Difficulty tiers for game formats.
I have a friend who is starting out, since he is very fresh, and there's a lot of game formats available, I found myself orienting him towards non traditional formats to get his journey started while not being overwhelmed.
So I made a tier list ranking the games from easiest to hardest. I also ordered them so that games at the beggining have transferrable skills, so games that are technically easier but have no transferrable skills like Shortdeck are not recommended to beginners.
I tried to add all format types but not all combinations, so it will be quite exhaustive. I wouldn't necessarily recommend rotating through a lot of formats either, but chosing one and mastering it, that said, at the beginning one should seek horizontality before choosing a specialty and going deep, as with any other domain.
1- 5 Card Draw: This is the most well known format, and is a great way to get started with hand rankings. While odds are a concept more for intermediate players, revisiting 5 card when learning about odds would be acceptable. Of course Fixed Limit would be ideal, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
2- Lo: While the hand rankings from Lo are not necessarily transferrable to Hold em later, I find that lo games allow for a pretty straightforward focus on ranges, the distribution of best to worst hands is very straightforward and the equity does not have many discrete up and downs with streets, which keeps the game tree computationally low.
3- Fixed Limit: Fixed limit reduces the amount of choices to 3 at any spot, as if this weren't already a huge simplification, the future game tree is also reduced greatly. Bet sizing is one of the hardest parts of NL, which goes away with FL.
4- AoF: AoF is indeed easier, as it reduces the decisions to 2, and has no postflop play, so the game tree is as simple as it gets. That said that lack of complexity is precisely what makes it not as great a tool for beginners, it just doesn't have that many transferrable skills. Furthermore, it is usually played with low stakes, so it doesn't translate very well to the important games later on. That said, definitely a great exercise to get used to NL and low stack sizes.
5- 3Max: This is the first format type related to table size. I think 3max is the ideal to start with, the less players, the simpler it gets. HU has a couple of exceptions which I will explain below. Furthermore 3 max has some active formats like Spin and go, which additionally start with very low blinds. And thanks to the reward structure, usually has soft fields and disencourages grinders.
6- HU: I find HU is a bit harder due to the fact that you have to be involved in every hand and you can't watch. Additionally, the wacky button on SB rule doesn't transfer well to bigger games and feels like an en passant in the learning curve, something you learn way further down the line. If there were a variant where the SB were OOP, it would become great for beginners, as it would prepare them for SB vs BB situations which are useful in many formats.
7- Zoom: Zoom is great for getting experience, the more hands the better is the motto here. If you argue that you need time to think and study, you can always sit out and go over a hand yourself, or post it on a forum, or a solver or ask a friend. Zoom also allows the player not to get bored, which is usually the source of a lot of tilt and bad play. The field will be rougher, but for the begginer stages one is more focused on playing correctly in a vacuum rather than looking at opponents.
8- Cash: As opposed to tournaments and sit n goes, cash allows the player to play with a fixed stack to bb ratio, greatly simplifying strategy and avoiding the need to account effective stack (mostly, unless there's small stacks, which is one of the reasons I recommend smaller stacks to begin with).
9- Stud: I wouldn't recommend playing stud as part of a journey, but as variants go if the player gets bored and likes diversity, stud introduces the idea of shared information, and blockers, which 5 card doesn't have.
10- 6 Max: 6 max introduces positions as a variable to account for, in a way position is more important than in 9 max, as the distribution of positional advantage has higher jumps, while in 9max UTG and MP are not that different, though. However 9 max and 10max are almost a superset of 6 max (in the same way 6 max is a superset of 3 max, and 50bb is a superset of 20bb), so one MUST learn how to play 6 max before or while playing 10max. Excluding subtle ace blocking effects, after UTG, UTG+1 and UTG+2 fold, the hand is now a 6 max game.
11- 20BB NL: This the point at which I think the concept of NL comes into play, while NL is one of the aspects that makes this game fun and hard to solve, it is also one of the hardest, 20BB or shortstack allows players to get introduced to the concept of No Limit play while heavily reducing the complexity. In this category I include 20BB as well as higher min buy ins, as long as they are the minimum allowed to buy in, like 30BB or 40BB. The idea is that when the player moves up to 100BB in the same format, they will know how to play against those that buy in for the min as well.
