Hi,

I play NL Holdem micro stakes tournaments in a poker site. Below are the characteristics of the game I play there:

Average % of players saw flop 40% which means 4 (9 handed).
Opponents are very loose, they play with pretty large ranges which I can’t cap with my sizings preflop or postflop. This means if an opponent likes his hand he will play it preflop whatever my raise is and if he likes his chances whatever they are postflop (for example only backdoor flush draw or third pair) he will not fold no matter what my bet is.

What should be my range of hands to play with preflop? Should it be pretty tight like for example JJ+,AK or it should be wide including all suited connectors without gaps and with 1 gap, all pocket pairs in order to try to hit set, straight, flush or FH because 1 pair is not enough with 3 opponents paid flop bet and turn bet and saw river. What should be my sizing preflop? Should I cbet postflop (what size) if I have not hit the flop? Should I semibluff (what sizing), if yes how many outs do I need, is it reasonable to barrel with only flush draw when I have no fold equity at all?

I have difficulties to play against this field. The reason is that when I hit a TPTK, for example, I play against 3 opponents on average which almost every time see turn and river with their equity no matter what my bets are. In this way their hands improve to 2 pair or trips when they have just third pair on flop or to straights or flushes when they have almost every FD or BDFD. I play every time against the outs of all 3 opponents. One more thing opponents could raise all-in 50bb for example with second pair or third pair and gutshot against 3 players and it’s very hard to play with just 1 pair against it because often they could have any 2 pair for example when they call a pf raise with 83o.

Look forward to read your answers!

You're missing too many +EV spots if you play really tight. Play all your suited Broadways that make nut flushes/straights as well as good top pairs. Set-mining should be very profitable too. Suited connectors will be less valuable unless you are very disciplined post-flop (can get away from weak pairs).
Don't bluff multiway. Just try and make your hands cheaply or for free and then go for value.
Bet-fold with good top pairs, but don't play huge pots on connected boards. Always leave a bit of room to fold if you get raised or shoved on. Playing vs loose players is high variance (it can be swingy as ****) but when you eventually make the nuts you can get paid off.

As ^, play a lot of hands that can improve to the nuts or something strong. Suited aces, suited broadways, pocket pairs. If multiway play your one-pair hands cautiously and if a lot of action dump it early. See a lot of flops with hands that have potential to make something big. You'll often be getting great odds to draw. If you play disciplined and understand that people sucking out left right and center is actually good for you then you'll crush this kind of game.

In these uber-fishy games, starting hands can be classified into one of three categories

1) Hands with frequent strength

"Frequent strength" refers to hands that routinely flop TPGK+ or an overpair. Like two pair+, these hands can be strong enough to play for stacks, but will flop much more frequently. A strong one pair plays extremely well, even multiway, over two streets, but often struggles when multiple opponents have all 7 cards to make a hand, and there is still significant money behind. The solution? Lowering the SPR preflop (usually by squeezing limpers) to set up more of a two street game postflop. The goal is to get most of the money in by the turn on favorable boards (or just GII on the flop). We will rarely be behind when this turn bet is called. Often they'll show up with dominated pairs which are drawing almost dead! Building the pot preflop with big pairs and big unpaired hands is your bread and butter in these games. The common mistakes with these hands are

a) slowplaying postflop
b) pushing overpairs too hard on marginal boards
c) being stubborn on bad runouts
d) running some crazy bluff when you miss the flop. I'm looking at you Ace King.

Examples are KK, AJ, KQ, 99

2) Speculative hands

These hands don't flop big often enough to justify building the pot preflop, but still have some kind of nutty draw worth playing playing for a cheap price. With these hands you want to limp behind other limpers, encouraging multiway action. This gives you a better price on your limp, and leaves more people around to pay you off when you get there. I generally wouldn't be the first to limp in with them. It's probably better to fold in that case. The common mistakes with these hands are

a) getting attached to marginal flopped equity such as weak pairs or weak draws. Don't call the flop with a bad pair!
b) calling a squeeze instead of surrendering our tiny investment
c) slowplaying when we get there

Examples are A3s, 87s, 55

3) Junk

These are simply hands that have no frequent strength, no nutty draw, or a draw so long it's not worth playing. Fold them. Always.

E.g. A2o, J5s, 97o

It should be noted that hands don't distinctly fall into one category. Sometimes KJ is a hand to build the pot with. Sometimes it's a speculative hands. And sometimes still it's a junk hand. It's all relative to the situation. It's your job to assess the action, the players, your position, and decide which category your hand falls into.

^ Great reply. I love the bit about AK. I see so many beginners posting multiway hands where they c-bet AK OOP into 4 players on boards like T76 and say "I made a standard continuation bet to rep an overpair".

Thank you for the advices. Few more questions:

Should I play hands like KJo, KTo, QJo, QTo, JTo? If yes, raising or limping them preflop and could I play them aggressively when I hit top pair postflop?

I think that maybe I have to stop playing tournaments against this kind of opponents and start playing cash. The reason for that is that in tournaments the variation is big even if you have fold equity, in my case it's way bigger. For example last night I went allin for 60 bb and was snap called by an opponent with larger stack who had 2 over cards and I doubled. Few minutes later I went allin again with top pair against the same opponent who had second pair this time and larger stack than mine. This time he caught his outs and I was eliminated from the tourney. So 2 great +EV spots but I lost money as a result because of accumulation of probabilities. Even if I had doubled in both spots there would be more spots like this in the same tournament and would be eliminated in 3rd, 4th, 5th or whatever spot and the money result for me would be the same. What do you think about this? If I begin to play cash games (6-max or 9-max) what my bankroll should be against maybe similar kind of opponents there? If I continue playing tournaments what should be my bankroll - turbo tournaments, between 100 and 400 players 200bb deep?

Most of the offsuit Broadways are pretty awful hands, but they have EV in some spots. You should try reading a basic primer in one of the tourney forums or Beginners Questions, as this sub-forum is mainly for cash game hand histories.

If you switch to cash games you want a minimum of 20 buyins for the stake you are playing. 25-30 or more is much better though. So like $50 for 2NL, $100+ for 5NL, etc.

What about playing on the btn or bb? Shoudn't I play more hands there? Basically shouldn't I play more hands when there are limpers before me because of wonderful pot odds when I am in late position or blinds or even when I am not but players behind me don't raise enough and limp even KK after limpers?

I watched 2 videos - one of bencb who is one of the best tournament players and one of sauce123.

sauce said that some of the hands which could be played at higher stakes can loose a lot against very weak players who can do random funky things. When these things happen we want to have strong hands.

bencb said that against very weak players a good adjustment is to play very loose preflop.

Those are 2 absolutely opposed approaches for playing against opponents who can do funky actions, can have everything in their weird bet sizing ranges.

I have heard Fedor Holz to say that against very weak players you can profitably play any 2 cards.

There is one more thing. In microstakes games, multiway pots are played most of the time. So, this is also an important factor in hands selection.

Which approach would be right according to you, guys?

@6m I rfi ~7-15% more from any pos if there's a fish in the blinds or a whale in any pos