In terms of swings, which has more? I'm currently ~475BBs under EV through 10k hands at cap NL, and am wondering whether this is pretty standard or not. I play strictly cap NL (~300k lifetime hands) and have never experienced a run this bad.

Of course it reduces your variance, there's no other answer. If you had run that badly without playing cap then you would have experienced much worse of a downswing. Playing cap means you're willing to accept that you can't win as much with the trade-off that you can't lose as much. Maybe you should play some freerolls to see how you're running for the day before deciding on cap or true NL?

much more variance in cap. i dont know enough to give figures though.

So the cap makes people looser?

They play looser, but not because it's right, they just do.

The cap makes all the money get in before all the cards are out much more often, so you are very commonly all in on flips or with 35-65% equity. In 100BB games, when the money goes all in, it is more commonly on the turn or river where the person who is ahead is a much bigger favorite. So, yes, I hypothesize that there is way more variance in cap NL.

You're saying there's more variance in cap because the players there are incompetent? So there's more variance there for the same reason there's high variance ( in low amounts) at micro stakes?

Please remove the ambiguity from the first part of your response. I want to know WHY they think it's right. Jack, do you know the answer? Do they expect that they will maintain that image wherever they go and that people will assume they play the same way without cap? Do people go there to tilt? ( I know that isn't the answer) I just don't really know why people play so differently at a cap game.

when u get in before the river you are typically going to have between 50-80% equity. that creates a ton of variance essentially. think of how much variance there is in sngs

I never played Cap games but I can see Jack's point. For people that have never played Cap think about how much more often you would be "all-in" when the max you can get bet in a hand is 30 bb's. The more often you are all-in, the more variance there will be.

I don't know about opponents being looser but I'd think at some point in a hand there isn't enough fold equity for opponents to fold out draws as they are getting close to the right calling odds.

i thought cap was, you just can't bet more than the pot. so if someone raises 3x, and someone 3 bets him, u can't shove, u can do a large 4 bet than get it in on the 5th? or something to that effect

no, thats called pot limit.

Oh, I think I get it Jack. But let's take the situations where there isn't a cap, you could still get it in with 50%-80% equity in the same situations right? You'd also have better fold equity, making that equity go up, right? If everything is the same, just minus the cap, shouldn't the swings be bigger since your essentially playing with a bigger cap? From what I could gather, a cap game is basically a game where everyone agrees to play short-stacked each hand and the people playing have to reload less.

when you are full stacked you get all in less often, which decreases the luck element because you can get away from hands when scare cards come etc.

in short stacked games, you cant get away from hands as easily just because there is less money behind and you are forced to make committing decisions earlier in a hand.

e.g. if u have AsAc, raise, get a caller, and flop comes 4h6h8d.. if the pot is $10 and u both have $1mil behind, you arent calling if he open jams the flop. however if u both have $10 behind, then you would call because what you risk relative to what you win ($10 to win $20) is a lot more favourable and u dont have to win as often to justify your risk.

But now you're just bringing in bankroll management. I said that the variance would be greater, so in theory it is the exact same thing right? If you're good your graph would have a line of best fit with a positive slop still. I remember hearing David Sklansky bring up flipping a coin when the guy is offering you 2100 for tails and you give him 2000 for heads. When in practice if Bill Gates decided to take this and the guy flipped a million times he'd likely owe Bill Gates 50 million dollars (plus or minus a hefty amount). So in truth, people play cap games to not have to give up the small edges in their games and to get it in when they have the best of it without risking 10k ( like getting 5 heads in a row). What do you think Jack?

I'd figure the variance is less, as you have more all-ins, thus one single all-in doesn't devastate you. I figure the monetary variance in NL would be greater, as you are usually playing for 150+BB pots, whereas in cap NL, the pots aren't usually much more than 75BB.

I think the defining factor would be what percentage of all of the hands dealt get all-in (cap NL vs NL). If there is a significant more all-ins (>5x) at cap NL then I could definitely see the variance being greater, even though you are only ever playing for 30BB.

I think what Jack is getting at is pot commitment.

Whilst you might have a 100BB stack, if there's a 30BB cap, you're effectively playing with a 30BB stack. This changes the risk/reward ratio, and it's much easier to get all-in because you easily become pot committed. When deep stacked, this plays differently.

Compare playing for a 20BB pot with 20BB behind to playing for a 20BB pot with 90BB behind.

Thus, with a cap, players have a greater tendency to get all-in earlier (flop) with less equity than at pure NL, where they're more likely to get all-in later(turn/river) with greater equity. Eg getting all in on a 9-out draw vs getting all in when your draw hits.

I would have to agree. Players at cap NL often get AQo+/AJs+/TT+ AIPF, which is contrary to pure NL, where it is usually QQ+ (maybe AKo+) for most players.

I see a ton of 80/20s (e.g. KK vs JJ), 70/30s (KK vs AK) and flips (QQ vs AK) pre-flop. On the flop, it is usually sets vs overpairs/TP or 60/40s.

Yea I get it. Players get it in early when it's 60/40 or whatever in cap where as with deep stacks they just call a bet to see a turn and then they usually won't get it in because that 60/40 becomes 80/20 and the people don't get it in and someone wins the extra bet, where in cap that 40 may very well suck out by the river, giving more variance. Thanks for helping me.

Jack I'm sorry for saying you were " just bringing in bankroll management. That was uncalled for and I should have thought longer about what you said.

Has anyone else who plays cap NL run this bad over? Post graphs please.

i think u totally misintepreted what i was saying lol...

basically, ok say we have 1mil bb stacks ($ seems to confuse u). if pot is 10bb and i flop a flush draw and 1st to act... im not going to shove am i? because that is clearly a ******ed play because when i get him to fold i only win 10bb, but when he calls he pretty much will have me crushed and i risk 1mil bb with bad equity... i need him to fold a hell of a lot to show a profit based on how much i lose when he calls.

however if i had 10bb behind, and pot is 10bb, then suddenly shipping my flush draw becomes the best play if im 1st to act because when he folds i double my stack, and when he calls im generally gonna have 30% of something vs his range. id hope its quite clear that i dont need him to fold v.often to show a profit here.

from the flip side, if someone ships 1mil bb into a 10bb pot, i have to call 1mil bb to win 1.000010bb - i need pretty much 50% equity to call.

if someone ships 10bb into the 10bb pot, i have to call 10bb into a 20bb pot and only need 33% equity to call.

so the point is... with shallow stacks its correct to get it all in with weaker hands often based on a) the fact you can capitalise on fold equity if you can make you're the aggressor, and b) the fact that you have good pot odds to get it in with weak made hands, especially if you know your opponent is trying to maximise fold equity and is therefore shipping draws etc.

in the end, u just get a load of people shipping in top pair vs a draw on a ton of flops where they are getting it in with like 65/35 and therefore its possible to just run bad for ages by losing a bunch of them.

i over simplified it quite a lot, but thats basically the jist of cap afaik.

meh just saw the posts above and realised what i typed up was a long winded duplicate post lol... took me like 10 mins to write though so im not deleting it

lol. We still appreciate it Jack you're one of the few that puts in some really quality stuff in the Beginner's Forum.

Ironically, the vast majority of the players (fish) at cap have no clue about fold equity. Most of them can't count past twelve without consulting a mathematician.

The reason cap has more variance than NL is the same reason why you have more variance in Limit holdem: You have less power to protect your hand. People are more willing to call all ins in capped games than they are in NL games.