The card room I have called home at since I have began playing live has decided to put a cap on the 2-5 NL game of $1000. This will take effect as of today. I am a little bummed about this because 2-5 is the largest game this room runs on a consistent basis although around once a month we will have a good 5-5 Rock game which will remain uncapped.

I have noticed over the past few months that the player pool has shrunk considerably and we are in serious need of some new faces however I feel like my hourly may take a hit as a result of the cap. I know that the capped game should bring in some 1-3 players that are taking shots that normally wouldn't sit down with 8 of the players on a 10 handed 2-5 table having over 3k in front of them.

Does anyone have any experience with anything of this sort? What should the expectations of this game be with a cap compared to no cap? The 2-5 is essentially a 2-5-10 game as we all usually agree to a mandatory straddle, which I am fine with playing 3k deep but not exactly sure I will want to do that anymore with a 1k stack.

Anyone have any good tips as how to adjust from a much larger game to what has become a much smaller game? I have talked to a good bit of the player pool and suggested we start playing 5-10 but this doesn't seem to be a great idea because I feel like we would lose even more of our already thinning player pool.

The max buy-in obviously impacts win rates significantly. I've played in rooms where whales could buy in for any amount they wanted up to the size of the biggest stack, making the games huge and juicy. Realistic win rates were much higher than with a normal 100 big or 200 big cap, but it never lasts as the fish go broke more quickly. Casinos don't want juicy games for a couple years and then a ghost town. They want steady rake.

For your 2/5 1k max game, shot takers from 1/3 are likely to play snug, will usually want to buy in for no more than $500, and will probably not be interested in straddling to $10, as they're already playing higher than normal.

Depending on your skill level compared to the other regs currently playing in your 2/5/10 uncapped game, you'll probably want to just move it to 5/10 if you're the best player, keeping the pots bigger. If you feel you have little/no edge if the game is reg infested, dropping to 2/5 with the 1k cap to attract new blood is literally your only option.

Adjustments? I'd imagine you can figure that out if you're a winner at those stakes already. SPR obviously matters a ton when deciding on which lines to take.

I think most rooms have a cap for 2-5, some even as low as $800, so I can understand the shrinking player pool especially if there are some pretty good players involved. How many tables are running? Typically stacks can still get pretty deep at a main game but maybe just not as fast.

Play could go either way ... shorter stacks may fold to 3/4-Bet pressure more often since their GII ranges will be much smaller than lower stakes. So a player who has multiple bullets may take down more pots PF by applying pressure. Of course the flip side of that is that your BI is capped if you lose a flip or two. Same can be said for Flop play, as indicated above SPR issues pop up pretty quickly in even just raised pots if you go 3-4 ways to the Flop.

The main issue I see when a game is trying to sustain itself and/or grow is that the regs 'play hard' with the newbies and scare them back down. There is a 1/3 'match the stack' PLO game in our area that struggles to grow simply because a reg can lose 3 pots in a row and then felt the 'lucky' newbie in the 4th hand and send them packing in a pretty sour mood. Don't let the 1/3 fool you, there can be as much as $40k on the main table within 3-4 hours some nights.

I think you will find that sessions are shorter as well since getting felted just sucks compared to playing deeper and losing a decent hand that see 3 streets of betting. GL

Lower hourly might still be way better than no game at all. Sounds like they are trying to find a way to save it.

Just based on my personal experience over the last couple of years, lots of smaller card rooms had their regular 2/5 game moved to Friday and/or Saturday only and some of them eventually stopped offering anything above 1/3 except for special occasions. Keep your fingers crossed that the cap will help the game survive at least in the short/mid-term.

This sounds like the opposite of what you should do. To protect the player pool, you may need to consider dropping the mandatory straddle, even if it impacts your win rate, for exactly the reason cited by madlex. Let it be something you add to the game later in the night, when you are left short-handed with the hardcore players, some of whom want to up the stakes because they are stuck.

You are basically going to have to tighten up preflop. You have less money behind, so less opportunity to be creative. You should float less. You may have to bluff less because players are more willing to bluff-catch because they are risking less. I don't have much sympathy for players who can't make these sorts of adjustments. Your opponents are going to have to make the same adjustment, so part of your adjustment involves exploiting the action junkies who don't change their game. Do you know how you would adjust to aggressive players who play as if there is an invisible ante?

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm not super concerned with my ability to handle the change in strategy due to the cap but I will admit i will need to make some adjustments as I am used to playing min 400bb deep. We have the circuit coming to town in a few weeks so I will be able to play higher everyday for a couple weeks. I'm properly rolled to play higher than 2-5, but then again I may not depending on the players in the higher games. I have no interest in battling a table full of players as good or better than me. I brought up the 1-3 shot takers to the other regs and they said basically the same things as you all have, that they will buy in for $200 and play super tight and in all likelihood hit and run if given the chance. I guess time will tell.

No cap = thinning player pool.

Like madlex said, it's better to have a cap than to lose the game. The losing players can only sustain loses at this game for so long. With a cap they will be able to hang longer. Without the cap they will give up and never be back. You will have only the winning players left and when you all realize that is the case, the winning players will decide to go somewhere else.

Its not just that they lose their money and quit .... Its that it can be harder to bring in new players who believe that the cap protects them..... I noticed this long ago ... I think part of it is that many new players first experience with NL poker is a tournament so they feel that players with a bigger stack have an advantage (of course the cap actually allows players to have larger stacks even if you wish to buy in for more -- but many new players think in terms of smaller buyins)

If you want to be friendlier to new players, make sure the min buy-in is $200.

I checked with the floor. Min buy in will be $200

I went from a 200-500 buy-in to a 200-1000 buy in for my 2/5 game. I couldn't imagine having no cap. If they want to play that deep they should be playing 5/10NL.

To be fair, the cap does protect them in a sense that the pros can't just top off to their stack size, putting their whole stack at risk at all times even after a huge double-up.

As for new players fearing playing because the opponents have stacks that are just enormous, at least in the games I see, when a table ends up with giant deep stacks, yes someone can still buy in for the $200, but as the night goes on and the stacks get deeper, the open raises have probably gotten bigger too. Obviously you and I know how to take advantage and play accordingly if we're buying in with a short stack, but not everyone does and it makes it hard for them to "play poker". It's less about them being pushed around and more about how the game's bet sizes naturally evolve as stack sizes increase.

From someone on the other side of the equation

I was at the Borgata last month. This was my second time there. I went there to play 10/20 LHE (a similar stakes LHE is rarely spread anywhere else) and 2/5 NLHE because the maximum buy in was only $500. 2/5 is a step up for me, and I thought it would be best to play it with a smaller max buy in. Except that a couple months before my trip, they raised the max from $500-$1000. I didn't realize this until I saw most of the players at my brand new table bought in for considerable more than $500. I played anyway with $500, and in 2 1/2 hours managed to get myself felted, rebuy $500 more, slowly build it back a little, and win a big hand to get it all back, plus a little over $100. With over $1100 in front of me, I looked around and saw almost everyone had me at least close to covered. This psyched me out so I cashed out, and the rest of my trip played limit when the 10/20 game was running, and 1/2 when it wasn't.

I realize the numbers are not the same as your situation, but the point is the same. There are players like me, who want to take a shot at 2/5, but were psyched out by it being uncapped, so they didn't play that game. Now that there is a cap, some of these players will now be willing to take their shot.

I'm hoping that this is the case for our game also. Thanks for your prospective and good luck to you on the felt.