Hey!

I've been playing the NL2 for some time and sometimes I get myself overthinking some hands. How far do you guys normally go at these stakes as far as decision making goes? Specially preflop, do you change your ranges too much to play the players or just follow some more TAG ranges?

I also try using some HUD stats when I've got 100+ hands on people at my table, but depending on the player its really hard to read into those as well since, well..they play randomly.

I apologize for some vagueness in my question, but I just wanted to get a sense of how much brain power I should be putting into reading hands and players at this level.

Thanks!

you questions is normal, try to play only one table and observe the showdown. replay the hands, even if u are not in and try to understand the way they think, after it don;t be affraid to use your logic.

find some preflop ranges at your specific game and after u have some number of active hours, le't say, 100-200 hours, or 10-20k hands and you'r preflop is clearly better, try to improve postflop. till then you have to only play logicaly postflop

i wish you gl!

Players who seemingly play randomly are actually very easy to beat. Just remember, though, that beating them does not mean that you win all the time or that you will never have losing sessions. In fact, you will often have higher variance in games with these players. As an example I recently played a hand where I raised PF with AA, another player 3-bet and I 4 bet to around 30BB. He flats and we go to the flop with 70BB effective stacks. Flop is K72r. I cbet 1/3 pot (20BB) and he shoves. Easy call, right? He shows K4! Brick turn and of course a river 4 and I lose a buyin. Still, I am beating this fish. I know it is frustrating but sometimes you will lose hands like these. You are still beating the game, though.

Just keep playing mostly straightforward ABC poker, keep a solid PF range and push your edges as much as you can (like I did in the hand above). Focus on long term success and try to avoid frustration over short term losses.

One big thing is when they raise on turn or river its almost always 2 pair + at the micros in the games ive played. Over playing top pair and over pairs can cost you a lot of money in these games if you dont know what your doing and how the villians play.

At 2NL play for fat value, bluff rarely, and feast on the players who can't fold TP or an over pair.

And don't be that player that can't fold top pair. Micro players in general vastly underbluff the turn and river. Those that don't tend to bluff everything. If you fold to aggression on turn and/or river until they show you a reason not to, you will crush low stakes.
Also, if they are gonna call a small bet they will generally call a big one.