In the first part of this no limit poker playing guide, I went over some basics of the game and why it’s better than limit play—especially for poker veterans. In this section, I’ll play out an example hand and show you the differences between limit and no limit poker so you can see what I’m talking about.
As mentioned before, no limit poker is about control. You have more control over your game—can be good or bad depending on your skill level. So, let’s run a simple hand scenario to see some differences and we’ll look at bluffing too. I think bluffing is much hard (sometimes impossible) in limit games (except high limit games).
The flop has just went down and we can see a Ace of Spades, Ace of Diamonds and 4 of Hearts. You’re on the button and there’s three of you in the hand. Unfortunately, you’re holding nothing important and have a dead hand at the moment (pair of Aces on the board and a Queen high card in your hand).
Since both opponents checked, you’re thinking that they may have low pair at best. You’ve decided to bluff—trying to convince them that you hold an Ace. Let’s see the two options based on limit and no limit action.
Let’s look at limit action. If this were a $1/$2 limit game of Texas Hold’em, you’d make a $1 bet as your bluff. Do you really think this will scare your opponents? Like I said, in lower to even mid limit poker games, it’s hard to bluff at this point in the hand. In our example, the players can just flip a buck into the pot and see the next card. You really can’t make them pay to play.
Alright, time for no limit action. We now have control over the hand and our destiny—one way or the other. You look at the pot and see $7 sitting there. Since this is a $25 no limit game, it’s a decent pot and you’ve decided to take it. In a limit game, you’d bet pennies and they’d call. But this is no limit, so you put out a $3.50 bet, which is half the pot. Now your opponents must really think about it and they must pay to play, which is what you want.
Of course, one of them could have been slow playing and now you’re screwed, but that’s poker. The point is, if you know what you’re doing, no limit poker gives you full control over your game, so you can get paid what you deserve. I play limit too, but I hate not being able to shake opponents at times. It’s called “limit” for a reason. If you’re new to poker in general, I’d recommend either playing $2 no limit tables or looking for some limit poker games to get your feet wet.
