So I've bee playing online cash limit for a few years now and I play well enough to hold my own, when I venture onto the no-limit micro tables its a different story. I just don't get it, I mean is there something I'm missing here? I raise 3BB and everyone folds, these guys just won't call, in limit they cold call all the time. It seems like no limit is about stealing the blinds or stacking someone on the flop with the nuts, nothing in between, show any strength and everyone folds unless they have a good hand (which is usually better than mine). When I do actually see the flop (which seems a rare occurrence) with like KK and the flop looks blank I go all in (short stacked) and someone calls with a set or 2 pair or they fold -oops. In limit losing a pot doesn't really bother me as I know I can win it back, lose a pot in no limit an it could take hours or days of play to get back (if ever). Also it seems like I can only play hands in late position or I just get bullied out getting raised to the left.

Even at the micros limits there is no action, I just don't understand how no limit can be fun to play, are these guys sadists or something, playing tight in limit is tough but playing for hours and never seeing a showdown because you have to fold all the time is like watching paint dry. Am I just supposed to play for hours waiting until a situation arises when I can stack someone with 2pair+?

I've no idea why no limit is so popular, do kids think no limit is "cool" and limit is boring (cos they saw Rounders) or something? Is it really worth throwing away good money attempting to learn how to play no-limit they way the online games are now?

I agree, I am a limit advocate, and micro stakes NL anytime I have played it has seemed like a boring nit-fest, I'd much rather play some aggressive 6-max limit than steal 12 cents worth of blinds in an hour w/o seeing a flop.

I would suggest using live NL to get your feet wet instead, provided you can afford it.

Live is so different. I play $2/$3 NL. You raise to $15 and (at least) three people call.

I'm with you man. Reading Ed Miller's articles on cardplayer got me interested in NL (besides the fact that everyone plays it in my local cardrooms). He wrote some articles on handreading and how good players value-bet better on the river. Well as a long-time winning limit player I like the sound of that - I certainly can do that when presented with the opportunity. But these online NL games are absolute snoozefests - rivers are seen so seldomly. It's like I need a player on my left to win a decent sized pot (I limp with AK, he raises to isolate my shortstack and I shove over the top). Otherwise it's all nits and folding.

First I will point out as others have stated that live NL is different from online. Live tends to be a much jucier game and more fun. Small stakes live (whether home games or at casinos) tends to be a game full of loose play and is much more fun.

Online is a different story. In online NL it's all bout out leveling your opponent. Thing is, when it comes to out leveling tight players it's about stealing a lot of small-medium sized pots. The big stacking pots are for the loose-passive and LAG tard players where you sit and wait to flop a set to get paid off by TP and the like. Tighter players don't stack off as easily unless it's a cooler (set over set, etc.) so you make your money off of them by outplaying them. But I agree it's a much slower game and can get pretty boring at times.

Personally I much prefer live NL but I dabble in NL online for the practice.

So then raise every single hand. I think its odd that limit players (I used to do this too) complain about how its just about stealing the blinds, as if that's a massive waste of time cuz its so little money, when they would **** themselves with glee if they could actually continuously steal the blinds in a limit game.

Then bet every time you have a bad hand, and check every time you have a good one

Really? If are stuck 100BB in your session at limit, whats the shortest amount of time you could play before youd be unstuck? If you are down 3 buy ins in a NL game, whats the shortest it it can take before you can leave unstuck?

I thought every time you raised, they all folded?



If NL is no fun for you, then why are you bothering to play it? If you enjoy seeing lots of flops and showdowns then the answer is obvious, keep playing limit. If you are playing for profit and have decided NL is potentially more profitable, then who cares whether you enjoy it or not? If you cant play well (ie profitably) without simultaneously having fun, then NL is obviously not going to be the most profitable form of poker for you, and therefor you shouldnt play it.

To be honest, that sounds like a completely different game from what's described in the 2+2 uNL forums. The HHs there make it look like there are massive calling stations all over the place.

Apologies in advance in case I'm insulting your intelligence here, but:

I imagine that "showing strength" works differently between limit and no-limit. (I'm more familiar with the no-limit approach.) Basically, competent players don't min-raise very much (if at all) at NL, and when they open-bet postflop, they make a bet that's proportional to the current pot size instead of one dictated by the limit. This means you have to think differently about how much strength you're showing. At limit you consider what pot odds you're getting; at no-limit you can also set your opponent's pot odds. This also means that n-betting is going to be much more rare, because there is motivation for each raise to be like 3x the previous amount, and thus you end up all-in much more quickly.

Just looking at Stars, there are about 3x more people playing NL than L at the micros but the number of games where players/flop is > 50% is more on the L tables.

Well man Limit is just an inherently different game. Sure, fewer people are getting to the flop in NL compared to Limit.... but that doesn't mean that those guys who DO call aren't shoveling tons of chips your way.

SSNL today is probably 5 times harder/tighter than it was a year and a half ago. This is because of the structure of the game, the fact that so much information is readily available right now on the internet, and UIGEA.
That being said, there are still plenty of terrible players at these games. Even the regs have plenty of post flop leaks to exploit.

If you were to take the time to seriously study this game (and trust me, you just haven't, I can tell by your OP) you should be able to realize that there is PLENTY of money to be made. And if the laws change within the next six months or so (which i'd optimistically say is about 35-40% likely this legislative session) you will be glad you took the time to learn the game, because I think there'll be one more (albeit shorter lived) online poker boom as all the ****ers playing ZYNGA POKER FACEBOOK APPS and **** start getting pummeled with advertising for legal, quick, easy deposits on FTP and Stars or whatever big sites come up in the near future....

