Can you elaborate on this? Why are big bet games dependent on fixed limit games?
It isn't that they depend on fixed limit, but more so that they depend on weaker players to pay the rake and fund the few winning players, right? There is a fundamental problem with big bet games and that is that it destroys the weaker player too fast & they tend to stop coming. When the weaker players stop coming then the slightly winning players become break even and the break even players become losing players. The cycle continues like this and eventually you are left with a very difficult game that only a few very good players are willing to play in.
Since weaker players have a better chance of winning in games where there is more luck involved (fixed limit falls into this category) then they will keep coming around much longer. Think about it like this: Lets say it is your first time going to the card room and you play a game that is equally dependent on skill as chess is. You play the game and you are a beginner and 100% of the time you get beat by the chess master, right? The next day you come back and do it all over again, same result. The third day rinse & repeat etc. Once you figure out that you have 0% chance of ever beating this chess master what are you going to do? Most people are going to quit and never come back.
Limit lets weaker players win more frequently because there is more luck involved in limit. Eventually all the best players will become winning players and all the weaker players will be losers too, just like in nl, but the losers are fooled into thinking they can win or they have a chance of winning.
Why do you think Casinos pay out anything at all on a slot machine. How long do you think people would continue to play slots if they never payed anything out? Put your money in, nothing. Put your money in, nothing etc etc. Pretty soon word gets around that the slots NEVER pay anything and it won't take long an NO ONE is playing slots...
Same principle
What has happened over the past 10 yrs (basically since Pokers Black Friday) is that there have been almost no new poker players added to the player pool. To make matters worse, nl was popularized by poker on TV and glorified as the only real poker. So you combine relatively few new players and a game that cleans out any new/weak players that do happen to come along MUCH more quickly than in the past when people played other games and the result is that poker is dying a slow but steady death.
Almost no one actually knows and understands this, but > 90% of the people playing poker would be much better off playing limit. Even the absolute worst limit players will experience some success so they wind up having more fun and playing longer and coming back
