Booze. Lots of booze.
All kidding aside, most pure NL players, you are never going to convince them of the subtleties of playing limit. If you don't have players who are open to playing a mix of games and betting structures (NL, PL, limit, spread limit) then it won't work.
[retracting my laughing reaction to this... Well, not the booze part. That's still funny]
I agree with the addendum here. Most players "grew up" with NL holdem with the ability to wield the giant stack and all-in hammer to bully into or through a hand. That's a skill set that has it's place, especially in that type of game. As a result, being through the NL games they (we) have played and have been taught, it's a mindset that's difficult to "break".
I was in a situation where the local gaming control board didn't allow NL cash games for many years. I cut my teeth playing live at one of the local tribal casinos playing 3/6 limit with a kill and pretty quickly realized it was a game of patience and somewhat surgical precision when and how to bet and cap the betting in a limit game vs. the nuclear attack of a an all-in bet in no-limit.
It's nowhere near as exciting as pulling of a bluff for stacks against an opponent in an single hand, but the satisfaction of carefully carving two big bets out of an opponent when you know they really should have folded post-flop is oddly pleasing in my mind.
It's not life changing money, and it's far from a "a made for TV hand" but
that is fun poker for me.
For the majority of folks, that's not the game they want to play. They want the high adrenaline hands for the "rush", and no other poker is satisfying to them.
Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to "get people to play limit". Most can't be turned to the different mindset it is to play versus NL. I've tried with my group several times and despite having sets that can accommodate a reasonable limit game, I just can't get my group to play the game that way.
You can try. You can introduce it many different ways. At some level, a player group just won't bend, not matter how hard you as a host tries.
Not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but just some real-life experience from a limit lover who has tried to turn his player pool into limit players. On occasion it can work, but reallize at some level you are swimming against the current. Most players want to play a game like they see on TV and the game they are watching isn't limit.
(A slighty more realistic "bridge"... see how your group manages with pot-limit. I see it like a halfway point betwen the two. It's not limit per-se, but is also
not no-limit. If they take to PL without too much complaining, you
might be able to introduce a periodic limit night into your mix. I haven't even been able to convince my group to play pot-limit and can't get them to play anything but hold'em, so I might be a bad example with a group that can't be turned no matter what....)
