Fuck micro stakes

Ok so one of the most important aspects of poker is understanding where you are at in the hand. How players react to your bets is probably the #1 way of finding this out, when somebody isnt trying to be creative. I once stipulated that the only way to actually get any info out of a penny stakes villain is if you simply make the bets too big for him to call without having a legitimate hand, i.e. overbetting. Typical poker theory suggest betting the minimum possible to get this information, usually 75% of the pot for most people is enough to get them to give up if they dont really have good odds to hit anything. It also saves us money when we are wrong about our assessment of the situation. Betting less to get the same info is tactically smart. But I have long since believed this is simply not possible using normal poker theory at NL2. Villains calling cbet range is any PP, any pair, any draw, and AJ+. On the turn you can rule out AJ+ and thats it. This range is far too wide for us to ever be able to put villain on anything, since thats like half the deck (somebody do the math for me). This is why it's always said to be imperative that you have showdown value, because too often you cant really put villain on something without the insurance that your hand can win at the same time, in which case it doesnt really matter b/c youre already playing the best hand. As soon as villain calls your strong holding THEN you can start to put him on a range. I.E you have AA and he calls 2 streets on a King high board, villain almost always has the king.

So what kind of leverage must we use to curb villains into playing like you expect at higher limits? Well, if you play hard, and i mean HARD against them, it seems they WILL fold out all but top pair, and OESFD's, and the nuts. They also seem to interpret your strength as a hand you are willing to stack off with, so they frequently shove with TPNK and the nuts, giving you an easy fold, albeit you paid a lot to find out in the process. But so long as you stick to a relatively strong starting range of hands you arent going to be frequently behind on the flop spewing away with "information gathering bets". So now the question becomes how much money are we winning in the long run risking so much to achieve a certain result pending villain will fold. Is our FE through overbetting really worth not playing the top 5% starting hands. Can we ever play a LAG game at NL2 if we simply make it near to impossible for villains to play their rag hands? Well, I think the answer is yes.

I am going to attempt to really fight villains by hitting the POT button every single time I intend to bet. TPTK, OESD, FD, multi-way pots, IP/OOP, etc etc. In fact, I will probably only value bet less when I have the absolute nuts and I dont think villains will notice that my bet size has suddenly decreased (as I have been folding too many people on the turn/river when I hit and they donk out for .20 and I raise to $1.50)

I expect variance will be higher than normal, but nothing that I cant outlast with enough BR to cover the swings when someone is crazy and stacks off with bottom pair. It WILL happen, but not as much as I originally thought.

0 votes

Comments (3)

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU goddamnit I hate fucking minraises so goddamn fucking much. Someone please tell me I should just fold every single time. It's like I always have some massive overpair on a drawy board and some cocksucker check minraises me when the draw hits, or just minraises me flat out at some point in the hand. I CANNOT FOLD TO THIS. I am priced in to calling every single fucking time. But goddamnit all it does is price me into calling river shoves and shit b/c the pot is always structured in such a manner where I have to fucking call. But these fags ALWAYS FUCKING HAVE IT.

Right? Do I have to fold to minraises? Jesus christ wtf can I do to combat this, it's like the only fucking big bet fish know how to make. Just fuckin spaz out and throw their mouse to the corner of the table and hit RAISE. Dont even think about adjusting that slider or typing in a number, just hit RAISE. HOLY SHIT OMFG I HAVE SUCH A GOOD HAND I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO KNOW WHAT TO DO........CLICK RAISE, whatever it says CLICK RAISE!!!!!

0 votes

Comments (4)

So I decided to embark on a little experiment in curiosity, exploring villains' true range. I frequently get tilted at the situations I encounter, and feel I often have no idea wtf villain has. The only times I get to see are when we are stacking off or other typical showdown scenario's. But this has not been enough for me. I really really wanted to know what cards people are playing. So I gave myself a superuser account and simply elected to check/call all rivers if I had the nuts. If I was an obvious dog well then I folded when appropriate.

What I did was play a 0% AG postflop game. The idea here was using the best hand as insurance to see frequent showdowns. Forget about EV or making money, I need information. No this was not spewy tilt calls like "zomg you hit the flush, CALL". If I had quad aces I was checking flop/turn/river just so I could see what other people were limping, raising, minraising, and betting with.

Basically any hand I would normally bet, I checked. No matter what. Preflop was a different matter. Preflop I made my standard 5xBB open, because I still need to see what people are calling with preflop to better understand their postflop range. I cant learn anything by getting coolered from the blinds if I limp AA preflop.

