Limit or no limit?

In Limit, if you are playing against legitimately tight players (IE, they see the flop in holdem under 18% or so of the time), just walk away. - A table with 10 very good limit players will probably on average see 2 people to the flop, a lot of hands will end before the flop, and over 4 people to the flop will be a rarity. In a casino, the rake will murder you when you do win as the pots will all be small.

A rule of thumb I have for low limit limit poker is to never bluff. The tables are so loose that bluffing sucks. But if you happen across a table that is really tight, then you can add bluffs in to the mix, particularly preflop - for instance, if you're on the button, everyone folds to you, raising preflop for a shot to take the blinds is invariably a good move. But bluffing in limit is generally very weak and rarely pushes people off of anything.

If the table is averaging 3+ people to the flop, it is not a tight table.

If the table is averaging 4+ people to the flop, it's a loose table and will be very, very profitable as, 40% of the hands in limit holdem aren't profitable.


No limit isn't my game, it's another beast entirely, but at a tight no limit table, you can play more agressively and push people off of pots. In limit, you'll find that the best players are inevitably very tight, and very agressive when they have a good hand.

Of all the poker books I have, this is probably my favorite one. It's designed for low limit tables which are almost invariably loose:

http://www.twoplustwo.com/smallstakes.html

This book is also very good, and will guide you to play a tighter game intended for playing with people that know a bit about poker:

http://www.twoplustwo.com/holdem.html

You should note in the sample on this book, he advises folding with A8 suited with the pair of aces when bet to at an early position on the flop - this is something you'd never do in a loose game, but in a tight game like this, plays like this are the difference between the players that break even or lose a bit of money and the ones that win.

Winning limit poker is really about consistently playing the odds, only throwing in a minimal number of non-optimal twists to keep people from guessing.

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