Why I Switched To No Limit

Bull made a comment in my last entry about some insight into the differences of Limit and No Limit, so I thought I would start from the beginning. First, some background on me.

I started out at the .05/.10 full ring limit tables over on Royal Vegas. I continued to climb the level ladder by winning and bonus whoring. Honestly at first, most of my winnings were from bonus whoring as I was not really a winning player until later. I have beaten $3/$6 full ring for 1.88BB/100 for around 50k hands and moved up to $5/$10 where I was a loser, but only over 1,500 hands. I then made the jump to 6 max because I felt I could get more profit from them and rakeback was better. I started out at about -4 bb/100 for my first 5k hands as I had a had time adjusting to the aggression and reading people. Over the next 10k hands I worked that up to where I am just about break even at 6 max tables. Then I made the jump to NL.

Why the jump to NL you ask? I totally blame one person for the switch, Titans. OK, I don't blame him, I thank him. We were talking on IM one day and I asked him about his NL challenge and why he switched from limit. He basically said, in limit if you hit a hand and a fish comes along, you win a few BB's. In NL if you hit a hand and a fish comes along, you get his whole stack. No truer words have ever been said by someone then that. It made so much sense when you think about it. Of course, if you are the fish, watch out.

One downfall to the NL switch is bonus whoring. It is much harder to do when playing NL. That didn't bother me much because I had grown tired of going from site to site chasing the bonus dollars. Playing at small sites with no table selection was really starting to wear thin with me. So I picked two sites to play at as my "home" sites. I play on Full Tilt for their rakeback and Party for the fish. Full Tilt is a very under rated site IMO. The software is nice and the games are soft. Toss in a nice 27% rakeback deal and it looks even better. Plus, you can datamine on Full Tilt, something you can't do on Party. Now Party does not offer rakeback, but the fish more then make up for it if you ask me.

So that is why I switch in a nutshell. I am now playing $100 NL 6 max and my goal is to be playing $400 NL 6 max by July 1. Not sure if I will make it, but you need to set goals.

I wanted to add this HH to show what Titans means when he says you can take someones whole stack as opposed to a few BB's:

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $30.90
UTG+1: $41.65
CO: $62.60
Button: $101.90
SB: $117.70
Hero:  $267.10

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is BB with 3c 3d
2 folds, CO calls, 2 folds, 2 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: 3s as 7d ($2.5, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.5, Hero raises to $5, CO raises all-in $61.6, Hero calls.

Turn: jd ($125.7, 1 player + 1 all-in – Main pot: $125.7)

River: js ($125.7, 1 player + 1 all-in – Main pot: $125.7)

Results:
Final pot: $125.7
Hero showed 3c 3d
CO showed 9c Ah

In limit, I slowplay the flop, raise the turn, bet the river and make what? 8-9 BB's?  Instead, I got to take  $62 off of him.