Guide to NL10

Introduction
recently i have been asked by some players if i could give tipps on how to play microstakes correctly.
I know that there is no big secret to beating Nl10 but i still think some beginners here who kinda struggle with Nl10 or have big swings ( like 10-25 buy ins at Nl10 must do something very very wrong.

I am nowhere near the skill of many of the LP high stake players here on the site
but since i never ever had any problems with Nl10 at all i think this still might be helpfull for some.
I will talk about 6 max mostly but some concepts are also true for FR

Basics
First of all id like all the microstakers to be aware at all time what their edge on Nl 10 is.

----Villians call down with medicore hands -----


So what is the worst mistake u could make on NL10 ?


Answer : making a bluff without a significant read . Trying to make people fold when u dont have a decent hand .
Thats the worst thing u can do on Nl 10.

Its pretty obvious what we want to do then on NL10.
We want people to call our big hands !
We dont want to win every pot by making villian fold !

playing our hands


Preflop :

As a general rule as long as u dont have a significant postflop edge u should only play the very good hands.

like AJs + 99+ = raise AA, KK , QQ = 3 bet 22-88 = limp or limp/call

A few basic questions that i ll answer for Nl10 to show u some mistakes many new players who want to be good do
1.) should i raise with pockets like 55 from every position since i ve seen sakisaki do this at NL200 ?
2.) should i 3 bet pocket pairs or other stuff like suited connectors ( 76s) in position etc since from my impression this is what all good players do
3.) Should i coldcall AA or KK since i have the feeling people dont call my 3bets

Answers :

1. No- at Nl10 it is far more profitable to limp or limp call small pocket pairs and play them for set value only
This has 2 reasons !
- U dont have fold equity postflop and u wont hit sets often enough to make hit or fold play profitable when u raise every pocket.
- though its pretty obvious that u had a pocket pair when limping or limp calling and then go crazy after u hit ure set. But at Nl10 people still pay u off T_T i havent figured out yet why that is ... but you dont have to worry ... u will still get called all ins with your set very very often !

So there is no need to raise hands like 44 or 55 at Nl 10 preflop


2.) No- position abuse at Nl 10 is by far not that important as it is at Nl50 +
U can do it if youre good postflop
But one of the worst mistakes u can do at NL10 is create big pots without actually having a good gameplan.
SO be very carefull with position abuse at microstakes.

Dont apply advanced strategies in your game when u arent ready for it yet.
This will cost u a lot of money !

3.) Never coldcall AA or KK unless the Hand is HU for sure.
U never wanna coldcall KK in middle position ! even when u know all players might fold to your 3 bet.
main reason is 1st -> we have a chance to create a big pot postflop when we make sure we have a decent preflop pot + villian has a somehow strong hand , too.
2nd -> it would be a big and very costly mistake to let drawing hands see a cheap flop ...
I rather want to take the small pot preflop than lose a whole stack to a drawing hand T_T



Flop,turn,river :

Unless we have a read we mostly play "hit or fold" poker
This might seem boring and i can assure sometimes it really is ....
but we dont play micro limits for fun .. we play for money !

Again the main mistake u could make here is try to make villian fold his hand by doig fancy stuff ...
Agressive poker is not for microstakes unless youre very good and know what ure doing !
For a beginner "hit or fold" poker is far more profitable.

A big mistakes of the fishes is that they cant let go of medicore hands...
whe u try to do fancy stuff -> u become the fish at microstakes
Just let youre hand go when its obvious your not good ... never try to still win the pot by doing crazy stuff

So should i never position abuse, check/raise , 3bet , 2 barrel,3barrel, float,take insane lines and all the nice stuff ? T_T

Basically when u dont have a read
dont do all the stuff mentioned above ... you will hurt your self !

So how do i get a read ?

watch the game and take notes of the betting action and shodowns of vilians.
U should know what a check /bet /3 bet and the ammount he bets means for the strength of his hand !
U should know what type of player he is in general

Observe the action on the tables all the time and take notes !

many beginners make the mistake to play 10-12 tables robotic poker same lines vs different villians all the time.
This will result in a very marginal winrate and take lots of fun from poker away !

I d suggest to play 4-6 tables without overlaping and watch the action closely and concentrated. ( this is for 6 max )
It will add a lot of fun to your poker game and also develop your skills and higher your winrate

Also now when heaving reads u can do funny stuff like this :

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/342461
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/343707
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/343033
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/343697

I had not played the hands that way without reads

and here is another example that ofc since i flopped nutz would be played the same way without reads

but it still shows its very important to know how your villians play.
Do they play draws agressive ?
some do some not

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/346661


proper mindset

Bad beats are a part of poker
Its normal to get like 3-4 ugly bad beats every 1000+ hands session every day !
Thats just part of the game.
I needed a long time to finally understand this.

dont ever let them affect your game !
When u allready recieved 2 bad beats in yoru session and then get like QQ ...
on a KA3 board. U continuation bet and get a big reraise ...
U must fold your queens ! no matter how much it annoys you that after 2 bad beats you were looking forward to make some cash with your Queens only to see an A, K, flop ....

Hope u get what i am saying.
ALways play your A game no matter what happend a few hands before !


hopefully this helps a bit the people having problems to get a decent NL10 winrate.

Main message -> dont do advanced stuff at Nl10
Just play Solid,concentrated , tight and simple.


