Pot Limit Holdem Strategy
In Hold'em, each player is dealt two hole cards before the flop, which together with five community cards means your hand actually has seven cards. Of these seven, you choose the best five. You can use both, one, or none of your two hole cards. In Omaha, each player is dealt four cards. But given the same scenario at a pot limit holdem table, you can only bet $16 into the $16 pot, laying opponents exactly 2 to 1. And if your nemesis clicks it back with a pot-sized raise to $64 total ($16 in pot + your $16 bet + $16 “call” = $48 - $48 + $16 “call” = $64 total raise)?
- Pot Limit Hold'em Strategy
- No Limit Holdem Sites
- Limit Holdem Solutions
- No Limit Holdem Tournament Strategy
- Limit Poker Strategy
The Pros:Chance Kornuth, John Beauprez, and Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger
Craig Tapscott: If someone could only study pot-limit Omaha for 20 to 30 minutes a day, which area or situation would you recommend they devote their time to? What worked best for you when you first made the transition from no-limit hold’em to PLO?
Chance Kornuth: I encourage students to simply play as much as possible, particularly when they’re feeling confident or winning. Most players don’t play enough when winning and play too long when losing. Nowadays there is so much training material available, which can feel overwhelming as a player because subconsciously it may feel that if you haven’t digested every piece of content, you may have a blind spot providing an edge to your opponent. But realistically, I’ve always learned more from simply putting in volume at a stake where the swings don’t bother me mentally, and following up with a session review with a coach or player whose game I respect.
John Beauprez: I spent too much time focusing on board textures, that from a frequency standpoint, occur rarely. For example, strategic adjustments for a flop of A-2-2 rainbow in a three-bet pot. In this situation, altering your approach doesn’t equate to a large profit increase over thousands of hands. The better approach is to focus on the situations that occur most frequently, such as button vs. big blind ranges in single-raised pots, nailing down your three-bet range facing a late-position opener, and a variety of the other most commonly-played scenarios. I advise players to first make an honest assessment about their game, then after identifying your biggest weakness, focus on turning that into a strength.
Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger: You need to focus on preflop strategy first. When you’re new to PLO, it’s so easy to make massive mistakes based on preflop hand selection. It’s understandable, because you’re suddenly getting dealt four cards instead of two. All these hands look so playable and nice, and you want to get involved. What most players don’t realize is that the majority of these hands aren’t actually as great as they might look. So, you’re going to end up in a lot of problem spots preflop that can also compound post-flop if you don’t know the right ranges. You will end up getting dominated.
Preflop hand selection by far is the most important element of PLO when you’re new to the game. You want to create a plan and an outline of the game and then jump into each one of these study areas one by one. Spend a few days on raising first in, then a few days on three-betting, cold calling, defending the big blinds, facing a three-bet, etc. And all these choices play quite differently than no-limit hold’em. Different concepts are applied because of the pot-limit sizing, different ranges, and frequencies that are being used. Again, it’s very easy to make massive mistakes. So what you should do is seek out some hands-on tools that allow you to understand these ranges, and start getting an idea of how you should approach PLO preflop decisions.
Craig Tapscott: A-A and K-K are the holy grail of starting hands in hold’em, yet they can be much trickier to play in PLO. What’s the biggest mistake new PLO players make with these starting hands? Bonus question… is there a situation where you would ever fold aces preflop in PLO?
Chance Kornuth: I’ve seen many new players both underplay or overplay their aces combinations preflop. Of course, I’ve mostly been playing the Galfond Challenge and since ranges are wider and more aggressive dynamics exist, you want to three-bet almost all of your A-A-x-x combos since lighter four-bets are the norm. And getting all in preflop with A-A-x-x always yields a nice profit.
In terms of situations where folding aces preflop is best, I can think of only one, rare occurrence. In PLO tournaments on the bubble as a medium stack when other short stacks are likely to bust soon, you could consider folding aces. Our bust out frequency is too high with just A-A preflop (even the strongest combos are only 65+ percent against most ranges), so it’s better to just avoid the high variance spot and fold into the money. In cash games I would never fold A-A at any stack depth. Beyond the immediate equity A-A-x-x has, even at deeper stacks when it becomes obvious due to the action that at least one other player has aces, you can still disguise your hand by calling, and utilize the blocker effects of aces on many different textures.
Pot Limit Hold'em Strategy
John Beauprez: The classic mistake is ignoring stack sizes and lacking positional awareness when deciding whether to inflate the pot. As a rule of thumb, you can three-bet or four-bet preflop with any combo of aces as long as you can get the stack-to-pot-ratio (SPR) to ~1 on the flop; so, you can unexploitably go all-in on any board. As SPR’s become deeper, becoming more selective with which A-A combos to inflate the pot with gains importance. Generally, single-suited A-A combos that can make a straight are okay to three-bet (especially when in position and even more so against a weak opponent). With 100 big blinds against more advanced players, you can begin to mix in some flat calls facing a three-bet, especially with stronger A-A-x-x combinations like A-A-10-9 double suited.
Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger: Let’s start off by making clear that aces are still by far the very best and strongest hands in PLO, and they are much stronger than kings. In a sense, that is very similar to no-limit hold’em.
