Most of the holdem poker games you come across, whether playing online or at the casino, are known as “Structured Limit” games, or simply “Limit Holdem”. You may have already ran across these games, hearing terms like “3-6 Holdem”, 5-10, 10-20, etc.
In this post we’ll cover what these “limits” are used for and how they affect game play.
When you see a game called something like “3-6 Holdem”, the 3 and the 6 are known as the “limits”, or the amounts you’ll be expected to bet if you play in one of these games. The smaller number is known as the “lower” limit while the larger number is called the “upper” limit.
Why are there two numbers? Because the amount of the bets increases as the play progresses. For the first two rounds of betting (the “pre-flop” and “flop”), the lower limit is used while the betting for the last two rounds (the “turn” and “river”) uses the upper limit. So in our 3-6 example above, players will be expected to bet in increments of $3 for the first two rounds and increments of $6 on the last two rounds.
When a raise is placed, it must also be equal to the limit amount (in our example, you could raise a $3 bet to $6 in the first two rounds or raise a $6 bet to $12 in the last two rounds). Raising must be done in increments equal to the current limit amount and the raises are usually “capped” (stopped) after four bets in a single round.
Another thing the limits are used for is determining the amount of the blind bets that are forced into play at the beginning of each hand. I’ll be covering the “blinds” in more depth tomorrow but for now, just remember that the two players to the left of the dealer button are forced to place a bet (or partial bet) blindly into the pot before each hand begins. The amount is based off the lower limit number (the number used for the first and second round of betting) with the person in the “small blind” position being forced to bet ½ of the first round limit while the person in the “big blind” position is forced to make a full first round bet. The amounts may vary slightly (for instance, in most 3-6 games, the small blind is only forced to bet $1), but the blind amounts are always based off the lower limit number.
Finally, the limits give you an idea of how much money is required to play at a specific table and how much you risk to gain or lose on each hand. While the minimum and maximum buy-in requirements vary from casino to casino, lower limit games obviously require less money to play than the higher limit games. Although you can buy in with less, I suggest bringing a minimum of 20 times the lower limit to a game. This will help absorb the down-swings that may occur while ensuring you have enough money in front of you to fully capitalize on the strong hands when they come. Using this rule, you’d want to sit down with at least $60 on a 3-6 game and at least $80 on 4-8 ($100 for a 5-10, $200 for a 10-20, etc). I personally try to sit down with 30 times the lower limit amount, giving me plenty of money to rough it out through tough hands while still having enough left over to bet the big cards when they come.
One more quick note… most casinos have a $3-$6 holdem table as their lowest limit game. If you aren’t comfortable risking this much while learning poker, there are plenty of sites online that will let you play for free and/or they’ll have “micro-limit” tables, where the betting is done in increments as low as a couple cents.
So that’s about it for the limit amounts in Texas Holdem. Once you become familiar with them, it’s not so tough and will become second nature in no time.