Set limit holdem (6 Viewers)

[ThrowBack]

Casino near buy has a pretty busy $4/8 table

Is it worth playing? Pros, cons, potential winrates and resources are appreciated!

 

[DZPoker]

Absolutely worth it IMHO.

I’ve made quite a bit on Limit Hold’Em tables, as have many others (I’m assuming you’re talking about 4/8 Limit Hold’Em). Just know it’s much more a game of pure math…learn the math though and just grind away at a steady 1-2BB/hr profit over time.

Getting rich at that rate on a 4/8 table? Obviously not. But it adds up over time into a meaningful bankroll you can do other things with! Again though, YRMV!!

 

[Jimulacrum]

Are we talking no fold'em Hold'em with half the players seeing the flop multiple times an orbit, or the Old Man, Coffee game where showdowns are rare?

If the former, it's probably a fantastic game as long as the rake isn't out of line.

If the latter, maybe not so much.

 

[ngmcs8203]

I used to enjoy 3/6 and 4/8. Even when they went full kill. I have a buddy who still plays 100/200 limit and makes a decent living off of it.

 

[libbylord]

Plus if they have a high hand bonus, you have a chance to hit that as well!

 

[Legend5555]

It really depends on the rake. If you are really good, your hoping to make like 2-3 big bets an hour. But if they are raking $7 a hand, and you are winning 2 pots an hour, thats almost 2 bets down the drain right there. It's not like in NL where you can offset high rake by winning only a few massive pots a session. You get to showdown a lot more in limit, and thus end up paying rake more often as the winner of pots.

 

[upNdown]

And this should go without saying, but you’d want to actually be good at limit Holdem. It’s a different game than no limit.

 

[BEANO52]

I love limit hold 'em. I love any limit game honestly. I was brought up on limit in the late 90s because NLHE wasn't really even a thing. The games were so soft then.

As stated above, limit is a completely different game than NLHE and plays completely different. Watch the rake & jackpot drops at 3/6 or 4/8 limits, it can destroy your hourly. Games are easily beatable in the right conditions (even OMC games are easily exploited).

Good luck and have fun!

 

[buzzmonkey]

I probably had an 80% win rate at 4/8 hold em at the casino. Not enough of a profit to make a living on for sure, and my roll was never high enough to play bigger than that, but if you play well you can definitely make a bit of money on it. Winning Low Limit Hold 'em by Lee Jones was a really good book to get a nice foundation for the game. Not sure if it holds up, but at that level I can't imagine the game plays that much different.

 

[JustinInMN]

Absolutely love limit hold'em. At may peak, I was beating $8/$16 limit games for $20 an hour in the late 2000s playing 15-20 hours a week. That was all we had in Minnesota. And technically, we still only have "limit" hold'em, we just have a maximum now of $100 and spread-limit is permissible, so half the games are 2-100 "spread limit" and half the games are standard limit.

"Small Stakes Hold'em" by Miller/Sklansky/Malmuth is the best book for learning how to beat these games, even after 20 years.

My late brother as recently as last year was beating 80/160 limit games at the Bellagio during the WSOP influx.

You can absolutely win, but it takes adjustments.

1) Bully poker does not work.

Most people understand aggression in poker, and think that NL big bets can get them out of any pot. And if you get called, just call your opponent an idiot and feel better about losing. This strategy is bad at NL, but absolutely impossible at limit.

There is a place for bluffing in limit games, but they are rare, very situation dependent, and require your opponents to understand a "story."

2) Value-bet relentlessly

Limit is a drawing game for sure. If you are the best player you will have the best of it a lot and therefore you will be drawn-out-on a lot. It's okay, because the time your hands hold up and improve you will win much bigger pots than your opposition. It's money that counts, not pot count.

 

[buzzmonkey]

Exactly, you're going to need your hand to hold up much more often to win in Limit. There is still room for bluffing, but it's in fewer situations and often it can be to leverage people to call raises later when you have the goods. You can see more flops with suited and non suited connectors and one gaps. Position is also very important and you should be folding a lot more in early position and expect your high pocket pairs to have less showdown value (while still being aggressive with them pre-flop and on the flop). It's harder to make up from lost bets when you have good hands because the pots may not be as large.

 

[JustinInMN]

Exactly, you're going to need your hand to hold up much more often to win in Limit.

