Cash Game Introducing a new variant (2 Viewers)

We play NL/PLO 2/4 (swedish krona not $) and I was considering going 5/10 for limit games but maybe that's too small. Perhaps 10/20 would be better?
(Sorry for the hijack @MathijsVS )

No problem man, it's not so much a hijack as it is asking related questions, and that's alright in my book :)
 
We play NL/PLO 2/4 (swedish krona not $) and I was considering going 5/10 for limit games but maybe that's too small. Perhaps 10/20 would be better?
(Sorry for the hijack @MathijsVS )

You can test the waters. Based on my experience, I think 10/20 would be better. It varies by group though, as we can see based on @Legend5555 experience.

The Limit should be played (IMO) at a level in which making a call (or committing to a pot) matters, LOL!! Meaning comparatively to NL/PL.

But again, just try it out and see what your players think.

For me, playing too low stakes Limit poker is boring. It's everyone calling all streets and see who gets there at the end.
 
You can test the waters. Based on my experience, I think 10/20 would be better. It varies by group though, as we can see based on @Legend5555 experience.

The Limit should be played (IMO) at a level in which making a call (or committing to a pot) matters, LOL!! Meaning comparatively to NL/PL.

But again, just try it out and see what your players think.

For me, playing too low stakes Limit poker is boring. It's everyone calling all streets and see who gets there at the end.

I agree, that the stakes should matter. Only problem is I'm thinking of doiong a custom limit set through Brpropoker and I HATE the idea of a 10 work horse chip. Yet it would obviously be so much more effective than a fiver in a 10/20 game. Or maybe not, I should have 5s for blinds, right?
 
I agree, that the stakes should matter. Only problem is I'm thinking of doiong a custom limit set through Brpropoker and I HATE the idea of a 10 work horse chip. Yet it would obviously be so much more effective than a fiver in a 10/20 game. Or maybe not, I should have 5s for blinds, right?

In my opinion, the $5 should be the chip for the $10/$20 games. Part of the fun of playing limit is big stacks and the betting mechanic. The minimum I'd do is 2 chips / 4 chips. 1 chip / 2 chip is not fun, LOL!!! Once again, my opinion.
 
In my opinion, the $5 should be the chip for the $10/$20 games. Part of the fun of playing limit is big stacks and the betting mechanic. The minimum I'd do is 2 chips / 4 chips. 1 chip / 2 chip is not fun, LOL!!! Once again, my opinion.
5s it is then! :)
 
If you have 7 or less players i would highly encourage some 7 card stud. Hi lo with a spread limit and max of a bet and 3 raises will keep the pots down if the limits are low. The variation that 7 card offers will help get your players to a different way of thinking and it opens the door to so many good dealers choice games. Plus hi low and splitting pots also makes it interesting for everyone. And helps get people used to that before you jump to omaha.
 
If you have 7 or less players i would highly encourage some 7 card stud. Hi lo with a spread limit and max of a bet and 3 raises will keep the pots down if the limits are low. The variation that 7 card offers will help get your players to a different way of thinking and it opens the door to so many good dealers choice games. Plus hi low and splitting pots also makes it interesting for everyone. And helps get people used to that before you jump to omaha.

Thanks for the advice! We've got 4-5 people at the table tomorrow, so looks like all systems are go for 7 Card Stud :)

What do you mean by a spread limit?
And "max of a bet"?
 
5s it is then! :)

I think that's the right choice. Also, typically, the bring-in is half the small bet. If you're using $10 chip, you might need to change the bring-ins.

Before you order the set, play around a few times so you know what your ideal stakes are.
 
I think that's the right choice. Also, typically, the bring-in is half the small bet. If you're using $10 chip, you might need to change the bring-ins.

Before you order the set, play around a few times so you know what your ideal stakes are.
I will do that. Been spending way to much on chips lately so I have time to try it out before I invest again.
I was thinking of doing a dealer ante and just go with a full small bet bring-in for simplicity. Let's say I do order 1s as well for antes and bring-ins I guess 1 rack should be plenty?
 
I will do that. Been spending way to much on chips lately so I have time to try it out before I invest again.
I was thinking of doing a dealer ante and just go with a full small bet bring-in for simplicity. Let's say I do order 1s as well for antes and bring-ins I guess 1 rack should be plenty?

Yep. Or alternatively, you can still just play with $5s for a $10/$20. Have a $5 bring-in for stud games and have a button ante of either $10, $15 or $20 instead of each player throwing an ante out there. I don't think there's a need for a smaller denom, personally.
 
