At the end of the day, people deserve to be told how it really is. There were times where I sometimes used to think was it all worth it and limit hold’em makes you have these thoughts more than any other form of poker in my opinion. Gambling for a living is not really what it is cracked up to be and after thousands upon thousands of hours in the trenches playing both blackjack and poker then I should know.

But even for most of the players who beat the game, poker is still a negative sum game emotionally. I guarantee you that if you won $1000 today and lost $900 tomorrow that you would be feeling more upset about the $900 loss when compared to how happy you felt about the $1000 win. This will be the case with many people even though the net result over the two days is that you are ahead by $100.

The number of players who are beating online poker is very small. But beating online poker is only part of the equation anyway. Even if you succeed which at least 90% of you don’t then surely even for it all to be worth it anyway then you need to be earning a certain amount to merit all the grief and stress that it causes. This is why I only play at the $25-$50 level whenever I play no limit because playing any lower just does not motivate me.

Let us take a really successful limit hold’em player who is playing multiple tables with good rakeback and earning $1000 a week. I have seen figures as low as 5% for how many people are +EV in online poker so for anyone to be earning $1000 a week represents a serious achievement that perhaps no more than one player in every hundred could emulate and that figure is probably way too high. Personally I would not expect one player in a thousand to earn that kind of money who plays online. But let us say that you are earning that kind of money, is £500 a week ($1000 at this time of writing) enough to be sitting around a computer screen all week enduring bad beats and horrible runs when you could easily earn that kind of money doing something else?

I think that for it to be worth your while then you need to be able to earn money in online poker that would be beyond your capacity to earn in any other occupation that is available to you. This figure differs from person to person but another answer to the problem is not to play full time but part time and to fit your poker playing around other things.

This creates a far better balance to your life than merely watching cards go around a computer screen all week. But there are players out there who do earn serious six and even seven figure sums from playing online poker and even in limit hold’em. But that is no different to people in all fields. The top footballers earn mega wages as do the top golfers and also the top poker players but how many people fit into each of those categories?

But the bottom line here is that limit hold’em and the sheer nature of it will well and truly mess with your mind and you need to be aware of this and ready for it for when it happens.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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You start to lose faith in the poker strategies that had been doing well initially and suddenly you are following your own methods. Because you have no real confidence in using these strategies and that they are still untested in your own mind then this makes matters worse.

This is what it all boils down to at the end of the day…confidence! Lack of confidence is a killer in poker because it can cause you to alter what you were doing. It can cause you to change successful methods for losing methods and when this happens then the end is not far away. This is precisely what I mean when I say that limit hold’em will mess with your head. In no other form of poker will you be forced at some stage to endure terrible bad runs and beat after beat even at the higher levels.

It is a common fact that top no limit players will experience a far greater percentage of winning sessions than top limit players. I see it all the time on forums, players experience what they see as a bad run and then come onto the forum looking for advice. They perhaps are losing after a few sessions of no limit or maybe after playing 20 SNG’s and are now looking for what to play next. They try Pot Limit Omaha or heads up play, in short, anything that will lead to success.

In a way I feel sorry for them because many of them will never ever get to where they are trying to be and that is to be winning poker players. But I suppose it is a good thing for the winners that we have such people otherwise without winners there would be no game as who would play a game that they couldn’t win at? But the thing is that with poker, everybody starts off by thinking that they can be successful at it.

There are no proven tests of a player’s ability other than winning and losing and most of the losing players hear about the winning players and want to be like them so they persevere. They buy more books, read more magazines, join coaching websites and all the rest of it. In their mind, not cracking poker is an indication of a lack of intelligence and if some eighteen year kid can do it who they have read about in some magazine then so can they! Look out for part three coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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Well let me tell you right here and now that anyone who thinks along these lines is massively wrong. Limit hold’em is a game that requires you to see flops and this is where the most skill is in any form of poker. Many players who start out playing no limit hold’em cannot play good post flop poker because they simply do not get enough practice. But let me tell you another more subtle and equally dangerous problem with limit hold’em. This is a problem that few people talk about and is rarely discussed in any book.

This is how limit hold’em plays with your mind. Some of you will no doubt have read numerous books advising you of how many big bets you need as a potential bankroll. Most books start the bidding at 300 and go all the way up to 500 and even 1000 depending on your skill level and type of opposition. Why do you think the books tell you this? Simple, because you will need them that’s why!

Maybe not straight away, maybe not tomorrow, next week or even next month but if you play long enough then you will need them. The problem many novices face is that they read this stuff and then still have no experience of going through a bad run and even worse, they don’t really understand what a bad run actually is.

