Poker rooms started capping NL games because they thought it would attract more players. Notice that almost all of them have both a max & a min - they give players the choice. And quite a few players buy in for the minimum or far less than the maximum.

I absolutely understand that a huge stack has no advantage over a small stack in a cash game. BUT MANY CASUAL PLAYERS DON'T. When a casual player sits into a game, he doesn't want to see a bunch of $1,000+ stacks in a $1-2 NL game.

The sole purpose of the rule is to keep from intimidating players who don't want to play deep. These players may not play at all if the game is uncapped.

On the flip side - uncapped games have a similar purpose. The room is trying to offer something different to attract players.

These are the same casual players that refer to someone with a deep chip stack at a cash game as the "chip leader."

When they sit down and mention this, I only have one reaction:

Some history for you folks....

Ten years or more ago, there were very, very few NLHE cash games. In the Bay Area there was the game that bounced between the Palace in Hayward, Artichoke Joe's in San Bruno, and a couple of more obscure joints in South San Francisco and Hayward. Lucky Chances started up, started a big game, and soaked up all this action. There was a game that went on weekends at the El Dorado in Reno. Some big NLHE games would go during big tournament series, like the WSOP, and vanish when the tournament was over.

Occasionally, at specialty events like BARGE at Binion's or its smaller cousins at other venues, so-called "baby no-limit" games would be spread, $1 and $2 blinds, with a $100 buy-in cap. These were for the rec.gambling.poker crowd who wanted to play poker just like the big boys.

The conventional wisdom among poker room managers was Mason Malmuth's: big-bet poker was bad for business, because it cleaned out the bad players too fast. Limit poker was much better, because it took much longer for the bad players to meet their day of reckoning, and in the meanwhile money would be wagered again and again and again, with more of it going down the slot.

Then online poker came along. Sites like Planet Poker, Paradise Poker, and Poker Stars began running multitable NLHE tournaments. And not long after that they started spreading NLHE cash games to go with their tournament offerings. These cash games had the 100-big-blind buy-in caps that are now the de facto industry standard. And online poker began to take off.

And soon after, Chris Moneymaker won his WSOP main event championship, and that got the boom going. All over the country new players were pouring into poker rooms, and they wanted to play no-limit hold'em. A few of them were Internet-experienced, and wanted to play it like they knew how to play, with a capped buy-in.

And the cardroom managers responded, starting capped-buy-in no-limit hold'em games. They caught on like wildfire. Many people, myself included, wondered whether the buy-in caps were sufficient to protect the bad players' money, whether these games were sustainable over the long haul. It turns out that they are.

Those of us who learned to play NLHE in the old days find capped games awkward and uncomfortable: we can't open up our games and really start playing until we've doubled our stacks a couple of times. When a raise and a reraise costs 10% of our stack, something like a quarter to a half of our stack is going in on the flop, and we're pot-committed. I had to learn to play all over again, because it's a different game.

Best answer I have seen it benefits the house.

I've never heard the "chip leader" line; I think I'll use it the next time I sit down.
The sole reason for cap is long term benefit for the house, mostly rake but also providing entertainment for guests that will keep them coming back.

It also benefits the good players by having many more players on a daily basis to profit from. In addition, it creates many more games to select from.
You may like the uncapped games fine, but many more fish are swimming in shallower waters. You have said yourself that you don't have it where you play regularly, and don't play cash while on the road where a cap is house policy. Don't hate it just because you don't understand why they have it.
Give it a try and decide its value on your own.

Come again?

I really miss the old Vegas Hard Rock Hotel $1-2 no cap game. I loved going in there buying short and just shoving any top ten hand get 6-7 callers of my $200 pre-flop open shove. True you can get unlucky a couple times but could lose 5 times still come out +$400 ev. It was so much fun those California youngsters every week would come and buy in 15-20k into a $1-2 game.

I saw psandman and dealer-guy posting here and didn't realize it was a 10yr old thread at first. Now I am a sad.

I've read thru this almost ten year old thread just now.

BigTex21 passed away recently. RIP...

The casino I deal in started spreading a 1/3 game with $300 limit couple of years after the thread originated.

The 1/2 game is still popular with it's $200 limit.

But the 1/3 game is extremely popular and very aggressive. It is a looser version of $2/s5.

$4/$8 limit remains popular, reaches max rake more often than $1/$2. Probably always will.

My retirement looms. I'm that old.

Stay safe, good cards. God Bless us all.

You've been gone for seven years, where ya been?

Good to see you again. Stay safe.

7 years ago I happened upon a copy of the casino policy on Social Media. It was laying out in the break room with other policy memos. I read the 2 1/2 pages and decided that my job with it's excellent benefits was more important than the time I spent on 2+2. No one warned me, It was NOT suggested that I give it up, I just made a decision on my own to just stop.

