Paint sounds ok to me

A friend e-mailed me this the other day and I thought it would be nice to post so others may comment on it. Paint is referring to a quate from Barry Greensteins book, Ace on the River. "for me limit poker is like watching paint dry. Daniel, thanks for your thoughts, I'll add a comment below. DB

I had an interesting conversation with my father regarding limit vs. no-limit hold’em. The conversation crossed my mind after I read your favorite quote from Barry’s book. I too once thought playing limit poker was like watching paint dry. Hold’em is the defiantly Cadillac of poker. But now after playing poker for two years consistently, both my father and I believe we were better off having never owned a Cadillac because we would have lost it in a bad beat of no-limit poker.

My father and I were discussing how no-limit hold’em has left us with more COSTLY bad beats than we wish to talk about. Yesterday at a popular online poker site (which I no longer trust, lets talk about that someday) my full boat, jack’s over 8’s, was beat by a straight flush made on the river. I lost my entire bank which was doubled from what I began with. At the same time I was taking my beat my father experienced his own. He began with Ace Jack and flopped top pair (Jack, 9, 3). He raised $100 in to the $75 pot. After a long pause the loan man across the table called his bet. A Queen hits on Fourth St. Cautious my father bets $50 and receives a call from the man. The river hits an ace giving my father two pair. He pushes all-in and is called immediately with Ace Queen. $300 + lost on one hand of poker.

When bad beats happen in No-limit poker you lose everything. These beats happen to us enough times that over the long haul we have not made much money. My father claims he is down overall. In a limit games neither my father nor I have ever lost our ENTIRE bank. When we win limit poker we have always made just as much as we have in winning no-limit. I believe if you want to risk less and win more play limit.

Go to any online poker site and look at the pot averages for no-limit and limit games. Which would you think has the larger average? If you guessed limit your right. As I write this paper there are two $100/$200 limit games going on at the internet site I play on. The average pots for the tables are $707 and $1057. There are 13 $2000 no-limit buy in games. The highest and lowest averages in these games are $384 and $181. Since I like winning bigger pots I think I am switching primarily to limit games.

My father and I agreed at the end of our conversation to begin playing more limit poker than no-limit poker. Sure we still love no-limit and the huge amount of excitement the game brings. But we are more interested in huge pots. To avoid going cold turkey I will take some of my winnings from limit games and play in a no-limit game hoping that one day my bad beat is high enough to win the bad beat pot.

Donkey Bait's Reply:

Poker can be an unforgiving mistress. 3 recent beats at the boat in the 2-5 NL game account for slightly more than I was ahead there. All 3 beats occured when I was holding AA. First bad beat I limp, late position raises to 25 small blind calls I reraise to 90, late fold, small blind donkey calls. Flop is QT6 rainbow. Small blind bets out about 50, I push all in he calls, showing AT. Donkey says he thought I had KK's and that he could catch an A. What he caught was runner, runner KJ for a straight! I lose $500.

Hand #2 I'm in middle position and raise to 20 w/ AA and get 1 early position caller. Flop comes 5,rag,rag, 2 suited and early position guy bets out, I raise, he reraises, oh shit now what, I think and put him on an overpair and push all in, and run squarely into his set of fives (thank god he didn't yell "Presto"). When the money went in he had the best of it, but was still an ugly hand. I lose $425

Beat #3 Actually occurs about 15 minutes after hand #2. I rebuy for $300 and find American Airlines in late middle position. Yippe Kiyay right, Poker gods trying to make things right from that last ugly debacle. Unfortunately is was not meant to be. Under the gun +1 raises to 20, its folded to me, I would normally raise in this spot, but noticed that 2 players to my left were telegraphing that they were going to fold so I just call and it is folded around. 2 of us see a 6 high flop. Early position guy bets out about 40, I raise to 100, he thinks and calls. I put him on an overpair. Turn a 6. Surely he wouldn't have raised preflop w/any hand that has a 6 in it! He checks I push in he thinks and relatively quickly calls showing 67 suited. Oh well. I lost $300 and decide that is enough for a while!

Beats are brutal in poker and more so in No LImit. You can read on and on about how it's good that all of these donkey's are out there making these mistakes, you should win more in the long run, they say. Well it sure sux in the short run! It's kind of a 1 sided deal and here is why, If you play good solid poker, you are less likely to put your money in the pot when you don't have the best of it. Drawing, chasing Donkeys are more likely to put a beat on us than the other way around, because we would usually have folded If the situation wasn't in our favor.

If you prefer NL poker to Limit poker but want to cut down on the severity of the beats, have you considered playing in Sit-n-go tourneys. These are 1 table tournaments and you can control your risk based upon how much you want to pay for a sit-n-go. Say you buy into a $50 sit-n-go the most you can lose is that $50. Just a thought.

For me, I find it very frustrating in limit poker when I can't protect my hand w/ a pot sized bet. There are many situations in limit where you may have the best hand, bet it out, and the caller still has the correct odds to call and draw to his hand.

Only risking %15 of your poker bank roll in one session of NL is supposed to protect the winning NL player from most bad runs. We all adhere to that right! lol. If only it was that simple.

Earlier this year I decided to goat to the boats in St. Louis w/ a $300 bankroll and try and build it up from there. I built it up to about $600 only to lost it all in a $1500 pot. Once again I had AA, my opponet had KK and it went in preflop. He flopped his set, I turned the nut flush draw and his set held up! Ouch. Then I decided to play limit poker, so I started w/ another $300 bankroll and started at the bottom planning to work my way up in limits. It took about 10 sessions, moving from 3/6 quickly to 5/10 and I built my bankroll up to over $1200 and decided to take a stab at the 20/40 limit game. I scored a $950 win in my first session. It was shortly after this that the Booneville boat opened and I started frequenting them because they are so much closer.

My brick and mortar results so far this year certainly support your argument, but I am still drawn to NL. If I could just figure out how to play those aces! Lately, I feel that my game has improved a great deal, and I am going to continue to play NL, I feel that my overlay is greater there, and I can't lose on aces everytime! Thanks, Daniel, for taking the time to share your thoughts, I'll talk to you soon.
DB