Picking your level in six max limit hold ‘em

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[ Posted June 9th, 2009 ] by The Dean

Carl “The Dean” Sampson.

A few people have asked me recently just what to expect at various levels in limit hold’em. Basically there is a strong similarity between levels at NLHE and Limit hold’em with a few notable exceptions. For instance, play at NL600 which is $3-$6 is typically far stronger than your average $3-$6 limit game.

You would expect this to be the case anyway as NL600 is a serious level these days and occupied by many pro players. Despite this, $3-$6 limit hold’em has become a whole lot tougher recently and this is mainly to do with the compression of skill as better players are not multi-tabling their normal level but multi-tabling lower levels instead.

What I would call the micro limits are still very beatable and this is where you will find the fish and the beginners. I would classify these levels as all the way up to $0.25-$0.50. The variance is high as it is with all limit games but good solid play can still make money. Actually I would recommend to anyone that they try Cake Poker because the abundance of added sportsbooks to that network has meant that many weak players are now active on there.

The level of play not just on Cake Poker but on most sites at these levels is very poor, so poor in fact that beating these levels may not be much stimulation for many players. If that is the case then I suggest moving up to low-limit games which I class as $0.50-$1.00 to $3-$6. There are still many beatable games but a slight word of warning, some games at the higher end of this scale can be quite tough as you can sometimes get $20-$40 players multi-tabling these games.

Depending on your skill level then you may need to game select even as low as this but a good solid player should find enough beatable players to make a decent hourly rate. Moving up to what I call the middle limits is a significant step for any limit player. Levels from $4-$8 to $20-$40 are what I would call the middle limits.

But professionals, semi-professionals and serious amateurs will be active in these games in far higher numbers. Many players will now have very strong or near perfect pre-flop play. Beating these limits will place you well into the minority of limit players and will give you something to be very proud of.

There are many experienced professionals who have never broken beyond the middle limits and this is an example of how tough getting to high-limit play and staying there can be in this form of poker. High limit play is $30-$60 up to around $100-$200. A few years ago, $30-$60 wouldn’t have been classified as high-limit and would have taken its position firmly in the middle limits along with the rarely played $40-$80 or even $50-$100.

But times definitely do change and $30-$60 is now a very serious level in online poker. A $100-$200 live player would get several times the number of hands in an online game and this is why highstakes live players play lower online or at least many of them do. These games can be so tough as to be almost unbeatable except for a very small number of players.

I used to play at these levels some years ago but the value started to get thinner and thinner until finding a profitable game was simply taking too long. Most of the time the good players avoid each other at these levels and especially in heads up play as they seem to instinctively know the pecking order of players in terms of skill.

Going beyond $100-$200 limit hold ‘em will put you alongside the very best players in the world! In fact I would go as far as to say that $100-$200 limit is probably populated by better players than its $100-$200 NLHE equivalent. The problem with playing so high is that you can spend too much time simply sitting and waiting for players to show up whom you have an edge over.

This is precisely why strong players avoid each other in highstakes games and especially heads up games. This isn’t so much to do with them simply waiting for weaker players to come along. It is basically more to do with them knowing each others games and also the strengths and weaknesses of their own game and how that correlates with that of their opponents.

This is a key skill in any form of poker. So there you have it then, what I think each generic level of limit hold ‘em holds in store for the players who are looking to move up and if you want to play highstakes limit…..then I wish you the very best of luck indeed.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson can be seen at www.pokersharkpool.com.