Yep. Or alternatively, you can still just play with $5s for a $10/$20. Have a $5 bring-in for stud games and have a button ante of either $10, $15 or $20 instead of each player throwing an ante out there. I don't think there's a need for a smaller denom, personally.

And for Limit games with blinds, you can do $5/$10.
 
Yep. Or alternatively, you can still just play with $5s for a $10/$20. Have a $5 bring-in for stud games and have a button ante of either $10, $15 or $20 instead of each player throwing an ante out there. I don't think there's a need for a smaller denom, personally.
No, Ideally I would just do 5s and 1 rack of 100s. How many 5s would you get? We're pretty much only 4-5 who will wanna play mixed games. 2 racks each?
 
No, Ideally I would just do 5s and 1 rack of 100s. How many 5s would you get? We're pretty much only 4-5 who will wanna play mixed games. 2 racks each?

Yeah, I think that is definitely what I would do as well. For a 2/4 chip game, one rack (25 big bets) buy-in should be the minimum, I guess shooting for two racks per player should be good. Or at least it is for me. One rack plus a few hundos buy-in work as well. I have a couple of limit sets with 8 racks of workhorse only. My preferred would be 16 racks though.
 
Yeah, I think that is definitely what I would do as well. For a 2/4 chip game, one rack (25 big bets) buy-in should be the minimum, I guess shooting for two racks per player should be good. Or at least it is for me. One rack plus a few hundos buy-in work as well. I have a couple of limit sets with 8 racks of workhorse only. My preferred would be 16 racks though.
16 racks sounds crazy, but wonderful at the same time :)
 
The Limit should be played (IMO) at a level in which making a call (or committing to a pot) matters, LOL!! Meaning comparatively to NL/PL.
I think this is a bit misleading. I think on average if the stakes are adjusted correctly that limit pots are going to be larger than most NL/PL pots, but smaller than the biggest NL/PL pots. So if players feel that normally play .25/.50 and are used to seeing big swings and 100bb+ pots, then limit is going to "feel" smaller in comparison. But what happens in limit is way more hands go to showdown for what would be a medium sized pot in NL/PL.

The goal is to find a place where the average pots between the types of games are roughly equivalent. If you set the limit stakes too high, people play several "small" pots because of odds, then look down 30-60min later and say, "where the hell did my money go?" Whereas in NL/PL it's very easy to see where your money went because it usually all disappears in one hand.

To me it just sounds like the people in your games just like to gamble. And/or you aren't playing mostly NLHE at .25/.50. PLO, Big O, and circus games can just lead to massive hands crashing into each other a lot. So .25/.50 blinds in those games are much more like .50/1 in NLHE in terms of pot sizes. And at .50/1, I'd agree a good limit analogue would be about 3/6.
 
I think this is a bit misleading. I think on average if the stakes are adjusted correctly that limit pots are going to be larger than most NL/PL pots, but smaller than the biggest NL/PL pots. So if players feel that normally play .25/.50 and are used to seeing big swings and 100bb+ pots, then limit is going to "feel" smaller in comparison. But what happens in limit is way more hands go to showdown for what would be a medium sized pot in NL/PL.

The goal is to find a place where the average pots between the types of games are roughly equivalent. If you set the limit stakes too high, people play several "small" pots because of odds, then look down 30-60min later and say, "where the hell did my money go?" Whereas in NL/PL it's very easy to see where your money went because it usually all disappears in one hand.

To me it just sounds like the people in your games just like to gamble. And/or you aren't playing mostly NLHE at .25/.50. PLO, Big O, and circus games can just lead to massive hands crashing into each other a lot. So .25/.50 blinds in those games are much more like .50/1 in NLHE in terms of pot sizes. And at .50/1, I'd agree a good limit analogue would be about 3/6.

I guess trial and error would be the best way to find the correct stakes. I'm gonna start with 5/10 and see what happens.
 
I think this is a bit misleading. I think on average if the stakes are adjusted correctly that limit pots are going to be larger than most NL/PL pots, but smaller than the biggest NL/PL pots. So if players feel that normally play .25/.50 and are used to seeing big swings and 100bb+ pots, then limit is going to "feel" smaller in comparison. But what happens in limit is way more hands go to showdown for what would be a medium sized pot in NL/PL.

The goal is to find a place where the average pots between the types of games are roughly equivalent. If you set the limit stakes too high, people play several "small" pots because of odds, then look down 30-60min later and say, "where the hell did my money go?" Whereas in NL/PL it's very easy to see where your money went because it usually all disappears in one hand.

