No matter how wealthy you are, it is often best to start out at the lower limits simply because the competition there is easier. Few ‘professionals’ play at the $1-2 games, so it is a relatively safe place to begin one’s poker career. Even if you are a billionaire, no one will know it when you play on the internet and think any less of you for playing at a low limit.

When choosing a limit, the major choices come when one decides to move up a limit or down a limit. Generally, you should only move up a limit if you think you are comfortable playing at that limit for seven sessions or more. Do not choose a limit so high that it makes you scared to play. Playing scared is a guaranteed recipe for losing. It is also not wise to ‘go for it’ at a higher limit. If you are making a run for it at a higher limit, you probably do not have the bankroll to survive there for long. Even if you win on two straight sessions, you will likely bust out and have to move down if you are not bankrolled enough at any given limit.

If you take a hit at a higher limit, you should generally move down. However, you shouldn’t move down so far that you are totally unmotivated to play. If you move up to $25-50 from $10-20, you shouldn’t fall back to $1-2 once you decide that $25-50 is too high. While people tend to play too scared at a higher limit, they also tend to play too loose at a lower limit. Play a limit that motivates you to play, but also at which that you are not scared to play.

I am not a fan of tournament poker. Television has made tournament poker look glamorous- a competition where skill prevails. However, the truth of the matter is that luck plays a much larger factor in tournaments than ring games. Think about it this way: if you started with $2,000, what is the chance that you would end up with $2 million dollars before the night was over at a regular no-limit game? Zero. However, to win a tournament where each player has 2k starting chips and 1,000 people enter, you would need to win two million in chips to win the tournament. Not an easy feat to do unless lady luck truly smiled upon you that day!

In short, the reasons I prefer to make money at ring games rather than tournaments are:

1. I can consistently win at a ring game, whereas a tournament is feast or famine.
2. Luck plays a much smaller role in having a winning session at a ring game than at a tournament.
3. It is much easier to tell if you are a good ring game player than a good tournament player. Since the best tournament player can easily go ten sessions winning nothing, it is very difficult to tell if you are ‘doing the right thing.’

Nevertheless, I play tournaments because they are fun, and because I hope to make some money at them. Winning at tournaments still requires sound poker strategy, but emphasizes several factors more so than ring games:

1.

Your chips have a different relative value. In a standard poker game, you should view each dollar as having equal value. This is not the case in a tournament. When you start off with an initial thousand in chips, that thousand is worth a lot more than the next thousand you make. Since you cannot buy back in, you always need to have chips in order to survive. At the beginning of the tournament, you should be more reluctant to go all-in because even if you win you are not in much better of a position. However, later in the tournament you must gamble, or else you risk just losing by being blinded away.
2.

Domination plays a much bigger factor. Later in the tournament, the blinds will be so high that most players in contested hands will be all-in preflop. Thus, you want hands that dominate other hands. High pocket pairs are good because they dominate lower pocket pairs, and ace with a good kicker is a good hand because it dominates many other hands. Many players make the mistake of betting very hard with a low pocket pair such as 55. In truth, these low pockets are only good for stealing blinds. If someone calls you, you are at best a 50-50, while you are a 4.5:1 underdog if they have a higher pocket pair.

Limit Hold’em lends itself to a smaller edge. You are limited by how much you can bet, so fish are protected against making blatantly idiotic moves like calling all-in with bottom pair when you hold top set. Think about it mathematically. The bets are a mere fraction of the pot. So most of the time people call with a solid draw, they have good odds for the draw. Suppose you are playing a $1-$2 limit game (with no rake). You hold AK and your opponent has K4. Three players besides you and your opponent see the flop. The flop comes K69. You bet and he calls through the river. How much did your opponent expect to lose? Excluding the expected preflop loss, your opponent did not expect to lose that much. The pot going into the flop was $5. He called $1 so the pot was $7 after the flop. He then called $2 so the pot was $9 going into the river. Let’s see how much your opponent lost in terms of expected value on each of the postflop streets. The way to calculate this expected value is his expected win (chance of winning * pot) - his bet.

Flop: $-.55
Turn: -$1.41
River: -$2

Total: -3.96

While he actually lost $5 on postflop betting, he only expectedto lose $3.96. So essentially, for every dollar he bet, he lost 79.2 cents. Keep in mind this is one of the WORST possible situations in Limit Hold’em. Rarely is one dominated in a smallish pot. Most of the time when people make incorrect bets in Limit Hold’em, their losing edge is much smaller.