They have a bad day online and lose 40 big bets and some think that their entire world is caving in. But it is one thing to theoretically read about a bad run in some book but it is something else to play through one. When that horrible run of 50 big bets that you thought must be due for turning around suddenly turns into 100 and then 150 then if you have never experienced this type of run before, it will seriously mess with your mind believe me. Well I have news for you, take that 150 big bet loss that you thought was the run from hell and then double it and see how you feel then?

That’s right, most full time or semi- professional players have endured swings of 300 big bets at some stage. These runs are bad enough for experienced players to handle but for novices or for someone who has never experienced one, it will be perhaps the biggest and toughest test that you will ever go through in your poker life.

Well let me tell you something else, most players never live to see the other side of that storm. They mentally self destruct along the way and the exact point in which that happens depends on how tough and resilient the player is and how soon they encountered the run. You start off with a few beats and you start to frown. Then you get beat by a two outer on the river followed by some player rivering a gutshot draw that he never should have played and now you are slightly upset.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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The big blind checked and as it turned out had the 10c-9c. So we have a four way pot and the flop comes Jc-6h-2c giving our hero a flush draw. He checks being first to speak and so do the first two limpers, the final limper bets and our hero calls which is fairly straight forward as does one other player.

This is purely a pot odds call as it seems likely that one of his opponents has made a decent pair. The turn card is the 3d and the big blind and the other limper check again. The flop bettor bets again on the turn and once again our hero is getting a decent price to call. The other limper folds and the river card brings a ten to give our hero a pair.

He checks and his opponent bets again, this time he check-raises and his opponent thinks for a few seconds and calls. The result is that his opponent wins with J-9. Now here our hero did everything perfectly until the river where he went a little crazy and lost an extra big bet. Folding was really not an option and he had to pay off.

Too many players who are at the intermediate level or beyond try to make great laydowns all the time but this just doesn’t get the job done in limit hold’em. Most of the time in situations like these then the simplest play is usually the best.

Limit hold’em is simply about making a series of correct decisions over a very long period of time, quite often poker software can help make many of these decisions for you. If you can make many small correct decisions in limit play then you should do very well. In this example then it was perfectly obvious that his opponent had a hand that could beat a pair of tens and even if their hand was marginal then because of the pot odds that they were getting then they were always going to shrug their shoulders and stick their money in.

I simply do not know that this guy was doing, if he was raising a bluff then why did he raise when all he had to do was check-call? Also if he thought that his opponent had a stronger hand then he must surely have suspected that they wouldn’t have laid it down at this form of online poker with the pot odds that they were getting.

Maybe our hero just lost focus or discipline or whatever but he certainly threw a big bet away here. This just proves that with online poker you really have to keep on top of your game all the time. This requires focus and discipline and hard work unfortunately. It is this gradual bleeding of small and big bets in limit play that literally blows the vast majority of players out of the water in the long run.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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PRIMARY POKER SKILLS

But yet one of the primary skills in any form of hold’em poker is in how you handle post flop play. In no-limit hold’em, most of the time you will not go beyond the flop so post flop skills are not required as often. But in games where big bets cannot win the pot immediately like with pot limit and especially limit play then you have to be able to play very well after the flop.

While you cannot lose your buy-in in one foul swoop in limit play, your level of skill will be under constant bombardment by having to see flop after flop after flop. This will be even more pronounced in six handed play. Let us look at an example to show what I mean here.

It has been folded around to the button who raises, the small blind folds and you are in the big blind with the hand Qh-5c. Now if this was a no-limit situation then you can clearly fold and wait for a better opportunity as Qh-5c isn’t exactly one of the better poker hands. In fact even if your opponent on the button is a very loose and aggressive player then folding would still be correct here. Even though you would be looking to open your range, it wouldn’t be opened wide enough to incorporate a hand like Q-5.

LIMIT PLAY IS DIFFERENT

But in limit play then you really must play this hand. Your pot odds and implied odds coupled with your opponents likely range gives you a straight forward call here. In fact to balance your play somewhat then you can even consider throwing in a small percentage of re-raises although that percentage cannot be very high with a hand like Q-5.

Your opponent could have something like K-9 but yet pot odds of 3.5/1 dictate that you simply cannot fold this hand. Then you can decide how to proceed on certain types of flop. For example if the flop came J-7-2 rainbow then you may get the opportunity to take the lead here on a ragged rainbow board that has likely missed your opponent.

You could try leading out or maybe check-raising for balance. You have reached this situation purely because you were playing a form of poker where you were receiving good pot odds to get involved before the flop.

Poor post flop play at limit hold’em is like a slow bleeding of money and this is why having a rakeback deal is critical these days to your hourly rate. The overall level of skill in limit play has led to variance becoming more and more of an issue.