Holy stromboli this game is weird, at least at MSNL. I would say there were 2 types of plays that I most frequently encountered

1) Massive slowplaying. I.E. players raising preflop and then checking back AA.
2) Massive bluffing. Players bluffing rivers with air was quite common.

I know most players at MSNL are limping damn near any two preflop, but it's how they play later streets that has me most concerned. It seems like everyone is always trying to do something fancy. I figured most players were always drawing out for a gutshot straight or calling off any pair. Maybe thats how it is perceived when you are the aggressor, otherwise what else can they be doing? But if you just check back every hand suddenly these guys have some sort of playbook.

Anyway, the only thing I really learned was that you absolutely positively must have showdown value at MSNL. While you might not be able to bluff fish out of pots, they sure as hell will try to bluff you.

0 votes

Comments (9)

So I never liked playing on FTP due to horrid interface + limits were too high, even though I had a rakeback account. I caught a horrible virus the other day and had to restore my pc from a backup months ago and I had my little FTP icon still on the desktop, so I fired her up just to take a peak at the nosebleed stakes, and what do I behold? They now offer NL2 tables! I think everyone agrees that with rakeback you can actually self-sustain and be break even for quite some time even during a downswing. I'm like $2 from being able to cash in $50 in rakeback to my account so I'm going to try and make FTP my new home for awhile. Back then I used to 20 table FR and doing this on FTP sucks. I think they limit you to 16 or something (I 2-6 table 6max now), there were zero quality multitable tools available, and I was constantly finding myself sitting out on tables from missed action b/c their crappy software never brought the table to the front. The whole experience was just too tilting so I stayed on stars, who's FPP + T$ cashout courtesy of TL.net is just as good (hell maybe even better. Every week or so I can cashout 10 bucks through here playing those Sunday turbo's that payout the top 6 winners).

So my FTP BR is $50, and my stars BR is $110. I might, MIGHT dump my stars roll over the FTP so I can donk it up again playing NL25 or some retarded shit. But for some reason whenever my roll reaches critical mass like $20, I suddenly go into smart mode and only play limits I can afford. I grind myself out of the hole, then take 3-4 buyin shots at higher limits and pray for a good streak to lift me out of uNL for good. Hasnt happened yet. But it will still be interesting to see how long 27% rakeback can keep me afloat even during hard times.

0 votes

Comments (5)

so I can grind while I grind!

So I covertly snuck around the company network and accessed my stars account from work today. This means I can play poker while at work! While they pay me $15/hour to do meaningless boring bullshit, I can also make $15/hour playing meaningless boring poker! It's win win!

So how long until I get fired?

And what might be a few good excuses to use for why I'm using remote desktop? Researching medical advice for inverted penis disorder? Considering transgender operation? I've recently become depressed and am seeking help for fantasies of stalking from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic rifle, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers?

0 votes

Comments (6)

How? How is this fucking possible? HOWWWW??!!??! How can you play any two cards every single hand and actually win?!?!?!?!?! I saw him limping AA and KK a couple of times, so obviously this faggot has a "system". Never raise preflop, but he wouldnt trap post flop. He would always start minraising and checkminraising if he had a hand.

I just dont see how variance can be in this guy's favor for this long. 100 fucking hands at near 100% vpip and holding +300bb's are you fucking kidding me? This just seems to defy all mathematical odds.

So wtf, how do you play against some piece of shit like this?

edit: DOH this is NL25, should have mentioned that

0 votes

Comments (20)

So I have been horribly depressed all week. I took an 8 buyin shot at NL25 6max and ran horribly. I was up a nice 3 buyins the first day, then just ran into donks calling me down to the river with ace high, tag's c/r'ing me allin with 2nd pair and getting rivered, and at least one of my usual tilted rage calls like "wtf omg you sucked out on me I have to call and let everyone see how stupid you are!"

So I have 80 bucks left to my name. Hadn't played in 2 days. Just that tilted. Couldnt even look at the game. Couldnt even help my g/f play NL2 because I would give her tilted advice. Then I hit that point, I gave up. I said fuck it, lets put this bankroll on the line. I win as long as I dont run bad. So DONT RUN BAD. I decide to play fuckin NL50 HU. I actually feel I have strong potential at HU, but thats another story. Anyway, I sit down with an unknown and....well I run good.