If this hand was played in a No-Limit Hold’em game, your opponent would have lost a lot more money. Your edge over him in terms of expected value would also have been greater. This is because your bets are a larger fraction of the pot. Assuming pot sized bets were made beginning at the flop, this is the amount in terms of expected value that your opponent would lose:

Flop: (bet of $5):-$4.04
Turn: (bet of $15): -$12.06
River: (bet of $45): -$45

Total: -$61.10

This time, he made bets totaling $65 and expected to lose $61.10. Not only did he lose more money, he expected to lose an even higher percentage. For every dollar he bet, he expected to lose 94 cents! That’s a much bigger edge than the one in Limit Hold’em simply because the bets are a larger fraction of the pot. Please note that this example did not include implied odds. In that sense, it is an imperfect example. However, it illustrates the point that in No-Limit Hold’em, the edges can be huge under certain situations, whereas in Limit they generally are not nearly as huge.

Does this mean that No-Limit ring games are superior to Fixed-Limit ring games? Not necessarily. Because the edges can be so huge in No-Limit games, most players tend to stay away from them unless they are good at No-Limit, especially at higher stakes. Also, even poor No-Limit players are wary of betting their money in situations like the one above. People will not throw their money away in situations where they expect to lose 96 cents on every dollar they bet, whereas they would lose 79 cents on the dollar in a Limit game. At No-Limit Hold’em, being caught as a huge underdog in a big pot is disastrous, so few people who survive to play No-Limit Hold’em make such critical errors. However, poor players will tend to stay at Limit Hold’em and continue to bleed their money away slowly.

Basically, a few big fish can greatly raise the expected value of a No-Limit Hold’em game. You will be able to find yourself in a few situations where your edge is huge and you can win a huge pot. It is possible to make huge, disastrous mistakes at No-Limit whereas it is very hard to do so at Limit. People tend to make more common, smaller mistakes at Limit, so one cannot take too great of advantage of an opponent’s huge error. Obviously a soft game is preferable, but the addition of one huge fish will alter the expected value of a No-Limit game much more than it will a Limit game.

So when you think about your edge in a Limit or No-Limit game, realize that one’s edge at a No-Limit game is much more dynamic. A player’s edge at Limit tends to stay in a certain general area, while a No-Limit Hold’em edge can vary greatly depending on the play of a few players. In the example of the K4 versus AK hand, you will more than likely win money in situations like those at Limit (unless you play in a tough game). However, you may or may not win any money from your opponent in No-Limit games. If you are able to extract huge bets from players with top pair and no kicker in No-Limit Hold’em games, then you may be able to retire from your day job a little earlier. But sometimes people will not pay you off at all,so your expected gain is contracted. Basically, the really big mistakes your opponents can make are either bigger in No-Limit or they do not exist at all, and this will greatly determine your expected win or loss from a game.

Nonetheless, there is the possibility of a more general edge at low-stakes No-Limit Hold’em games. This is because these games attract so many poor players that the addition of one or two more poor players does not significantly alter the ecosystem of the game.

One night in 1832, four men played poker aboard a Mississippi steamboat. Three of the men were professionals and the other was a helpless sucker from Natchez. The game was rigged so that the young man from Natchez would lose all of his money and he in fact did.

Distraught, the young man attempted to escape his miseries by jumping into the river. An observer prevented this suicide attempt and led the young man back to a cabin. The mysterious observer then returned to the game with the three sharks. In the midst of a high stakes pot, the observer caught one of the professionals cheating. He wrestled the cheat and pulled a knife on him.

The observer yelled, ‘Show your hand! If it contains more than five cards I shall kill you!’ As he twisted the cheater’s wrist, six cards fell to the table. The observer then took the $70,000 pot,. He returned $50,000 of it to the man of Natchez and kept $20,000 for his trouble.

‘Who the devil are you, anyway?’ cried the cheat.

‘I am James Bowie.’ 1

In less than two centuries time, poker has changed drastically. Once a game mainly played by cheats, outlaws, and knife-makers aboard riverboats, it has developed into a celebrated ’sport’ played worldwide. The cheat and hustler has been replaced by the professional poker player, whose celebrity status is much more akin to a professional athlete or movie star than an infamous outlaw. Poker hands are no longer dealt by professional cheats who manipulate the deck; instead, they are often dealt by software programs connecting players from around the globe.

