Starting hands adjustment to NL

I think something really appreciated would be a thread about starting hands and the difference between good cards in limit vs. no limit. Everywhere you look, there are just books and home pages about limit holdem, all containing ranks of starting hands from AA down to 72o. I believe it is important for a new player to get rid of these ranks and start seeing the cards in a different way.

For example, Sklansky, Lee Jones and everybody else will tell you that pocket pair 3's and 2's are garbage, not worth to even consider playing (which is true in limit). Thus, the poor beginner folds them at the NL table and doesn´t get to taste the sweet arom of Pair of Aces and Two Pair going all-in on the turn, losing all their money against a well hidden set of threes. On the other hand, our poor beginner who has played some limit is happy to raise with KJ, flops a king and before he knows it, his whole stack is lost to someone with AK.

I think in limit, there are great starting hands, good starting hands, "limpable from button with lots of people in the pot" starting hands and poor starting hands. I would say, that in no limit there are easy starting hands and hard starting hands, or, if you like it better, (relatively) secure ones and dangerous ones. The low pocket pair is an easy starting hand: it´s an easy decision to try to get all your money on the table when you flop a set, and it´s an easy decision to let it go if you don´t. KJ, QJ, KQ are all hard starting hands as you could never get Top Pair Top Kicker with them and very seldom something better. If you flop a pair, it´s hard to decide the next move and very easy to get too involved. JJ and TT are also hard hands to play well. A3s is an easy one.

The difference between limit and no limit is the blinds compared to the pot size. If you flop a set in NL, you can sometimes win 200 big blinds or more, which very well covers up for limping every pocket pair you get dealt. What can you hope for in limit? Let´s say you limp in with a pocket pair and everybody else also limps. In the flop´s betting round, people reraise each other to the max, i.e. four small bets (big blinds) each. That equals 40 big blinds (including your money). On the turn, 4 big bets equaling 2 big blinds are put in by everybody, nobody folds. Here we have 4 x 2 x 10 = 80 big blinds. The river looks the same, 80 big blinds. What do we have in total? 200 big blinds. So, to get the same return of investment at a limit table that is not unusual at NL tables, you need the maximum action by every people in the hand - I could bet my bankroll that has never happened.

In limit, you want to avoid losing small amounts at a time and instead winning small amounts at a time. In no limit, you want to avoid losing your whole stack at a time and instead double up your stack at a single hand (and in the meantime take some nice small pots home by betting pot sized on flop with TPTK). Therefore, the best (or at least easiest) hands to play in NL are those that either becomes a monster or trash when you see the flop. The marginal hands are the dangerous ones and if everyone knows this but you, you will end up winning small pots with them half the time and losing big money the other half.

If someone would make a starting hands chart for no-limit holdem, I would recommend a two dimensional graph. On the x-axis you could have the traditional order based on how often they actually will win a showdown. And on the Y axis, there would be security or easyness to play the hand. This could be defined as "how easy it is to know if you should fold or raise with the hand".