Restricted Buy-in No-Limit Games, Part 1

If you're a limit hold 'em player who is thinking about playing no-limit because that's all you see on TV these days, you'll need to make some adjustments in your strategic thinking. No-limit poker used to be a very dangerous game, when one's entire bankroll could be lost on the turn of a card, and a small coterie of highly skilled players held an edge so large they almost never lost.

Somewhere I recall Doyle Brunson saying that he once played 46 straight days of no-limit hold 'em without a losing session. But that was before the poker boom, before the advent of online poker players who have learned the game in a much shorter time than anyone would have expected way back when, and before there was a spate of books explaining all of poker's intricacies, nuances, and mysteries to the masses.

No-limit can still be a scary game when you sit down at a table where most of your opponents are ensconced behind deep stacks. To get full value on your best hands, you need to have a bankroll big enough to win most, if not all, of your opponent's chips when you have the best of it. But poker comes with no guarantees, and whenever you sit down at a no-limit game with a deep stack, each and every one of your chips is at risk all the time.

That can be frightening. After all, regardless of how big an edge you have on an opponent, anyone can catch a miraculous card or two and take your entire bankroll in a New York minute.

As a hedge against this sort of unmitigated catastrophe, restricted buy-in, no-limit hold 'em games have mushroomed in popularity. It's no-limit with training wheels, where a cap on the buy-in provides insurance against losing too much money in one hand.

Casinos love it. While the game offers much of the thrill and heart-pounding drama associated with the kind of no-limit hold 'em seen on TV, buy-in restrictions prevent going broke too quickly. It's no-limit hold 'em but it plays more like a spread-limit game, albeit one with a rather large spread.

No-limit hold 'em with a restricted buy-in has no more inherent danger than a fixed limit game with a similar buy in. You can go broke in one hand in a no-limit game, to be sure. But in a fixed limit game, players are prone to play more hands and the chances of buying in for $200 and losing it all in either game are always present.

What's comforting is that $200, presumably, is something a player can afford, while sitting in what appears to be a very small $1-$2 no-limit game with $1,000 may represent more of a potential loss than some players realize until it's too late.

While restricted buy-in no limit games and no-limit games with no cap on the buy-in are both versions of no-limit wagering, they are as different as night and day, and probably ought to be seen as two different games.

In unrestricted no-limit hold 'em games, the first significant decision is sizing your buy-in. Buy-in size can depend on a number of factors, including the size of one's bankroll and risk tolerance, the relative difference in skill between a player and his opponents, and how many chips others have. Deciding how many chips to enter the game with is seldom an issue when there's a cap on the buy-in because the vast majority of players are going to enter the game with the maximum number of chips permitted along with a plan to re-buy if they go broke on a hand.

And why not? The capped buy-in generally represents an affordable sum of money. But in no-limit poker each chip is always at risk and to get maximum value out of winning hands, players need to have approximately as many chips as their opponents are willing to risk. While a player can guard against risking his entire stack, the price might entail folding a hand that otherwise would have been played if only the price weren't so steep. More next time...

Visit Lou Krieger online and check out all his books at www.loukrieger.com. You can read his blog at http://loukrieger.blogspot.com and write directly to him at loukrieger@aol.com.