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Pot Limit betting

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As the pot limit betting structure becomes more and more popular each day, brushing up on your PL pot tracking, and bet-size determining skills becomes a must. PLO is slowly but surely overtaking NL Holdem as the online poker game most popular with the high stakes pros. While the masses are still much more into NL Holdem than PLO, the high stakes professionals are the obvious trend-setters these days, and even now, if you're willing to move up off the low and middle-stakes, you need to move into PLO territory. The rules of PLO are almost as simple as those of NL Holdem, but he betting structure will hit players with a whole bunch of peculiarities.

Fixed Limit betting is a primarily mathematical-odds based game. Those who do their math well and stick to it will walk away winners at the end of the day. NL Holdem is on the other end of the spectrum: it is a structure which relies heavily on implied odds (which - on the surface - contradict conventional poker match). In NL Holdem, reads become much more important, as the exploitation of the implied odds depends heavily on them. The Pot Limit betting structure is between FL and NL, a little closer to NL, which means that in order to master it, players need to master both the FL and the NL betting structure.

The delivers a blow to the implied odds, by virtue of the fact that the betting IS capped. The straight pot odds are limited too. Due to its nature, the FL structure makes it impossible for a player not to offer his opponents excellent pot odds, if he fires out a bet and gets 3-4 callers.

One of the most important aspects of PL betting strategy is pot control. In this respect, there's one thing you need to remember: the impact of a small bet can be absolutely huge in PL games. By firing out a small bet on one of the early streets, you'll radically alter the entire makeup of the game for later streets.

Let's take a look at an actual example to illustrate how this principle works. You have a $1 pot and the action is on you. You can choose to bet or to check. If you check, the maximum bet your opponent will be allowed to fire your way will be a $1 one. That will give you 2-1 pot odds.

If - instead of checking - you decide to fire out a $0.5 bet, you'll dramatically change the equation of the hand. Your opponent will be able to raise you a massive $2.5 instead of the $1 which is 150% more. The pot odds remain the essentially the same though. This is only valid for heads-up play however. If there are other players in the hand, the whole thing turns into an avalanche-like chain reaction, which can increase the cost of the next card you want to see many times over.

One of the dilemma that PL players face is the maximization of the pot when in possession of a monster hand. In order to do that, one has to make use of the above described principle, and open the door. The opening of the door is done through a small early bet which will then start rolling downhill gathering up more and more chips on the way. The only problem with the opening of the door is that it opens both ways, which means you need to be careful with it, you may not like what you find on the other side of that door once opened.

Signing up for a rake rebate deal makes perfect sense in PL games too. The amount of the poker rake you pay is pretty much the same as in NL. Sign up for a poker prop deal to maximize the amount of your rakeback.

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