I saw the comment about this thread, I get very few of these nowadays and took the time to read thru it.

I still work at the same place but before the end of the year I will be retiring.

However it happened, good to have you back!

Now that you won't have the time conflict with your job .... I hope you'll be able spend that time here.

Sick bump, I read through this without realizing the thread was a decade old. The whole concept of big stack advantage should’ve tipped me off lol. This was Before my start in poker, unfortunately, but it was a fun read. I miss live poker just a bit more than I did yesterday.

Very good post Alan! I'll add a few thoughts from someone who played and worked poker in the Los Angeles area back in the day.

At the turn of the century there was close to zero no limit holdem played in the Los Angeles area card clubs. There was an occasional 5-5 or 5-10 pot limit game spread at Hollywood Park (Ben Affleck would frequently pop in and the game could get bigger!). There was also a weekly pot limit game at a little card club in Ventura IIRC (only played it once or twice).

Some months before the Moneymaker win (made more exciting by the what I think was about the first use of hole card cameras) a Casino Host/Prop named Dave Simon started a 2-3 blind $100 fixed buy in game at Hawaiian Gardens Casino (now called The Gardens). I was a rounder who played all the area clubs and can't recall any no limit games that started before Dave's game. IIRC you could only add to your stack (with another $100 buy in) if your stack went below $50. Dave would start the games (always must move) playing in it and selling chips (mostly single stacks of $5 chips kept in a three racks labeled "Bank" to his side) and coach the players on etiquette and so on. Dave had a great personality for a prop/host.

The game grew and grew and within a year or two other Los Angeles card clubs spread a similar game. Eventually bigger no limit games were spread and by the next decade it was hard to find much in Los Angeles that wasn't no limit. I believe the small buy in took the fear away from players, who would otherwise be playing 3/6 to 6/12 limit holdem. The small buy also make the game small relative to the blinds, which was an unfortunate necessity due to the "up front" drop/collection used in Los Angeles card rooms (for dubious legal reasons).

Whenever I think about the no limit boom in Los Angeles, I think of the Moneymaker win, hole card cameras, the movie Rounders, and the $100 fixed buy in game started by Dave Simon.

Very good post; lots of useful information.

Hole-card cameras were used first, as far as I recall, in the British TV show Late Night Poker beginning in 1999. There was a glass square on the tabletop in front of each player where they would put their cards side-by-side face-down, and the camera under the glass would send the card images to the production booth. Late Night Poker was a surprising success.

The first Poker Million tournament in 2000 also used the glass-tabletop hole-card camera setup. It, too, was a smashing broadcast success.

The World Poker Tour premiered in 2002, featuring the innovation of lipstick cams embedded in the table rail. The same lipstick cam tech got picked up when ESPN greatly expanted its featured- and final-table coverage of the WSOP in 2003.

As an aside, my quick and dirty internet search skills are unable to pinpoint when RFID card readers began to be used in broadcast poker coverage. The best I can say is that it was no later than 2014.

The success of Late Night Poker in 1999 inspired the Poker Million broadcasts, and promoters saw the opportunity to create the World Poker Tour in 2002. It, too, was a smashing success, and prompted ESPN to expand its coverage of the World Series of Poker in 2003. Together with the growing reach of online poker, the poker boom was already growing when Chris Moneymaker captured everyone's atttention with his win and his appropriate name.

The synchronicity of the Moneymaker name didn't hurt; but it is my view that if Sammy Farha had won the final heads-up battle, we might not be talking about the "Farha effect," but the poker boom would still have blasted off pretty much as it did.

tl;dr: Hole card cameras in some form have been in use since 1999, and have been a driving force in the growth of poker since then.

There is no limit on the buy in for no limit games ..It’s not possible. No limit games are no limit games

Ignorance is bliss.

And there is no limit to ignorance, either.

I prefer playing limit ignorance games; it is much less tilting.

Last I knew the Golden Nugget (when open) still ran an uncapped 1/2 game in Vegas. Heard stories of a couple Regs who sit down with $5K and only play AA/KK, but love the social/comp aspect of their visits.

I believe there's some uncapped games at Texas Card House locations ... maybe just for their streams. GL

PS ... My kids were fine with watching rabbit ear TV ... until they started visiting other friends houses and started to see 100+ channel offerings!!

Nugget is still uncapped and $100 bills play. When I was out there last week, each of the four tables I was at across my trip had at least one person in a $1/2 game that had sat down with at least $2K.

Those were actually more tame than some of my other ventures to the Nugget in previous trips to Las Vegas.