This is not at all what I am saying. I am preparing players for the reality that the best hand will not hold up nearly as often as they like. But despite that, the best hand will hold up often enough and generate pots more than big enough to make up for the outdraws. For a simple crude example. If you get AA cracked 70% of the time in pots where you only put in 20% of the money, you are still going to make a mint.

(By contrast, in no limit play, with AA and larger raises, a player may put 30-40% of the money in a pot before getting "cracked", but they won't get cracked as often in shorter hand pots of course. The cracks are just far more expensive in NL relative to Limit.)

You can see more flops with suited and non suited connectors and one gaps. Position is also very important and you should be folding a lot more in early position and expect your high pocket pairs to have less showdown value

This however, is absolutely true. And I will add it is important to go for max value whenever you hit a speculative hand in limit. The aggression that wins in limit hold'em is hoping your opponents call too much when you have the goods, not hoping they fold when you don't have it as in the "bully poker" I was describing earlier.

 

[Old State]

I guess I’m getting old because it’s still odd to see a post like this. Limit holdem was the ONLY cash holdem in any casino for decades. Cash NLHE is the new kid on the block!

I LOVE limit holdem but as others have said it’s a totally different game. To do well you need to be very disciplined and understand pot odds. Most flops will be seen by multiple players that will call to the river. I was becoming a very consistent winner at limit just as the casinos started spread NL .

You need play better hands and build pots for your draws. The check raise after the bets double is very powerful for made hands. You win by punishing others for playing too loose.

The rake at a low limit game can really eat into you profits so play in a home game if you can.

 

[ThrowBack]

And this should go without saying, but you’d want to actually be good at limit Holdem. It’s a different game than no limit.

I figured since I’m not good at nolimit, I could be just as bad at limit, but limited to how badly I can be bad

 

[ThrowBack]

I guess I’m getting old because it’s still odd to see a post like this. Limit holdem was the ONLY cash holdem in any casino for decades. Cash NLHE is the new kid on the block!

The rake at a low limit game can really eat into you profits so play in a home game if you can.

Hard to find any home games around other that NLHE and PLO.

I have a few people down for 7 stud and limit night to give it a try

 

[ngmcs8203]

I figured since I’m not good at nolimit, I could be just as bad at limit, but limited to how badly I can be bad

My first few casino live games were Limit. As long as you’ve done your homework (read the books recommended in this thread), it is a little more comfortable than losing in no limit. I was playing exclusively 100NL and 200NL online during the boom but had a good foundation and library that included the limit game literature. Live NLH was intimidating af so I sat down at a 3/6 limit table. Played that for a few hours and loved it. Felt more like a home game than I had expected.

I only ended up having about a dozen 6-7 hr limit sessions under my belt before Black Friday, but each one was enjoyable and profitable.

 

[abby99]

Although I enjoyed playing limit HE, I much prefer
O8 or HORSE. It should go without saying that limit circus games are my absolute favorite.

As mentioned above, it's a different game than NLHE.

Sklansky's book is awesome!

 

[DallasDude]

Limit mixed games in general are so much more fun than NLH

 

[abby99]

When I started playing limit HE in a casino around 2005, the lowest stakes were $5/10. At the time, I knew almost nothing about rakes and drops in limit HE -- my decades of poker were all at home games. My "AHA!!!" moment was at a table with the same 9 players. Nobody left the table. It was a great group -- lots of laughter and camaraderie. About two hours into the session, I looked at everyone's stacks and saw that nobody had much more than the initial buy-in and most were below despite rebuys. Where did all the chips go? Yup, in the boxes for rake, promo drops, and dealer tips. Lesson learned.

Interesting factoid: the promo drop was used to fund large guarantees for their tournaments. I played in casinos only when I was desperate for a game.

 

[JustinInMN]

When I started playing limit HE in a casino around 2005, the lowest stakes were $5/10. At the time, I knew almost nothing about rakes and drops in limit HE -- my decades of poker were all at home games. My "AHA!!!" moment was at a table with the same 9 players. Nobody left the table. It was a great group -- lots of laughter and camaraderie. About two hours into the session, I looked at everyone's stacks and saw that nobody had much more than the initial buy-in and most were below despite rebuys. Where did all the chips go? Yup, in the boxes for rake, promo drops, and dealer tips. Lesson learned.

