Excellent explanation of the topic and I couldn’t agree more. Thank you.
No-limit involves more skill for precisely the reason that others have given for the other game types. No-limit involves more risk and variance at every step of the way. Bets can be any size up to the effective stack size in any situation, so it is much more difficult to create an optimal strategy.
Another way of looking at it, limit games are much easier for computers to solve than no-limit. The added variance that some players think negates skill because it enables bingo players to win actually reflects the skill needed to create strong strategies. Limit game strategy is much more linear, although I am not very experienced in limit games.
Edit: With all due respect, if a pro were to face an amateur heads up and had to choose limit or no-limit, they would choose no-limit every time (unless they were a limit specialist). No-limit provides bad players with opportunities to make much bigger mistakes than they can in limit games.
In fixed limit, a fish limps with A7, flops top pair of aces. You, who raised the max with AK can win just the betting limit each street until the river. In a no-limit game you get that fish’s entire stack.
Variance in no-limit means that heads up a fish will still win a stack from a better player a larger percentage of the time, but over time the better player will win more from the fish because the pots will be larger and therefore there is more room for fish to make mistakes and for those mistakes to be larger.
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Definitely right about creating a great discussion and some very good viewpoints.
We probably should define the word “skill” when discussing the various games. The skill of bluffing and misleading your opponents in Holdem is maybe the most significant skill, whereas in Hi Lo Omaha makiing quick mathmatical calculations in your head is probably much more important. Very little bluffing in HI Lo Omaha and basically the game doesn’t start until after the flop. This is why I think pot limit is the best for this game only.
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@SSeville you’re right, there are so many factors to be defined and considered. Skill is one of them, but also whether it’s a ring game (where one can always rebuy), a tournament (where a mistake is much more costly and even “fatal”), or a H/U SnG, and of course the type of game (Hold’em, Omaha, hi/lo, or Royal).
When I voted NL, I took the extreme: a non-rebuy tournament where your options are unlimited and where a single mistake can get you knocked out of the game. If that’s the highest level of difficulty, then it would require the most skill for sure. That’s my personal reasoning. @JoeDirk described it perfectly as well.
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A really great topic. Glad it was posted.
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If play is not no limit [poker, I call it soft poker.
Anyone who thinks NL is the most challenging has likely never had long-term success at either FL or PL. The “true” poker player is able to adjust his/her game to suit the rules of the game. Helmuth, whether you like him or not, has bracelets in multiple formats, across a number of games. Try playing Razz and see how everything you thought you knew about poker becomes moot. Phil is a master of Razz.
Making such comparisons is akin to saying which game is the hardest to play. None of them are “hard” IF you have played them long enough, and consistently enough, to at least garner a basic mastery. I say again, try Razz.
I’m sorry to disappoint, but many of us have had huge long-term success in both FL and PL, as well as NL, and have made an informed decision about which one requires the most skill.
I don’t think it’s fair for someone to make a decision just based on which game they had more success with. I believe it would actually be wiser to say that the one that requires the most skill is the one a player had the least success with, not the other way around.
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