I wanted to take some time to put a series of posts up about my learning experiences at online micro stakes. Through the years I’ve bought in and gone bust a few times, always assuming the game was rigged, or micros was just unbeatable because no one takes it seriously etc. etc. But a few months ago I finally decided that if I was going to start playing again I wanted to take it seriously, and really try to beat the game. So I started studying, bought a few books, joined a few training sites, downloaded Poker Tracker, joined 2+2, and played a lot of poker.

If I had it to do all over again, I have no doubt there are lots of things I would have changed. Lots of guys (on 2+2) helped me when I was first starting out, so I thought I might share some of my experiences with the new guys who are just starting out, and hopefully save them some time, headaches, and money!

To start out, I thought I would share my graph and my basic strategy for how I play 4NL/5NL, and how I went from playing breakeven frustrating poker, to a strategy that is helping me win at a rate of 12bb/100.



Obviously in future posts I will go into more detail about studying, reviewing sessions, identifying targets, planning hands etc. But if I had to tell someone quickly how to duplicate these results it would be this:

1. Develop a solid opening hand range
2. Raise don’t call (and preferably enough to give you position)
3. Fire your Cbet (75% of the time or more.... seriously at micros there needs to an obvious reason not to Cbet)
4. If you get raised and don’t have a monster… its time to fold
5. If you get called and don’t have top pair, or are up against a player with a VPIP under 20 then its time to slow down
6. If you get called by a player with a VPIP over 30 and have top pair +, then keep value betting
7. Make it a goal to never lose more than 50bb in a hand unless its an absolute cooler, and review each session to see how you did (read don’t get caught spewing)… Seriously this one point is the single biggest factor contributing to me going from a breakeven player to a winner… anyone can win a big pot with a big hand, but not everyone can keep from spewing with marginal hands.

I know that seems over simplified and I have no doubt some people will cringe when they read the definitiveness of those statements, but I have found them to be true.

Is that an exploitable strategy? Sure. Will it get exploited at the lowest of the micros? No.

There you have it… I hope it helps. No doubt some people will disagree, but I’ve found it to work for me, and I hope it helps someone out there as well. All that said, I don’t claim to be a great player, but I am better than I was a few months ago, and I hope you will be too!

In the next couple of posts I’ll try to answer some of the biggest questions I had about the game when I was first starting out. I think this is especially helpful for new players who are watching videos or reading books, but needing some concrete examples/answers.

Hello BOBBYLlGHT.
Are all the hands played on NL2 or NL5 aswell?
Can you give any advice on making the transition to NL5?

All the above hands were played at NL5 Full Ring.

Obviously what I said above applies to NL4/NL5...

Make sure your bankroll is big enough to handle NL5 and then give yourself a stop loss just incase you need to move back down and rebuild confidence and your roll.

If you are consistently winning NL2 you should still be consistently winning at NL5

Good luck!

Cheers for the advice bro. I now feel like I have the abilities to crush 2nl.

Haha MMSS not sure if thats sarcasm or not but I certainly can't blame you if it is.

Nothing will make you feel quite as good as knowing that you are just a hair better than the absolute worst players in the world!

That said, for a lot of guys who feel like they can't seem to get a grasp of the game, and are tired of being told to play "ABC poker" (and have to nod their head like they know what that means!), I hope this has been a help.

Cool graph, BOBBYLIGHT.

What's interesting is that near the start, looks like you had a roughly 25k hand breakeven stretch?

Worth pointing out for all those guys who come into the forum after they've played about 453 hands and can't believe they haven't earned enough to buy their first Porsche.

Good Luck.

To further drill home the points you mentioned, I'd say the 2 key elements of micros are

1) preflop hand selection
2) folding marginal hands postflop

If you simply rely on a chart to play about 25% of hands from the proper positions your range will crush your opponents. If you can learn to just fold postflop without stressing out over "how am I beat?" you will do fine. You make your money at the micros from value betting, not from hero calling.

I was definitely "one of those guys" DiamondDog!

It took me 25K frustrating hands to figure out that it doesn't matter how much I make on my big hands if I keep spewing when I have nothing!

Completely agree. The day I started seeing the graph trend upward was the day I learned to stop spewing. It doesn't matter how much you win if you can't keep from losing it all back.

hehe, only messing around ye. Congrats on how it's going. Some of the things you said in the original post are far too simplistic but it's a great starting point just realise your system needs to evolve. But having a strategy is fantastic and I think important regardless of whatever stake you are playing.

Bobby what do you mean by "spewing" sorry for the stupid question lol

nsboxerboy

Not a stupid question and everyone defines it slightly differently based on their level of competency, but in general spewing is when you are throwing money away into a pot when you most likely will not win.

A lot of times players spew because they are trying to bluff someone out of a pot, or because they call someone down with Ace high because they "just didn't believe them".