Interesting factoid: the promo drop was used to fund large guarantees for their tournaments. I played in casinos only when I was desperate for a game.

We have 8/16 limit here with only a 5% drop. That's actually somewhat beatable. And we have higher limits than that where the rake becomes negligible.

All that said, you have to recognize the rake as a tax on winning the pot. If the rake caps at 5+2 fo promo+1 tip. That's $8. If you win 3 pots and hour that's $24, or 4 big bets at 3/6. It's not tough to see why lower limits are tough to beat.

Where's at 8/16, that's only 1.5 big bets per hour.

 

[Jimulacrum]

When I started playing limit HE in a casino around 2005, the lowest stakes were $5/10. At the time, I knew almost nothing about rakes and drops in limit HE -- my decades of poker were all at home games. My "AHA!!!" moment was at a table with the same 9 players. Nobody left the table. It was a great group -- lots of laughter and camaraderie. About two hours into the session, I looked at everyone's stacks and saw that nobody had much more than the initial buy-in and most were below despite rebuys. Where did all the chips go? Yup, in the boxes for rake, promo drops, and dealer tips. Lesson learned.

Interesting factoid: the promo drop was used to fund large guarantees for their tournaments. I played in casinos only when I was desperate for a game.

Yeah, around me the rake is atrocious. Public cardrooms are raking/dropping a max of $7 or $8 per hand (and of course a huge chunk of it comes out by $20 every hand). Makes any form of low-limit poker unsustainable.

The worst offender in my area is Encore Boston Harbor. I never even had the opportunity to check it out before I learned they were pulling 10% to $10 (+ $2) even out of low-stakes games. They used to have an $8/16 mixed limit game, but I can't imagine it surviving that level of taxation long-term.

And no chance I'm patronizing a place that's doing this to the poker economy. I actually care about the game and want to see it thrive.

 

[JustinInMN]

I did some napkin math on this when my local club went to 5+1 instead of 4+1 about 12 years ago and arrived at the figure they must be expecting about $120/hour per table. Which actually makes some sense.

From a hospitality perspective, even back then your fast casual restaurants would expect to get $20-25 out of a table for two, $120 from a table of 9 seems reasonable for everything a poker room has to provides.with inflation and everything, I could see that expectation is now $150/table/hour.

I'm not trying to say more rake is better, obviously as cardroom patrons it's in our interest to be provided with what we expect for as little rake as possible. But I think it's okay to compare what they provide with other hospitality and understand why it's what it is.

 

[Jimulacrum]

I did some napkin math on this when my local club went to 5+1 instead of 4+1 about 12 years ago and arrived at the figure they must be expecting about $120/hour per table. Which actually makes some sense.

From a hospitality perspective, even back then your fast casual restaurants would expect to get $20-25 out of a table for two, $120 from a table of 9 seems reasonable for everything a poker room has to provides.with inflation and everything, I could see that expectation is now $150/table/hour.

I'm not trying to say more rake is better, obviously as cardroom patrons it's in our interest to be provided with what we expect for as little rake as possible. But I think it's okay to compare what they provide with other hospitality and understand why it's what it is.

I don't really need or want casino-level hospitality to play the game I enjoy. Not that I dislike those various comforts, but for me they're a very thin slice of what matters.

The price we're paying is the financial viability of lower-stakes games—turning them into sucker games where everyone's paying the house to play for no realistic chance at significant gain. It gradually drains the lower tiers of the poker economy of funds that would otherwise circulate and stoke interest in the game, and it discourages people from playing by making the game demoralizing.

 

[Mangatang]

What’s not to like?

 

[DallasDude]

Love Harrahs NOLA chips!

 

[JustinInMN]

The price we're paying is the financial viability of lower-stakes games—turning them into sucker games where everyone's paying the house to play for no realistic chance at significant gain. It gradually drains the lower tiers of the poker economy of funds that would otherwise circulate and stoke interest in the game, and it discourages people from playing by making the game demoralizing.

Oh I do agree with your characterization here. I think limit games 4/8 and under are completely unbeatable if the table is raking $150/hr.

But by the same token, I don't think it's realistic to expect a casino to operate these games for say $75/table/hr either, so the lower stakes being eaten by inflation I guess seems natural to me.

Home games at some point become better.