everyone is playing poorly, you play better (presumably tighter). Enjoy the freak show on the hands you fold. Really have to accept the variance in FL.

Agree with the move up if possible (if you can break-even at 4/8). Sorry if you are in a room where there is 4/8 and nothing until 20/40 or the like.

this seems like a reasonable concern.

He needs to go to Gambles Anonymous because he enjoys a version of poker that he hasn't seen successful results more than one where he's been more successful. WTF?

As far as OP's question, if you are only playing it because it makes you money, and it doesn't bring you any enjoyment, it's basically a job. Would you take a job that pays you your win rate? Obviously not exactly the same, there are factors unique to poker, good and bad, such is extreme variance in your earnings and setting your own hours. If the answer is no, you probably should spend your time doing something you enjoy.

One caveat is that it is still poker, you might learn to like no limit. For the longest time I hated no limit poker, but eventually I had a hard enough time finding a limit game to play in, so I realized, if I wanted to play, no limit was the way to go. So I studied to get better at it, and just learned to not let the things I didn't like about it (such as other players tanking and hollywooding, and most of all how one big band can affect your session so much, good or bad, even if the player that got their money in bad wins) bother me.

Lack of LHE action doesn't seem to be a problem for you. The problem is that you are losing. The question is can you justify the money you lose as an entertainment expense? After all, I assume you lose money participating in all your other hobbies. If, however you don't want to keep losing money you have two choices. They are either stop playing or get better. If you want to keep playing, maybe read or review a small stakes LHE book. I completely attribute whatever success I may have had in NLHE to NLHE Theory and Practice, by Sklansky, Miller, etc.

Is $3k per year within your entertainment budget and not hurting your ability to pay bills and contribute to savings/retirement? Then keep having fun and look at it for what it is - gambling with a somewhat slow and predictable loss rate.

You don't say how many hours you played either game. You may have just been running really good at one or bad at the other. There's no guarantee you will keep your 1/2nl win rate especially if you hate doing it.

Moving up stakes may just mean you'll lose faster. High rake % will only do so much. You're probably also playing too many hands and chasing because it's fun.

$4/$8 can be fun, but it seems like a bad plan once you know the game is unbeatable long term. I have to be having a LOT more fun to be able to continue playing a game I cannot beat.

Now that I think about it, this pretty much covers all gambling other than reasonable high stakes poker. Hah.

First, do what you love. And then figure out a way to make money from it. But, no one said it was going to be easy so you're going to have to do some serious retraining to better your limit Holdem skills. Once you do that, you'll be able to move up in limits and you won't have to worry about whether the game is beatable or not due to the rake.

Gl

Funny, that's how I feel when I play limit.....

This. LHE and NLHE are radically different games strategy-wise

If you think it's the rake that is beating you at $4/$8 limit, why not move up? The bankroll requirements for $1/$2 NL (20 buy-ins) are similar to those required for $5/$10 or $6/$12 limit (300-450 big bets).

Not a whole lot of places have a good LHE ladder.

Some rooms in MN CA AZ? Las Vegas jumps to 10/20 or higher as does the east coast??

Spoiled "growing up" at Canterbury Park.

Yeah, not many places like Canterbury exist. It's in a state that doesn't allow NL so it works great for them to spread all the different LHE levels.