To me it just sounds like the people in your games just like to gamble. And/or you aren't playing mostly NLHE at .25/.50. PLO, Big O, and circus games can just lead to massive hands crashing into each other a lot. So .25/.50 blinds in those games are much more like .50/1 in NLHE in terms of pot sizes. And at .50/1, I'd agree a good limit analogue would be about 3/6.

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote.

The one thing i do though, is that I am more concerned with the big pots in NL/PL and not the average pot. That's where one can get hurt and where one should be balancing. The pots that go raise, re-raise fold pre is not that relevant.

And yes, we have almost no NLHE in our rotation.
 
spread limit just refers to a minimum and maximum bet. Ours for 7 card is .25 to $5. But you could make it smaller. .25 to 1.00 or 2.00. On a $2 max spread you could have $8 per street if everyone bets the max. But that should be rare unless you have a bunch of action junkies.
 
spread limit just refers to a minimum and maximum bet. Ours for 7 card is .25 to $5. But you could make it smaller. .25 to 1.00 or 2.00. On a $2 max spread you could have $8 per street if everyone bets the max. But that should be rare unless you have a bunch of action junkies.

Thanks for clarifying :)

I think I'll go for Fixed Limit and 3-raise max to start with, just to avoid having to explain too many different things at once.
If the players feel it's a bit tame, I can open it up to spread limit.
 
I'm in favor of Stud here. Give them something totally different than they're used to. If they still have a taste for more, let them try Omaha.

If you ever decide you want them to learn hi-lo Stud or Omaha (which you should because they're awesome), don't be afraid to try out Razz or Draw Lowball first. People may no be familiar with lowball hand ranking, but it's super-simple, especially on the A-5 scale. They should be able to pick it up quickly. In my experience, having a rotation balanced with high-only and hi-lo variants can be pretty sweet.

As to stakes, 10/20 fixed limit seems about right if your NLHE game runs at 2/4 with ~100-200 BB stacks and fairly normal action (i.e., no maniacs or nosebleed deep stacks).
 
And yes, we have almost no NLHE in our rotation.
That makes a huge difference then.

I don't care so much about the biggest pots in PL/NL. Usually the limits are structured such that 100-200bb buy ins in NL/PL line up with the typical 15-30BB buy in of a limit game. So if people are buying in for amounts they are okay with losing, then it shouldn't matter if you play big pots in the occasional big bet rounds of a mixed game. It's not like stacks are fluctuating so wildly in limit that you are going to frequently have two 400bb stacks running monsters into each other in the big bet games.
 
I would go with PLO. Unless you have a lot of experienced stud and razz players, those can take some getting used to, and you might find that things go very slow for a while as people get up to speed.

Obviously PLO is also very different strategically from NLHE; but the way the hands are dealt are essentially identical, except that you have more cards in your hand. So you’re going to have fewer misdeals/general confusion with that... Of course understanding pot limit betting can be a learning curve, but I still think that would be the most seamless (and fun). PLO8 is even splashier, but unless you have some experienced high/low players it can take some time to settle into that properly.

I don’t play Razz, so I can't speak to it, but from what I know that too seems like a big departure.

5 card draw I suppose would be a fit. I haven't played it in years, and would kind of enjoy it. But it does seem a little dry.
 
If your players are not just open to new games but actively interested in them, and if you're looking to steer them towards dealer's choice down the line (yay!) then I agree with the crowd here - stud is the game to teach them now.

If that goes over well, you might try draw next. You can liven draw up by making it no-limit and using a bug (or even jokers wild). NL draw is fun because it gives you room in the betting structure to make "tricky" plays and try to price people out and/or bluff them off their hands, but it's also not very dangerous because there's only two betting rounds. Plus it's the game cowboys and riverboat gamblers play in the movies. Tell 'em they can splash the pot and string bet, they'll have a blast.

Get them playing a lowball game next as soon as they're comfortable with playing different types of games, since hi/lo split is such an essential part of so many different dealer's choice games. If they like stud, teach them razz. If they like draw, teach them 2-7 triple draw (fixed limit! not NL!). Then take it from there, anywhere they like.

Good luck!
 
For those interested: I offered Stud & PLO

We went with PLO as the game was quite slow and even introduced Hi/Lo!
 
For those interested: I offered Stud & PLO

We went with PLO as the game was quite slow and even introduced Hi/Lo!

How did hi-lo go? In my experience, new players to hi-lo (including myself when I was one) tend to way overvalue weak lows and trap themselves for a lot of money.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Back
Top Bottom