In other words it is hard to be a winning player if you are constantly spewing 30bb, 50bb or 70bb into pots you cannot win.

I hope that helps.

MMSS

Agreed... my strategy outlined above is very simple (and as I mentioned in the original post very exploitable)... it definitely needs to be tailored to the players/table you are up against, and I hope to go into that in more detail in future posts.

Solid post.
Those simple strategy forms a strong base to crush the micros. Beginners have no idea how hard it is to develop a strong ABC game.

The thing is it really isnt all that exploitable, certainly not at these stakes. Playing a static but balanced hand range up to NL400 is probably completely unexploitable by 99% of players at these limits. All these players are going to do is call your raises to try and outflop you, which will only result in cooler town as long as you know how to fold TP postflop. The few times they 3bet they either have it, or they are just randomly 3betting because they dont know how to directly exploit you. This will probably become transparent giving you room to 4bet and recover from any previously 3bet pots.

I speak to a couple of 400nl regs and this is rubbish.

Javi

I certainly agree for 4NL (can't speak to 400NL yet!)

Like I said in my original post... Is my strategy exploitable? Yes. Will it be exploited at 4NL? No.

For the most part these players are focused way too much on the cards in their hands to worry about the actions of other players at the table, and therefore adjusting is almost unheard of.

I completely agree. And as someone who was just recently in their shoes, I know how frustrating it can be to come here looking for advice or answers and continue being told "Just play solid ABC poker."

I dont claim to have a flawless ABC game, but I hope these posts will take some of the guess work out of the game for new players and simplify the learning curve.

Well it was a bit of an exaggeration, and I meant "up to NL400", not including NL400. I've never found NL200 that complex at all, people just stopped calling raises from the BB with 57o and instead tend to call with my opening range.

Nice post OP and thanks for taking the time, some people will definitely learn a lot from going back to basics like this.

From my perspective, point 3 needs reviewing. Auto cbetting at stakes where villains call too often will see you losing money. I know your points are generalisations, but it's very important to start understanding board textures and putting at least some thought into hand ranges, even at the lowest of stakes.

Nice graph, and good luck in the future

Dunna

I definitely agree that we should not be auto Cbetting 100% of the time (I think in the OP I said something like 75% of the time).

I will definitely go more into detail about which boards and opponent types are bad to Cbet. I was simply suggesting that at the lowest micro limits we need a really good reason not to Cbet. Early on I was Cbetting about 60% of the time and I really found that raising that number helped increase my win rate significantly. I think that is for a few reasons:

1. Obviously the increase in Cbetting meant I was taking down more pots on the flop from passive opponents
2. People were less likely to believe I had something and therefore it made it easier to extract money when I made my hand

(I'm sure you recognize both of those reasons, but just in case someone new to the game wanted to follow the train of thought, I thought I'd spell it out anyhow)

Also, I think if I were coaching someone I would encourage them to Cbet more frequently at first and tone it down over time. In my mind Cbetting is all about figuring out what you can get away with. If I bet here will it allow me to extract maximum value, or if I bet here will it help me take this pot down with nothing? At that point its a matter of figuring out who, when, and how much? All the theory and strategy books on earth can make suggestions, but until you implement it (a lot) at the tables and see first hand what works, all you have to go on is theories.

For me, adjusting my Cbets came naturally and almost unconsciously, and I think with time and repetition it will be the same way for most players.

I don't know that I ever said "oh this is a bad spot to Cbet"... instead it was "well crap I guess I just need to give up on this 99 because for some reason every time I'm OOP and fire a Cbet into a multiway pot with two broadway cards I get killed!"

Sometimes the best way to learn to win is to learn how not to lose!

I call this "entitlement tilt". You raised 99 and goddamnit no way they always outflop you. A lot people tend to think they are entitled to win almost any pot they raised with. What they fail to realize is that with just a little patience they will eventually smash the board with a hand that connects really well, so dont sweat all the other times they had to c/f.

Absolutely Javi... what I think one of the hardest pills to swallow is recognizing that the majority of your profit will come from taking down a few big pots with big hands... its when you start trying to take down every 20bb pot with marginal hands that you get into trouble.

Fgators is baaaaaaaack!


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This is a very nice thread. Thanks!

I`m a break-even player myself at the moment, have been for quite a while. Everything I win in with my big hands I simply slowly dump in my marginal oens sooner or later. Just very recently (read last week) started to actually work on my game outside the table, review sessions, post some HH on the forums.

And this is definitely my biggest leak. More often than not it`s tilt induced exactly like javi mentioned and I do need to work on this.
It`s like little devil on one shoulder screaming "BUT YOU HAVE POCKET KINGS!!" when the flop comes Axx and my Cbet called / raised.

As with everything, the first thing is to admit one has problem, to be able to deal with it.
Recently I just have a big post-it on my screen that says "FAT VALUE OR FOLD" and I find it helps