In PLO, however, kings will have more equity than aces compared to the same hand matchup in hold’em. Single-suited disconnected Kings like K-K-9-4 will do far worse versus aces than a hand like K-K-10-9 double suited. With aces, you can’t go too wrong preflop, as long as you make sure that you just three-bet your opponent if you can. And you can four-bet whenever you want as well, aces are doing fine in most situations. On rare occasions, you do sometimes fold aces preflop in PLO. For example, if you face a tight, open raise from early position and you have trip rainbow aces like A-A-A-7, then you are supposed to fold. ♠
Chance Kornuth is the founder and lead instructor for Chip Leader Coaching. He has two WSOP bracelets, including the 2010 $5,000 pot-limit Omaha event and the 2018 $3,000 no-limit hold’em online event. He also won the 2016 AUD$25,000 Aussie Millions High Roller, and the 2014 Bellagio Cup. In total, he has amassed $8 million in live tournament earnings. Kornuth is currently battling Phil Galfond in a series of high-stakes online PLO matches as part of the Galfond Challenge.
John Beauprez is a WSOP bracelet winner, having won the 2013 $1,500 six-max no-limit hold’em event for $324,764. He has been playing PLO professionally since 2008, and has personally coached more than 400 players ranging from small-stakes grinders to high-stakes crushers. He is also the author of the best-selling PLO QuickPro Manual, and is the founder and lead instructor at PLOQuickPro.com.
No Limit Holdem Sites
Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger is a long-time established PLO poker specialist and coach, having started in 2005. In 2018, Habegger launched PLOMastermind.com, a pot-limit Omaha training platform. He is the author of Mastering Small Stakes Pot Limit Omaha for D&B Poker Publishing. Habegger also livestreams PLO cash games on his Twitch channel JNandez Poker.
Limit hold'em. There, I said it, and the world didn't fall apart.
I know that among a certain subset of the poker community, it's quite fashionable to treat fixed-limit hold'em as something like a polyester suit — it was fine a generation ago, but now is part of the past.
Is it just because you can't shove all in? Because you have to earn your money one pot at a time rather than in a couple of massive double-ups? Because you basically always have to play four streets of poker?
And there's this thing about profit — sometimes it's fun to make money at poker without working hard at it. That brings me to my story.
I was at a casino recently and thought I'd sit down and play a little poker. Wander into the poker room and they've got a game going.
Me: 'You got a seat?'
Room manager: 'Yes sir. $3/$6 limit hold'em. Are you familiar with that?'
Me: 'Yeah, I played it a time or two.'
Room manager: 'How many chips would you like?'
I sat down and built up my five perfect stacks of $1 chips. Unlike no-limit, with all its mixing and matching of colors, a good limit game has exactly one color chip in action. Everything's easier. But I digress.
Folks, as I watched and played this game, I realized I was seeing something that I hadn't seen in years — the most honest, transparent game of poker imaginable. They all limped in so they could hit a flop. If you raised, they called, because they wanted to see the flop. After that, they checked and called if they thought they weren't drawing dead. If they bet, my goodness, they were beating top-top and you simply had to evaluate your chances against a Very Good Hand.
A check-raise promised at least two pair. It was never on a king-high board, it was never a draw — it was the goods.
Furthermore, the average pot I played was far bigger than the average pot that I play in a $1/$2 no-limit game. That's because I'd raise after a handful of limpers, they'd all call, and we'd be off to the races.
And race it was, because when you make it $6 to go with after three limpers and they all call, you have to drag your kings through a minefield. But I'll tell you what — they stand up way more than their share of the time, and when they do, you drag a two-scoop pot.
And if you hit a Real Hand, with two (or three or four) people all calling a couple of big bets on the turn and river ('I have to call — look at the size of the pot'), then you've got a three-scooper and it's as big as any pot you see every 45-60 minutes in a $1/$2 no-limit game.
I'm telling you, sometimes it's fun to play poker without the giant peaks and valleys of unlimited betting. You just bang your bets out there when you have the best hand and hope it holds. You call when you have the right price to draw, which is almost always.
Limit Holdem Solutions
And friends, you pay attention when they bet, and don't play head games with yourself. Because I promise you that in that game, and ones like it, when they bet or raise, they mean exactly what they're saying, and in fact, it's usually an understatement.
Limit Hold'em Strategy
Your no-limit instincts will generally keep you in good shape when playing limit hold'em, as long as you remember pot odds. That specifically means:
- You are never getting anybody off a decent hand, nor should you try. Furthermore, it's not correct for anybody to give up a 'decent' hand when they can get to a showdown for a relatively low price. So don't try to 'represent' a hand better than top pair and think they're going to fold top pair.
- No-limit hold'em pot odds calculations are generally of the form 'I'm getting 2-to-1' (or 2.5-to-1 or 3-to-1) — numbers of that magnitude. Limit hold'em routinely offers prices like 10-to-1, 15-to-1 or even 20-to-1. At that price, you can do a lot more gambling — be sure to take that into account.
- Please don't make hero folds on the river with a decent hand in a big pot. Throw your last one big bet out there with the anticipation of saying 'Nice hand, sir/ma'am.' People are bad at estimating small probabilities; trying to decide if you're better or worse than 19-to-1 against is not most people's strong suit.
One of the beauties of poker is the variety of forms and fashions it offers. If you can play limit hold'em, sometimes you'll have the opportunity to make good money playing a fun game against transparent, honest, but eminently fun and enjoyable opponents. Our game is rarely better than that.
No Limit Holdem Tournament Strategy
NB: With the Spring Championship of Online Poker coming up at PokerStars, you'll have ample opportunity to flex your limit hold'em muscles. Your SCOOP opponents won't be as honest or transparent as my friends at this small casino, but many of the same principles apply — and you might find you really enjoy the game.
Lee Jones first joined PokerStars in 2003 and has been involved in the professional poker world for over 30 years. You can read his occasional Twitter-bites at @leehjones.
Limit Poker Strategy
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