The exact origins of poker are unclear. It seems to have originated from a 16th century Persian card game known as As Nas. This game was played with 25 cards with 5 different suits. The game played in a similar fashion to modern 5 card stud and possessed similar poker hands rankings, such as three-of-a-kind. When Europeans began to play the game, they called it ‘poque’ or ‘pochen.’ 2 While poker’s origins may lie in Europe and Persia, it truly developed in the United States. Poker was first widely played in New Orleans in the early 1800’s. Prior to the American Civil War, poker spread quickly from New Orleans to towns throughout the Western frontier. 3 Poker’s spread was the result of a general spread of gambling during the era. The West was comprised largely of speculators and travelers, both groups that enjoyed gambling. Gambling suited the speculator’s individualistic and risk-taking traits. Unburdened by family needs and the social stigmas of Southern and Northern culture, travelers were allowed to indulge in this vice for their own entertainment. 4

Those responsible for poker’s initial boom were professional gamblers, trying to expand their craft. The professional gambler viewed his occupation as quintessentially American. They considered themselves entrepreneurial businessmen who took advantage of America’s growing obsession of gambling. However, the public did not have such a rosy view of professional gamblers.

Gambling was viewed to be comprised of two distinct groups. There was the player, who was considered to be a gentlemen who merely enjoyed this form of entertainment in moderation. In contrast, there was the professional, who aimed to simply make money without any regard to moderation or propriety. Professional gamblers were considered to contribute nothing to society. The public viewed their practice as nothing more than one man trying to con another out of his hard-earned money.5 This was especially the case because professional gamblers often cheated in order to win money from their victims.

Another practice of professional gamblers that was particularly troublesome was their disregard for the social status of their victim. “To [professional gamblers], as to prostitutes, it seemed unprofessional to differentiate between paying customers. They consequently played indiscriminately with all potential victims, from the most upright planet to the meanest flatboatsman or, even worse, the black slave 6 .” This practice slowly led to the “democratization” of gambling in America. No long was gambling, poker in particular, thought to be a practice of only the wealthy. Rather, it became a practice to which people of all social ranks were accustomed.

Professional gamblers were involved in both banking and percentage games, such as roulette and faro, as well as card games. Of all games, faro was a particular favorite for both professional and casual gamblers. Faro is a game where players would bet on which cards would be dealt next. Both banking games, like faro, and card games guaranteed the pro a steady income over the long run. Banking and percentage games had a built-in house edge that guaranteed the professional to be a statistical winner. These types of gamblers are similar to the modern casino, which primarily rely on these types of games for revenue. When professionals dealt card games, such as three card monte or poker, they guaranteed themselves a steady income from cheating. 7

Poker initially was played with one round of betting. Players were dealt five cards face down and there was no draw of cards. 8 Professional gamblers later modified the rules in order to enhance the profitability of the game for them. After 1850, wild cards and bluffing became common practices in the game. The draw was also added. The addition of the draw helped professionals because it introduced another round of betting (meaning another opportunity to cheat their opponents) as well as introducing more skill to the game. 9

Poker playing became increasingly popular as American gambling shifted from the frontier towns to the riverboats. While gambling was tolerated on the Southwestern frontier during the early 1800’s, it came out of favor by the 1830’s. The Western, frontier culture of these towns was steadily replaced by Southern culture, which was more averse to gambling. 10 Western towns passed ordinances against gambling and many towns kicked out known gamblers. Some gamblers were tarred and feathered and there were even instances where vigilante groups lynched gamblers. 11 Since their trade was no longer tolerated on land, professional gamblers took their trade to the many steamboats navigating the Mississippi River. However, carrying heavy equipment like a roulette wheel proved more difficult aboard the steamboats, so card games like poker became an increasingly popular game of choice for gamblers. 12

The California gold rush introduced a new venue for poker playing. The gold rush resulted in a large influx of men traveling to a new area, seeking to strike it rich. Unsurprisingly, gambling houses sprouted in Northern California, offering an array of gambling and entertainment opportunities for young men. Casinos employed musicians and pretty women (not necessarily prostitutes) to entertain gamblers as they played games such as roulette, faro, and blackjack. 13

During the early gold rush period, poker was not popular at all in California. This is because gamblers preferred games with more fast paced action. 14 Poker, especially the traditional five card stud or draw, is fairly slow. Gamblers cannot constantly double or lose all of their money in a single bet like they can in roulette. However, poker would eventually become a California pastime. As people became more settled in California and the gold rush ended, their desire for fast action games like faro diminished, and they had a renewed interest in slower games like poker. 15

Poker’s growth during the 1800’s was largely the result of the increase in gambling along the American frontier. Nevertheless, it managed to establish itself as a unique gambling game, with characteristics notably different from the other frontier gambling games.