I too have tried my hand at limit.

TBH I don't have your problem at all. I play a fairly semi lag 6 max style and my main problem is getting away from your AK /AQ/AJ hands when you hit the A and the other guy starts giving you action.

Other than that NL is a simple game.

Is 2 pr good? Is the set good on a 3 flush bd?

You know that sort of stuff.

Being a limit player it takes a lot of adjustment to fold.

for me i like NL because u can win so many pots if ur game is adjusted correct, just raise and take the blinds is cool enuff for me

one time last year at commerce 10-20 it was a tight game, i must have raised 70-80% of the hands no lie and they all just kept folding for hours, they were all waiting to get a big hand to crack me, and im thinking i might give any of u guys any action if they show resistance

that was one of my most enjoyable sessions ever, very profitable and no variance

Obviously, the average player is much tighter in micro NL, but by far not as tight as you say.
At the moment I'm playing micro Rush NL 6max, which is tighter than the average ring game, but there are a lot of fish with stats like 70/50, 90/10 or whatever... And with a lot of really bad short stackers you will get your money in on the flop with 10th nuts and still win.
And because you can easily play 1200+ hands an hour 4tabling, it doesn't hurt that much if everybody's folding to your raise with AA/KK/whatever five times in a row...

Gonna have to agree with you TC. Most of the NLHE games I've played on FTP are mostly nits. If I bet anything more than the microstake bigblind pre-flop, most of them fold.

^^^ That

no money in micro, everyone's solid

Idk where you play man, but ive played over 150k hands of no limit from nl10 to nl100 and games are juicy and so is the action and people pay you off with much worse then 2pair.

I have never played LHE, but from what I know, I think that the difference is that, at least at micro limits, L is a game of math, and NL is about exploitation and implied odds.

I'm playing a 25¢ MTT right now, I saw it and decided to see what it was like. I'm currently 279 of 571 (2,753 players registered), and my basic strategy has been to shove preflop, or be ready to shove preflop, any time I have AK, AQ or a big pair and there is a lot of money in the pot. I know at the micros I'll get away with it most of the time (because an amazing number of players will shove with crap like J9), and now I have a big enough stack that I can do it all day against players with smaller stacks who are hanging on to try to get into the money or move up, and I can be wrong once in a while and not get hurt too badly.

Hey, I just realized I already cashed (final 585 get at least 39¢). I'll buy Vanessa Rousso (my kitten) a can of cat food.

Every form of poker is about math and exploitation and implied odds.

Yes, those are components of every game, but implied odds in NL are a whole different animal, take for example, set mining early in a tournament when everyone at your table has an M of at least 40.

Are you serious? I mean micro stakes are not that soft as it used to be and players are getting better day day with all these 2+2/cr/dc etc stuff but "everyone's solid"? come on.. Everytime I join fr cg table there are some LAGs, maniacs..

If it was some kind of ironical joke Im sorry I didnt understand it. :P

I dont think it will be so dramatic coz its not that hard even for non-english speaking ppl to make deposit on eg. ftp + these fb zynga crazy maniacs usually know how to speak english/how to use the internet.. But yes, Id love your scenario. ;o

Yes I know, I'm just tired of people saying that LHE is the "math based game". If anything, NL is more math based cause the math is so easy in LHE that everyone can do it. A lot of people just don't know anything about the math in NL so they think it's all about feel.

LHE is just as much about reading your opponent as NL is. How you use that info is different for the games however. You have less flexibilty in some spots for lhe, but more in other spots. NL definitely has the bigger edge cause some of the mistakes that people make are so large, while it's tough to make huge mistakes in lhe.

I know your edge is bigger in NL, but I also think it's not as much as it seems at first sight looking at the bb/100 winrates, because isn't a bb in a NL game much smaller relative to the stakes you are playing than in a Limit game of the same blind structure?

Someone hacked my paypal account to buy zynga chips (!!), so there is some kind of real money in that facebook game, maybe they can buy things with the chips even if they can't cash out directly.

It really is tough to compare winrates in any other way than $won/hour given equal bankrolls. For instance the bankroll requirements for 2/4 NL and 10/20 LHE are roughly equivalent (50 buyins and 1000 Big Bets respectively) although that can be argued about.

I've done some rough calculations based on general assumptions regarding the winrate of "good players" and came to the conclusion that per table the hourly for a LHE 6max pro is slightly lower than for a NL pro. Then when you factor in that you can play more tables of NL than LHE the hourly becomes almost double.

weird. when i play micro NL they call me with everything (6-max)

are you playing full-ring?

there are 2 types of micro stakes NL players.

1. The TAGs who have a general idea about hand opening ranges, proberly from reading a pokerbook or being on 2p2

2. The calling stations who play ABC poker, they call MANY raises preflop to see a flop, if they somehow connect they will most likely go with the hand a little further unless you totally blow them out of the hand, if they miss flop they will fold to as small as 1/3 potbet.


Your job is to reconize what kind of player you are playing and adjust to that.
Generally you can get away with alot in micro games, but you cannot open 75s UTG because you just feel like playing a hand. on BTN is another story.

-Reconize player tendencies
-Adjust to them accordingly
-Profit?

Edit: if you like action, play 6max