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When evaluating the betting limits of a table, look at it the same way you would when evaluating a new car. In short, can you afford the table? No matter how good a player you are, your bankroll is irrevocably tied into how you will play. If the table limit is so high that it handicaps your game, this is a table you can live without. Play to your means. If you have confidence in your abilities, play to the highest table you can afford. Once you have found a table that sports a limit you can play the next question becomes the ratio of the bet sizes from the early to late rounds.
There will be tables where the betting limits increase dramatically from the early to the late rounds. This means you have to adjust your game and play a different kind of poker then if the limits remained steady. I’m sure somebody out there has figured out the mathematics of this, but in short, the higher the limits go, the higher your implied odds go. When the rewards are greater the player tends to take more chances. A good rule of thumb for this sort of table is to take stock of what you have before the escalating begins. If you have a poor hand that only has potential to become a fair hand, fold and try again during the next hand. A hand, like a high inside straight, has very good potential. Perhaps you would not play this hand if the bets remained steady but the potential pot size in a game where the limit escalates, make the risk worth it. If you hit you come away with dramatically more money than you would have in a static limit game.
No limit poker is the ultimate expression of escalating limits. There are no rules that keep somebody from putting in any bet they want at the beginning, but human tendencies to be cautious usually dictate a slow beginning.
When playing games with steady betting limits a player needs to start with a good hand. If you are holding cards that require you to get lucky to grab the pot, the effort isn’t worth the potential rewards. What it will cost you to stay in will never balance off against the statistically few times your going to hit.
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