The meaning of FAANG has morphed a bit. I believe originally the term came from the financial press and referred to five large content creators, so of course Netflix would be among those. (Edit: I'd forgotten it was Jim Cramer who coined the term.)

Now it's used more often to mean "massive tech employer with high hiring standards," often in contrast to working for a startup. So Microsoft fits better among the group of five, and many people would implicitly include MSFT in their use of FAANG.

Don't come on here much anymore. Just noticed that LHE is now under "Other Poker Games", while even Omaha 8 has its own forum. Oof!

Does anyone know any particular reason why players have mostly moved from Commerce to HG and Bike? I've always preferred those two places to Commerce anyway, they've always been nicer, and especially so since each remodeled, but the last time I was around LA, but the last time I was in LA Commerce still had lots of mid-limit holdem

Hustler has 3 tables of 25/50 daily. Most of the player pool is from the South Bay but many players are from the anti commerce camp. Basically, ppl are sick of playing with degens that are disrespectful to the staff and rec players which was the norm at commerce for decades.
Hustler takes a firm stance on bad behavior and that leads to a comfortable environment in the long term.

I only ever played at the Hustler twice, but I didn't think it was that great either time. Admittedly part of that was because they are the only LA casino to hassle me about bringing in my own water bottle. But I think I also felt cramped and maybe there were some oddball rules I didn't like.

Jfc I can’t even find this forum anymore. Well goodbye 2+2 it’s been fun.

It now takes 3 mouse clicks to get to this forum from the front page instead of the usual 2. You're going to stop posting here because of this?

LHE is just incredibly dead and we have done a poor job keeping these forums lively. I would be pissed at the new owners about this change if we had really been busting our asses to promote these forums and our game, but that hasn't been the case.

I have both limit forums bookmarked. Literally didn't notice the relegation until I read these posts...

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.

Why do they want to play NLHE?

https://youtu.be/kzrJdpzYDBs
(Everyone in poker knows the REAL only pure game left is NL single-draw lowball, but we can give anyone from the Wu-Tang Clan some artistic license.)

“ 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.”

So much this

Thanks.

LOL that I didn't catch my typo. Yes, the only real poker towns are those that were running games in the 1800s. Obviously I meant last 15 years.

I've just accepted that LHE is over and have been putting all of my poker energy into learning NL. It used to be too slow for me too, but I have learned that 2 tables of fast fold online NL is fast enough for me to have fun while I grind. Unfortunately, fast fold poker is a lot more competitive so I actually need to get really good at NL. If you want to see something really gross, check out the microstakes strat posters in the NL forum. Most of them are very experienced, use solvers, watch videos, get coaching, etc. Up until 2015 or so, I think top LHE pros were close in skill to top NL players. Now, I think the typical online 200 NL grinder is far more skilled than the typical 1 BB/hr live 40/80+ LHE grinder. It's pretty gross. Live NL is a clownfest, but ya... it's just agonizingly slow. You also have to feel like a huge jerk since playing like a nit is optimal live and the rec players hate you. In LHE, you can spew pretty hard in good games and still have a big edge.

The top LHE pros are/were one hell of a lot more skilled than the typical 1BB/hr live 40-80 grinder.

(Who would win, HossTBF or Jesse8888?)

You might be surprised at how many live pros think they are better than the 2010 version of St1ckman. But my main point is that 200 NL regs used to be clowns who sort of understood basic TAG fundamentals and had a modest amount of talent. Today, many of them have years of solver work and RIO videos behind them. Fortunately, rec players still play like rec players.

Yeah, certainly agree with your general point. If you take a random high stakes NL cash lineup (say bellagio 25/50) its likely that 6 or 7 of the players are studying the stuff you mention, take a 200/400 LHE game (I've heard these still exist in california?) and its maybe 1 or 2 players?

I know next to nothing about those games. I have been very out of the loop since late 2015 or so. That sounds pretty likely though. NL players just have much easier access to high end study materials. There are sites like GTO Wizard, Lucid GTO, and PokerScientist now that make solver work ridiculously fast and easy for NL players. LHE players who want to get into hardcore solver work are going to have a tough time without a friend or a good coach to guide them. Conceptually understanding why a solver does what it does is very difficult.

First of all, I have no illusions that I am or ever was as good as the st1ck. Lol let's be real.

There is a 200/400 LHE game at the bike that runs "near" daily. I usually see half a dozen 20s to 60s and one "bigger" game if I check atlas in the afternoon (either 1/2 or 2/4, but occasionally 1k/2k). The reports I have gotten are that the 40s and 60s are quite soft, but the 2/4 is very tough. I haven't even been in the room, let alone played, so that's about as much as I know.

My only real comment to further the conversation is that if you're playing in a LHE game where deep understanding of solvers and GTO concepts are necessary, you're basically saying you're playing in a game where you're going to win like .3 bets per hour with a StDev of what like 14? You're going to lose your mind and/or go broke. I get the sense that the parameters for NL are much different than that, which is probably why you've seen that crowd using solvers more (also: tunamelts).

And I think if me and Hoss got one year to play say 700 to 1000 hours in the bike 40s and 60s, I would be a modest dog (like say +150-200).

The Poker economy across board is shrinking , there are very few new players . We are in a digital online age and our government banned it lmao . The B&M action is also shrinking because of the online ban. Sad

Jesse, I def wasn't talking about you as far as LHE live pros who think they are better than the 2010 version of St1ckman. You have always been reasonably humble. I am talking about some of the current live LHE pros who have done a modest amount of solver work and gotten ahold of some GTO pre-flop charts who think they are on another level because they sorta kind know how to regurgitate their vague memories of solver output that they don't really conceptually understand. And of course, this is more than enough LHE knowledge to beat live games for a nice winrate which confirms to them that they are beasts. They deserve to be locked in a steel cage and forced to play HU4rollz with DonJuan until they tap out.

I just heard that Alexandra Botez predicted a poker boom on Twitch in her recent interview with Doug Polk. This would obviously only benefit NL players though. Hopefully she is right, but I worry that she was just trying to be nice and cool since she was on a poker podcast.

Maybe a great poker movie or TV series will finally come out that everyone loves? I'm talking something bigger even than Rounders. Chess' popularity has absolutely skyrocketed since Queen's Gambit came out.

Just need a crossover chess & poker superstar like DrElo.

The 40/80 LHE at Canterbury hasn't been this alive and well in 10+ years.

In case it's not clear above, I have no illusions LHE or limit poker in general will ever return to anything close to its stature of 2003.

The convo about solvers does make me think, though.... if top-flight NLHE is becoming something like dueling robots, could that reinvigorate non-HE/mixed games?

Realistically though live small- to mid-stakes NLHE won't get to the dueling robots stage anytime soon. PLO is promising (players at small stakes are so unspeakably bad) but the variance is maddening. I'm somewhere between resigned and enthusiastic about using those games to [re]build a bankroll until I can land somewhere closer to games I find more entertaining.