LIMIT AND NO LIMIT TEXAS HOLD'EM

LIMIT HOLDEM

The difference in betting between limit hold’em and No Limit hold’em makes mathematics consistently more important in limit games. The role of mathematics in No Limit varies more with the table and players, even if it still needs to be taken into consideration. The very important concept of prospective pot odds in NL, while still being important in limit, is markedly different between the two games.

While, in No-Limit, you need experience and knowledge about the other players at the table in order to be able to calculate what you can expect the pot size to be for the next card on the board, in limit it is quite easy to project what the pot size will be. Therefore, it is also easier to make mathematically correct analyses of the pot odds for each pot.

Thus, in limit you will be able to use a more rigid style of play than in No Limit, where you constantly need to adapt and change pace. This applies especially to cash games. Hence, in limit, mathematics play a somewhat more important role than in NL, while psychology becomes less important.

NO LIMIT HOLDEM

In NL, as you know, you can bet as much as you like from your stack, instead of the fixed amounts you can bet in limit. Aside from the fact that it affects the maths (how to calculate pot odds) it also affects the amount of information you can convey to the other players and how much information you get from them in turn.

Do not give away clues

How much you bet may provide a clue to what a player is holding. A beginner tends to bet a little with a bad hand and a lot with a good hand. More experienced players instead try to confuse the opponents with their bets, and bet only a little when they have a good hand and a lot with a bad one. But the best thing is to give away as little information as possible with your bets. You do that by masking them, i.e. betting standard amounts.

A pre-flop raise if you are the first to act, usually consists of betting 3 times the big blind; for example, if BB is 20, you raise 40, thus betting 60. You then add one big blind per caller before you. So if two players called the big blind, you could bet 100 instead of 60. If you do this consistently, the other players do not get any help in trying to figure out what type of hand you are holding, aside from the fact that you have a hand you feel is worth raising with.

After the flop

After the flop, you do not usually follow the same pattern, i.e. you don’t normally bet three times the pot every time you bet, because that would be too big a bet in relation to the value of the pot. However, players mostly bet amounts that are directly related to the value of the pot. If there is 200 in the pot and you have the highest pair with a good kicker, and want to stop someone calling you with a flush draw, it is usually correct to bet 200, i.e. the pot. The three most common amounts to bet after the flop are 0.5*pot size, 1*pot size or 2*pot size, depending on what you want to achieve.

If you have, say, the highest two pairs with a large pot and there are two suited cards on the board, you would not want to give another player the chance of catching a flush. On those occasions it could be worth making a stand and betting two times the size of the pot.

However, when you post a bet two times the size of the pot, you have given away some information about the value of your hand. The most common bet by far (after the flop) in No Limit (aside from possibly all-in) is the amount in the pot, i.e. a pot bet.

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