12- Sit N Go: Sitn goes are complex because they introduce the variable of stack sizes, however they are very predictable and repeatable, which will allow the player to reduce a lot of the complexity of the game. Many beginners will be able to adapt by bucketing into Early, Middle and Late, without needing to even learn concepts like effective stack sizes, or Bubble play.
14 and 15- PKO and KO: Both for SNG and Tournaments, ICM and bubble play is a complicated concept, KO and PKO counteract that force and bring the game closer to "normal" poker (like cash) Scenarios where you shouldn't call a coinflip with 50% equity, or with 55% are much less common.
20 (skipping a few)- Tournaments: Tournaments, due to their increased field size, have a lot more diversity and they are harder to replicate. The player will not be able to bucket between early middle and late, and might face combinations not present in SNG, like small stacks in early game, or deep stacks late game. ICM makes tournaments much more complicated
16- 50BB: Choosing a stack size that is not the min stack or Max stack in NL cash requires the player to consider the concept of effective stack sizes. And starts introducing complicated concepts like Tight Play. Notice how we didn't start with tight play in a vacuum, this is not an ABC poker tier list.
17- 9/10 man: While not a big jump from 6max, this tightens ranges by a lot and introduces some complexity.
18- 100BB: 100 BB play tightens play immensly and increases the game tree exponentially, we start seeing a lot of postflop play including distinct turn and river behaviours, as well as 2 and even 3bets postflop.
A more psychological aspect is that the metagame starts to be impactful as well, the game becomes more of a waiting (fishing) game, and the most important moments occur very sparsely in between boring spots, and can have huge defining consequences. We are also reaching the standard and most competitive format.
19- Hold Em: I should probably place this one much earlier, at around 50BB play. But Hold em, with shared information and multiple streets, isn't the easiest format to play. There is a lot of changes in equity in almost every street.
21- 200BB+ NL: This format is quite often ignored as there isn't a specific table for it. But 200BB+ can be safely avoided just by sitting out and changing tables, which is a tool often unexplored by beginners or pros on a tight BRM. The variance introduced by 200BB is immense, as is the complexity introduced by 200BBs. I cannot stress enough, 200BB is a league on its own, and once you start getting into multiple stacks, there's territory that is uncharted even by solvers.
I'd also note that these stacks are often reached late into the night, and the downswings can last for days if you don't cash out, so there's significant discipline challenges associated, I know we all talk under the assumption that we are winners in 2p2, but 200BB is the point where I can safely say that the majority of us is not good enough for 200BB.
Finally rake becomes a less important factor, which surprisingly makes games much harder, as smaller differences in equity become important.
22- I don't necessarily think that Omaha is harder than 200BB+ HE, but it's close. However Omaha spots are not as common, and the competition is usually harder on Omaha, so it's just not that useful.
That said, while the game tree has the same depth (perhaps a bit wider since it's PL and shoves are not an option), the range complexity is much higher. On the other hand the ranges are often merged into the nuts, so it's probably not as hard, I might just not know how to play it too much. At any rate the edge is always smaller and rake usually beats you, and variance is very high, I put this in degen as well for the same reason.
23- HiLo: Whatever the format, HiLo adds a lot of complexity and reduces edge by having a lot of split pots.
24- 8 Game: This is a format for certified shark pros, or people who just wanna have fun, at any rate, very hard to play just because the amount of rules and metagames that need to be considered. One of the final bosses of Poker.
25- ShortDeck: Not beginner friendly at all, removing cards causes a lot of odds, like flushes to change. The game mode is also played with antes, which makes this into a shove fest, and increases the impact of rake. It's more a game mode for players that like action rather than one designed for beginners.
26- Omaha: It's degen in the sense that it is popular with players who get bored of HoldEm, and usually enjoyed by those that already know a lot of hold em. But like shortdeck, it's a game that's designed to increase action and increase the frequency of powerful hands, it does not necessarily incentivize higher order game parameters like good play.
27- All in or fold: While it can be played as a simple learning game, it can also be played in degen gambler mode, so if that's how you will play it, don't.
Ok, I'm done.
Btw, if you want to make your own tier list, you can give it a go:
https://tiermaker.com/create/poker-forma...
