Micro Stakes Holdem

I’m just trying to grow beyond basic TAG strategy and need a little help.

Not to be discouraging, but what you suggest isn’t beyond basic TAG strategy; it’s part of basic TAG strategy. As Ed Miller brilliantly put it in his recent 2+2 magazine article:

Total all the dollars you’ve ever bet playing poker. The large majority of those dollars should have been bet from late position. Only a small percentage of your total handle should have been bet from up front.

To implement this idea, you should be:

1. Playing more hands from LP.
2. Raising more hands from LP.

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By NewUser2006:

In the SSNL FAQ, Skeme has a section that recommends raising 3-4BBs + 1 per limper in order to "protect your hand" and some other mumbo jumbo.

It seems to me that raise size only works optimally when there are a ton of limpers already in the pot, or you have a hand that it is hard to get stacked with.

For other hands, like AK,AA,KK,and QQ, it seems to me like opening for 4BBs is a HORRIBLE opening size. Not only does it not get _much_ value out of the hands that call, but it also chases out hands that you WANT in the pot with you (other aces or hands like K8o) and encourages hands like 55 or 76s to try to stack you.

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This is a how-to post, but it doesn’t belong in the software forum; it’s to teach people how they can use the Poker Tracker data to find flaws in their game.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask if they are playing the game right. In that post, they include a dozen numbers from Poker Tracker and hope that the old-timers on SSNL can fix all their holes. While it’s true that Poker Tracker can help find problems, this is not the way to approach it.

I’m going to try to give you a rough guide for the things you can do to check on your game. These are all just my opinion; they’re all subject to interpretation, and other people may disagree with me strongly. The best way to play is usually player-specific, but these strike me as some things you can check on that are frequent flaws in the small-stakes player’s game.

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There are only a half-dozen reasons why we bet:

Value - Villain will call with worse hands.
Protection - To make it incorrect for villain to chase draws.
Bluff - Villain will fold hands that beat us.
Semi-Bluff - Our hand has equity, however we’d be happy just to win the pot now.
Information - Villain’s reaction tells us where we are.
Deception - Merge your range, yo. Shania loves you.

VPBSID - Say it with me, VPBSID. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Now that you have an easy, memorable acronym, you’ll never forget!

The post will deal primarily with betting for value. This is a key component of play in the micros. Being effective with your value bets is incredibly important against loose passive players (calling stations). The kinds of players that are very common in micro stakes. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a list of common terms and abbreviations used in the NL forums. Read the rest of this entry »

Chomp asked me to post about counting combos, so I have some time now.

For some (or most, I don’t know) this post might be obvious and second nature. But maybe for a few it will be helpful. While reading this, keep in mind that I have an IQ of about 20 or 30 in the mornings and that I’m not a coach or anything, so if there are errors, please tear into me all you want. I like to learn. Read the rest of this entry »

This is probably a basic concept that many of you have thought about before. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I thought I’d post about it. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I went through the type of bankroll destroying, confidence crushing downswing that I had previously only read about. The following are some lessons learned from my experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Disclaimer and qualifier: I have played well over one million hands of online poker, and almost that many this year alone. I’ve just recently started to reflect on my career in poker, and I was able to find the points in time in which I really had epiphanies. I remembered that was a question that is asked in most “wells.” I was asked more than once in mine, and right now jman is doing a great well in HSNL in which people are asking him the same question. I’ve decided that I’ll take the time to answer it comprehensively, since I haven’t made a serious post in MSNL in a very long time- this is my Christmas present. I’d appreciate it if HSNL people read it and expounded upon it (and the future- most notably) and if SSNL and MSNL people would ask questions related to this thread that others could help them answer. The goal of this ‘essay’ is to expedite the education process of all those who read it indirectly. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ll often hear people talk about playing a “short-stack strategy”: the idea is that you buy in for less that the maximum (often for the very minimum) in order to take advantage of your opponents. You can get yourself all-in relatively easily, and if your opponents fail to adjust properly you can win money. Read the rest of this entry »