There really is no big secret to beating NL10 with a good winrate.

good advice, clear and well written.

you did miss the part about downswings being a major part of poker. you should advise people not to think they are the worst players in the world just because they had a ten buy-in swing on NL10. ten bad beats in a row happens often. just stay calm in your swing and keep playing solid poker.

but then, I guess you have yet to experience that you arrogant luckbox.

I also disagree about limping ever... the raise and cbet is about the most profitable thing you can do vs weak players, plus it sucks trying to get all in with your set in an unrasied pot.

I are no luckbox !

<3

ask bongky ... he busted my whole roll in flips one time ...

nice! i think the robotic approach is actually great at the very beginning, but I guess once you've moved up from 2nl to 10nl you can start playing less tables and taking some notes

i'd like to contribute that when you take notes and get some nice reads on 10nl, you can value bet more effectively (dont start bluffing)

good read, I already knew most of the info in your guide but it was a good review; I agree with silver though, I frequently raise PPs and take down numerous pots with cbets, and when I do hit my set it's easier to get paid off in a raised pot

thanks for writing this and i think its great that you did this for upcoming players.

but at NL10 there also is a lot of fold value in full ring at least, there are heaps and heaps of weak tite players that wont call a cbet without the nuts. raising up all PPs in med-late position is fine imo. also, like silver said, downswings happen, and i kinda take offence when you said bad players are seriously doing something wrong with 10 bi downswing . i just had one of these and poker is poker, doesnt matter what limit you are paying u can easily take 10 beats like silver said. just see my recent blog post, and if u see me doing anything seriously wrong i will take it back.

http://www.liquidpoker.net/blog/viewblog.php?id=369500

but i would like to think i am a winning player and variance fucks with u, no matter what limit you play. u cant help it when u are down $200 in expectation over 50k hands


tl:dr summary version: agree with what silver said

Yeha its kinda basic stuff
But ofc what do u expect from Nl10.
And as i said the guide is for 6 max mostly.

I also like to advice u that there is a very good beginners guide here on Liquidpoker that covers some other aspects and is a good source of reviewing your game.
I was just to point out comon mistakes.


The thing with the pocket pairs is completely different for Full ring and 6 max on Nl10.
And it also has to do a lot with table selection.

I really love to play at tables with average Vpip of 35-49 %

Raising small pockets preflop oop on those tables is bad play !
U will get at least 2 callers and as soon as someone hits mid pair no kicker on the flop you dont have any fold equity.

Therefore my advice.

On a nitty table like many of the full ring tables are : 18-22 Vpip
You could probably steal a lot of pots .... if you are bad though this will still get you into trouble.

uhhh, play the top 15 percent of the hands agressively and value bet all 3 streets.

open up a bit in position (button and cutoff esp in 6 max) to include sooted aces, and hands like JT/QTs + etc.

I generally do 1 cbet and shut down after flop if called.. unless i improve.

Try to keep the pots small with weaker hands and bigger with bigger hands. It's as simple as that.

My guide to profit at 10nl: Fold all hands except AA and KK. Pot pot shove river. EZ SHIPPIN

On January 03 2008 01:06 PokerDoc88 wrote: My guide to profit at 10nl: Fold all hands except AA and KK. Pot pot shove river. EZ SHIPPIN

on 6 max this will result in like breakeven T_T or 1-2 BB/100
not really what we are looking for

On January 03 2008 01:06 PokerDoc88 wrote: My guide to profit at 10nl: Fold all hands except AA and KK. Pot pot shove river. EZ SHIPPIN

lol has anyone actually tried this?

On January 03 2008 04:11 Silver)Z( wrote: Show nested quote + On January 03 2008 01:06 PokerDoc88 wrote: My guide to profit at 10nl: Fold all hands except AA and KK. Pot pot shove river. EZ SHIPPIN lol has anyone actually tried this?

rofl....yeah, more or less I tried for shits at .02/.05 a day ago. ^^ Something like AK, AA, QQ because I was watching a movie.

Swing fullstacks or lose like 20bb, it's fun. You could probably find a pokerbot that could play profitably like that on .01/.02 eeaasy macro o.o

I dont know if i'm agree with you about small pocket pairs.
I used to limp them but sincee i raise them i noticed they more often go allin if the pot is already "big" on the flop. They'll fold most of the time to a pot size bet on flop if they have limped.

Others opinions are welcome.

good job dude that d help a lot to most beginners same things goes for 2nl/5nl and about 70% goes for 20/25nl too


voodoouser nope its -ev to bet pp preflop since most 10nl players are calling stations

no it's not -ev
it's a diffrent story
when you raise pp preflop you will cbet 99% of the time and colect the pot right there or vvpossible get free card on turn
ofc. if you hit your hand there is bigger chance that you will win big and ppl will payoff your big hands more
if you miss your hand you can ez drop it
you will have ezyer situations which is the most important thing on micro stakes

It's not ev- unless you're a total spastic who can't read flop textures and recognizes its BAD to try and take a pot with 44 on a 9TQ fd board, yet good to double barrel 44 on 922 flop. But such discussions are beyond the scope of being a winning 5nl or 10nl player.

I think raising PP in 10NL preflop CAN be very profitable but as PplusAD says, it's all about table selection. If you got 5 aggrodonks, just limp and let them pay off your set, if you got 4-5 weak fish that fold too much it's obviously profitable to raise them preflop and just cbet almost any flop... Just get a little grip on how the table is playing and in no time you know how to play your low PP's for pure set value limping style or pretty aggresive against the nitty folders.

just use rekruls guide

what/where's the rekruls guide?

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