|
|
 knowing your limit(s)
I play 6max LHE from $1/2 to $10/20 but I think the advice I offer below could also apply to other forms of poker....
A fairly ingrained part of poker culture is the concept of knowing your limit. We’ve been taught that we should keep playing at a particular limit until we are consistently beating it, and have built up a sufficient bankroll for the next limit, and then move up. Usually in LHE that means you should have at least 300BB or better yet 500BB before tackling the next limit.
The concept of playing at the limit you’re rolled for definitely has merit. Despite what is sometimes asserted, each limit is in fact harder than the one beneath it. So it makes sense to only move up in limits when you’ve had the experience and success of showing a nice profit at your current limit.
This strategy has many parallels in the competitive world. Imagine you are a promising young boxer. Assuming you have a decent manager, you will get put up against good competition, competition that challenges you, but competition that you can still beat. Even if your manager thinks you have great potential, he doesn’t just pit you against the world champion your first fight. That same logic applies to a lot of other competitive endeavours as well – you start small and work your way up.
We are taught as poker players to respect these rules of advancement as well, to only start playing at the next level when we’ve shown we can succeed at the level we’re at.
Now I’m going to tell you what’s wrong with this 'limited' strategy:
The difference in skill between the different levels in poker is real, but it’s highly variable. The reason is that, unlike boxing, there is no outside authority regulating who can play at what limit. There is no-one on the poker site watching player X and saying “Excuse me sir, but you really suck at this game and we’re afraid you’re going to get creamed even worse than you already have been these first few hands. We’re throwing in the towel on you - you’ll have to leave this $10/20 table and go play at microstakes. It’s for your own good.” Maybe they should say that, but they don’t.
But this variance in ability is what makes the game profitable for the good players. Think about it: The way to make money in poker is to sit at tables with players who are not as good as you. Period. You don’t win money sitting with a bunch of guys who are just as good as you. And if you sit at tables where everyone can outplay you then you will lose. So you need to sit at tables where the balance of skill is tilted in your favour. Once you’ve realised this simple fact and consistently implement it in your table selection, it is mathematically certain that you will win money in the long run.
Again: The way to make money in poker is to sit at tables with players who are not as good as you. And yes, I appreciate that many of you will not find this statement particularly enlightening in and of itself.
The real question is what is the best way to do this? How do you get the best seats at the most profitable games? The typical strategy of playing at the highest limit supported by your bankroll is a reasonable start, because it allows you to play at the highest limit in which you’re proven to have an edge (or at least improve to have an edge if you’ve just moved up in limit).
But even if you only play at the softest tables at your chosen limit, you are often still losing profit. Why? Because there may be even softer tables at higher or lower limits, tables at which you could make an even greater profit. It doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to realise that winning 4BB/100 hands at a $1/2 table is better than winning 1 BB/100 hands at a $2/4 table.
The ideal approach is to select not one limit, but a range of limits (I myself use $1/2 to $10/20, or six different limits). Here’s how I do it:
1) As the top part of my range, I ensure I am bankrolled for at least 150BB. I’ll explain why this is all you need in a minute.
2) The bottom part of my range is the one that is a few levels below the top of my range.
3) Starting at the top of the range, I look for good games. A good game is defined as one in which I expect to have an edge, generally because there is at least one bad player (preferably more) and I feel I can compete with the others at the table.
4) If there are no good games at the top of my range, I look for good games at the next level. And so on, until I’ve found four or five good tables from the highest limits I can find them at.
In practice, this means that on a Sunday night ('fish' night), I will often be playing one or two $10/20 tables and one or two $5/10 tables, and maybe a $3/6 table. On a Monday night (when the fishies have gone back to their caves), I will be lucky to find a good game at $5/10 or $10/20. More likely I’ll end up playing one $3/6 games, a $2/4 game, and three $1/2 games.
So why am I playing $10/20 when my roll is only a minimum of $3k (150 BB)? It’s because I’m not just playing games at $10/20. I’m playing a range of limits, meaning that I am more than adequately bankrolled for the average limit I’m playing at.
Following this strategy has several obvious advantages:
1) You can almost never go broke, since you will always have at least 150BB for whatever is the highest level you play at. If you run bad and find you don’t have 150BB for your highest limit, take it off the list and add one at the lower end.
2) You can play games at a number of levels, and learn how the play differs at each level while you're at it. You get to learn the higher levels gradually rather than just using the sink or swim method that the one-limit strategy entails.
3) The easy games at the low levels support your bankroll by giving you the means to pad it while you're learning the higher levels.
4) It makes the game a bit easier psychologically - i.e., you don't feel so bad about having a losing session of 10/20 if you also had two winning sessions of 5/10 and one at 1/2 at the same time. Also you don't feel that you should be spending all your time at a particular level or feel like a loser if you drop one of the higher levels. It just becomes part of the learning process.
5) Most of all, you can pick from a much larger assortment of games. Now that I play a range of limits, I find it so much easier to find four or five good games than when I just played one.
So don’t limit yourself to just one limit. It’s much better to limit yourself to just good games.
Comments, thoughts appreciated.
DD
|
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Unibomber14