This is precisely why I stopped playing the game and switched to no-limit play via a brief fling with SNG’s. But do not let anyone tell you that limit hold’em is a far less skilful game than no-limit because anyone who says that simply does not understand limit hold’em.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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Well, as I could remember, there was a small blind which was 30 and 60 as the big blind. The first player to supposedly act had only 61 chips, therefore with 61, he went all in.

In your opinion, how many chips should the next player possess to act out? Well, at first instance I thought it should be 61, but eventually I became unsure. Most people at the room fought out it should be 120. At that point, I heard somebody saying that since the hand was actually raised, the minimum raise therefore should be 120 to those with adequate chips.

Any comment will be much appreciated. Thanks!

By the way, nice site.

Keith Johnson
Keith,

In the situation above, the next player only has to call 61. If they want to raise, the minimum raise is to 121. The players raise to 61 is not considered a full raise since it was less than half the minimum.

If this was limit holdem, this changes. Since the all-in raise was less than half of a bet, the players can only complete the initial raise and make it 120.

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My concern is about betting rules during a friendly game. In a certain event, blinds were $6 and $12. Eventually, four people were left after roughly 20 minutes of playing time.

As I can remember, it was the first player who called the blind and went all in for another $3. Then it’s the second player who folded. Third player call for $9 since as during that time it was the bet, $6 to match blind and the $3 for raise.

Well, for that instance, I’m wondering whether the 3rd player actually needs to match the $3 raise or $12 minimum bet, though the big blind is still out of the scene.

Any advice for this?

Thanks!
Benny
Benny,

In a No Limit Holdem game, the player is only required to call the $3 raise. He may then raise the minimum of $6 or to whatever he desires up to his entire stack.

In Limit Holdem, since the raise was half of the bet, the player is only required to call the $3 raise. If he wants to raise, then he can raise to $18.

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First of all, I would like to congratulate you for having a great site. And thanks for providing lots of helpful infos.

Before I ask my question, I would like first to introduce myself as a poker player. Well, I am a beginner in the field of real cash games online. And to improve myself, I’ve tried to read some books. This weekend, I’m planning to read the super system, hoping I would learn some stuff.

I’m playing the .50/1.00 limit holdem. And for some time now, I was wondering if playing such could really earn me money. Just an information, over the past week, I am up 90 dollars for 10 hours play time and my total bankroll is already around 150.00.

By the way, do you think I could already start out playing 1.00/2.00 games?

Thanks,
Dave
Dave,

I would give a little more time at the .50/$1 Limit before moving up. You basically have a bankroll of 75 big bets for $1/$2. I would like to see you have a bankroll of 200 to 300 big bets before moving up. That will allow for some swings. I would wait until you are up to around $400 at least before you play. Now if you want to take a one time shot at the game, that is fine, but to play it regularly, I would wait.

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My question is something about Limit Holdem. I’m wondering if you have any opinion about the best time to leave the table if you are actually winning. Usually, in cases like for an instance I’m 80-100% ahead of my starting bankroll, I always try to take a break out of the table before coming back again in the event I still want to play. I noticed that this attitude of mine really works. But of course, people have different insights about things. Some players commend me for such, but some also made me feel it’s wrong to take 2-3 moderate winnings per day instead of playing all day.

Just an information, I don’t usually lose my entire bankroll. Well, it happened to me 3 times in 2004, but I’ve learned my lesson.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

Paul
Paul,

The best bet is to play when you feel that you have an edge and are capable of giving the game your full attention. If you cannot, take a break such as what you are doing. I think what you are doing is fine. I would rather have 3 moderate winning sessions than 1 long small win.

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The first time I played, I don’t know what to do and my goal was just to win money. But when I learned more and more things about how to play, I became more enthusiastic and more sensible when it comes to goals and the like. However, for awhile now, I’ve been playing fake money, so I became bored.

I like and love the game, but there’s no challenge when there’s no at stake. No stake to run after, to get, etc. So as of the moment, I’m planning to try games with real cash stakes. Do you think it’s actually the best thing to do?

By the way, I’m also bothered about players doing all in every hand, or keep raising in limit game which I believe works on individuals. Well, I’m not that worried when the game is 1 v1, but when already more than 4 people, it’s already a different story. Typically, I would try to raise, then he raise back as always, so others just call, making the entire game nonsense. Any advise with this?

Thanks in advance,
Alex
Alex,

Definitely give live cash games a try. At lower limits you will run across a lot of limpers usually. You two choices are to either play strong hands and try and punish your opponents when you have them or to loosen up your hands and see a lot of flops cheap. When you hit, you extract maximum value for your hands.

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