He sat out on me after 2nd allin. I gave him a good minute to reload. I figured he's a reg and is bum hunting. I once had someone tell me to gtfo AFTER they took me for $20. So maybe they sensed I could do some damage. Anyway, now my bankroll is $180! WEEEEE!! what ever shall I do?! Take another shot at NL25? Take a shot at 6max NL50? Invest it all in 3.40 turbo's?

I think I'm just gonna sit on it a couple more days. Ponder my existence. B/c I still feel horribly depressed and like a big poker failure right now.

0 votes

Comments (12)

From now on, when I am ending a session I am ending it AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. No more of this "sit out until next blind" shit, hoping I catch AA. Because this is what fucking happens on 3 tables simultaneously on your last free hands of the night



And I was so happy having redeemed myself in my last few sessions.

0 votes

Comments (8)

Oh man wtf have I done to my bankroll.



For some reason I got this really crazy idea that I could bully a bunch of calling stations. I decided I was going to iso-raise pretty much any hand OTB, raise any donk bets, even if they signaled strength, shove over any check-raises, and trap myself with every rag top pair I hit putting my opponents on worse pairs. I even made a few terrible calls just to prove how unlucky I am, knowing that when villain limp calls a KQ25K board then shoves the river that my AA are no good anymore. I kept convincing myself that these fish just got done watching an episode of HSP and are trying all the tricks. WRONG. These people simply arent sophisticated enough to pull that shit off. A little EV variance tucked away in there but this is all my own fault.

BACK TO FUCKING NL2 BABY....

So I put in one last session for the day, and I noticed something. Aside from not being tilted, I ran up my stats to my standard 25/15/3 line. From what I've read this is considered weak-tight. Can anyone explain what you think of a villain with stats like mine? I feel like I'm pretty much just playing ABC poker. When looking back across the majority of my session histories this is a winning style for me. Basically I play strong when I love my hand, and I'm willing to see some cheap flops when I dont. If I connect well I attack.

Anyway, I hope I fucking learned something from this today. I think I'm probably just suffering from a little bit too much Fancy Play Syndrome. It really isnt fucking necessary at these limits. Damn. Wonder if I'll ever learn this game...

0 votes

Comments (4)

So the other day I was questioning my ability to ever have discipline when I keep moving up prematurely. Well I was a little tight by loose bankroll standards. Wtf does that mean? It means I cant help but play with 10-15 buyins per limit, and for anyone with some skill and confidence, this is actually fine. I have neither, yet I act like I do. Therein lies the paradox. I'm too loose for normal BR management, and too tight for aggressive bankroll management. So someone told me to check out maynard's philosophies on MSNL bankroll mgm't, and of course I became all giddy with excitement and after meeting the requisite 8 BI rule, decided to take a shot at NL25. As most people commented, at these small stakes theres no real reason not to take shots since your roll is such a paltry amount of money in the first place, why hold yourself back indefinitely at NL2 (unless you are just starting out).

Anyway no drama here, had a good 1 buyin session, which is a nice confidence leveler for breaking in a new limit. I've played NL25 before (like most donks i've played a lot of limits, but hopefully THOSE days are behind me) so the bet sizes dont scare me or anything, albeit I did play a pretty weak tight game 25/15/4.3. I actually prefer to call this "picking my spots". Basically I engaged in hands which I deemed +EV, and if I felt I was ahead, I pounded fishy 50vpip villains for staying in with me. Hopefully as my BR increases so will my preflop aggressiveness. Nothing particularly special about this limit seen as of yet. I had a painfully aggressive strategy devised at NL2-NL10 that consisted of massive 5-6xBB raises preflop, full pot cbets and turn cbets, and big 5x raises vs opponents who donk out. I originally wrote that I will probably need to severely curtail this habit at NL25 as the money is starting to mean something to me now and I just dont feel like stacking off so frequently with the way I play.

Other than that, only note I have for today is one particular scenario I remember quite fondly from the days of yore, and that is the NL25 value bet. Yes I believe NL25 warrants it's own discussion around value betting tendencies. As I remember from 6-10 months ago, villains for some odd reason have a common tendency to value bet the nuts fucking weak as shit every single time. We're talkin puttin in $2.50 on the river into a $15 pot with a set of kings and shit. I remembered it then and I see it now, same ole shit, which is fine by me I guess. It does make folding a bit more difficult, and sometimes I pull out all sorts of excuses for calling, you know, "paying for information". Hopefully I'll keep my wits about me and not donate too much money for the above reasons which I deserve to be grilled over.

So cheers to taking shots, gogo $200 BR @ NL25!

0 votes

Comments (7)