Quote:
Originally Posted by Unguarded
LHE is just incredibly dead and we have done a poor job keeping these forums lively.
I like to think about root causes of why live limit poker has declined to near-extinction in about 75% of the US (and probably everywhere outside the US). I also wouldn't call it NC/LC, rather a meta topic that is the whole shooting match for those of us who'd like to see limit make a modest comeback.
The easy answer is "Because no-limit fueled the mid-2000s-decade poker boom," and that is true, but not a root cause. Why was the boom all NLHE? Just because people like to pretend they're on TV?
I'd say that's some of it. (Even so not a root cause. Why not put a $400/800 limit game on TV? Why did they give up so quickly on televising the WSOP HORSE events? Maybe just because watching people tank for their tournament lives is fun. Why isn't watching LHE players make tough decisions for their tournament lives when the pot is laying them 10:1 as much fun?) But tournaments are very different from mid-stacked NLHE cash games anyway.
IMO another part is this stupid narrative that arose about NLHE, and Harrington's first book frankly didn't help, that NL is awesome because you can blow people out of pots so they can't draw out on you. You could just as easily say that limit is awesome because other people
can't blow you out of pots so you always know if your flush draw gets there.
The recreational players all think they're better than they are, of course, and are tired of all the donkeys drawing out on them, so they just love that they can blast out opponents and win small pots or just open to 10x with their pocket jacks and take down the blinds. But that makes me wonder -- could LHE have marketed itself differently to counteract this mindset? People go to casinos to gamble on the turn of a card, but blasting everyone out with your top pair is the opposite of gambling.
Could LHE do anything to reinvigorate itself now?
LHE (more than other limit games) is so much better for the house. Wouldn't it make sense for cardrooms to promote it? No coincidence that it's still somewhat viable in markets like LA and LV with a deep understanding of poker, and dead in places where the entire staff learned poker in the last 154 years.
Anyway just some musings... not sure if worth its own thread or not. Probably already covered somewhere on this site.