Micro Stakes Online NL Poker Forums

after reviewing my game and lying in bed thinking about the differences between live and online play, i came up with an idea that plugs one of my biggest leaks (paying off sets too deeply with my overpairs) and maximizes one of the unique aspects of online poker (multitabling).

i wrote a blog post about it (copy/pasted below for anyone interested in reading it in detail), but the short story is i buy in for 60BB on all my tables and anytime i drop to 55 i rebuy to 60 and once i get up to around 110BBs i leave the table.

the quick reasons

1. at 60BB i'm not leaking huge amounts of money when i pay off sets with my overpairs.

2. at 60BBs you are taking away much of the implied odds in post flop play. less implied odds = easy decisions. OOP is also much easier to play. easier to play = many more tables at once. more tables = more monies/hour and rakeback.

3. same idea as the short stack in that the shorter your stack the more even the playing field despite the skill level. even a fish playing with 20BB and premium cards could do reasonably well vs a table full of pros. skill of table less important = table selection less important

4. 60BB is the perfect size for 3 streets of value with TPTK. no more POT CONTROL. (this really takes full advantage of the fish at this level who call down with tons of stuff, yet i had to pot control before b/c of how deep we both were and then losing out on value from fish).

5. 60BB is large enough for both 3-betting, 3-betting light, and 3betting + cbet

i really think this is the best way to play (online) at micro and low stakes. comments, criticisms welcomed.
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below is my blog post:

Deep or short stack has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you are a bad player, there is probably nothing better you can do than play short and premium. Your short stack takes away the weapons of a good player (position and implied odds). As a good player, playing short is costing you money. You are losing too much money by not covering the bad players on the table.

I believe that although full buy ins and then deep stacking is the optimal strategy for LIVE play, online play has its own special considerations that could make a mid stack buy in (60BB) the optimal size.*1

There are 3 reasons why live and online play differs and why you should consider the mid stack.

1. In live play, the average table not only is more polarized in skill (sharks or fishes), but has many more fishes on the table. This makes it much more important to always be able to cover the fishes or you are losing out on a lot of value. In a short handed online table, it’s typical to have 5 decent B rated players on any given table.

Not only is there a greater number of fishes, but the fish at casinos are less apt to and less able to run away once they have doubled up. Continuing to build their stack and you continuing to build your stack will put you in a great position to take all their money.

Online play there are less fish (relative to live), the fish jump tables or leave often and the implied odds that work on fish so well do not work as well on regulars.

(I understand that this doesn’t show how the midstack is better than deep, just how deep live is better than deep online).

2. When you buy in for full your decisions become tougher. When you’re sitting at a live game you are only at ONE table. You have all the time in the world to make each decision and each decision can be fully fleshed out. Buying in full with deep stacks, you can fully concentrate on each hand. Online you are multitabling. Buying in mid stack takes away much of the opponent’s post flop implied odds thereby making OOP and other post flop decisions (varying stack sizes of players in the hand) easy.

Often with only TPTK, after looking at their HUD stats, you can bet out and get 3 easy streets of value. No more pot controlling.

Easier decisions = many more tables. Many more tables = more monies! More tables also = more rakeback.

I believe that if you play mid stack you can play 1.5x more tables. If you played 4 tables before you could play 6 now. If you 10 tabled, you can 15 table. The money you are losing by not covering the regs (you are better than) are easily made up by the extra tables you can play because of the simpler post flop decisions.

3. Taking away the power of implied odds, weakens the strength of good players who now have less power in putting pressure on you and punishing you for playing out of position. Of course, playing short stack REALLY takes away a lot of the power of great players, playing mid stack is a great compromise. This makes table selection a lot easier. If the skill of the opponents on the table do not matter as much when you’re playing mid stack, then you can almost join any random table and do well. Less time finding great tables and a greater selection of tables to play = great for online.


Let’s look at the disadvantages to short and deep stack and how a mid stack hopes to alleviate these problems.

Shortstack cons

1. you do not cover the bad player’s stack (collary: other players will likely take fish’s money before you can.)
2. you do not have good implied odds (collary: you play less hands PF, you can never just call a raise). (collary 2: you’re missing out on value when you ever get a monster hand)

Deep stack cons

1. Decisions are are much tougher (collary: you can’t multitable as much)
2. Implied odds are important (collary: playing OOP is less profitable)
3. Skill of opponents matter more.(collary: harder table selection)


Midstack

1. Decisions are still VERY easy (your stack is at most only 8 times larger than a flop pot severely taking away post flop implied odds a great deal)

Overpairs and better and very easy to play. You’re committed. With top pair against fishes you don’t have to worry about pot control, you simply just bet out three streets of value at 3/4th pot each time (works out very nicely). It will be a huge mistake for them to call you as their implied odds are totally gone. When you were deep stacked you may have had to pot control vs the fish on the turn because they could stack you on the river with implied odds if you continued to bet.

2. You still cover the majority of the fishes stacks

Fishes usually do not have a full buy in. at 60BB you are usually covering most of what a fish has. It may not be as good as playing deep and covering them completely, but it’s a hell of a lot better than 20BBs. On average I see fish with 20-80BBs and you cover most of that. If you ever do see a fish with 100BB and you have direct position, then just buy in full.

3. Since decisions are easy you can multitable more tables.

4. You STILL have implied odds.

One of the bad things about shortstack play is your implied odds are completely gone. Playing pairs for set value or the like or other creative preflop play is for the majority gone. But with 60BB, anyone who raises to 3.5BB or 4BB, you still have actually the perfect size to sneakily take their roll. Technically, most suggest that you need to make ten times the call in order to get good set value. With 60BB you usually have enough money to make 15 times your preflop call. People will gladly pay off 60BBs with an overpair, yet are much more cautious paying off 100BBs. They might even try to bluff raise you off your set and would never dream of doing that if you were deep.

5. you STILL can SQUEEZE or 3 bet to steal, for value or to mix up your preflop play. At 60BB the squeeze is usually given up if called preflop, but I find that many people fold to the squeeze since it looks like such a large percentage of your stack. It definitely looks legitimate. Also, at 60BBs your 3bets look menacing enough with your remaining stack size AND you have enough money to choose to cbet if the flop looks bluff worthy. (not possible at 30-50BB).

Imagine a 45BB stack compared to 60BB stack when 3betting + cbetting.

45BB

button raises to 3.5. you 3bet to 11 and he calls.

Pot 22. your stack is 33. The pot is so big relative to your stack size, it puts you in an awkward position.

The common cbet to push people off really weak hands and take down the pot is 3/4ths pot. If you bet 17 dollars into this pot, you only have 16 dollars left and almost have to call with most cards if opponent goes all in to see both streets. In a way you are practically betting 33 to win 22 and opponent only calls when he decides he’s ahead of you.

Imagine 60BB

Pot is again 22. but now your stack is 49. your cbet of 17 still leaves you with 32, which is still a scary enough number for them to fold middle and bottom pair and some not so great draws. If you have complete air you can safely fold as you know you do not have outs and you know that they think you are committed.

So you are able to win both on the 3bet preflop and sometimes the cbet when you see a good flop to try it on (ace high flops, dry flops, etc…) people will fold to your 17 when you have 32 left on these kinds of flops. The power of the 3bet, cbet is still available to you.

6. the skill of the other players matter less.

You can just play your game and not worry about how good the other players are. Most of the time, you know that your TPTK is effectively the nuts for your hand and if some smart guy outplays you, your mistake will be very marginal. He has little room postflop to use implied odds. The only implied odds he could have are preflop when he is going for set value.


*1 If there is a very obvious deep stacked fish to your right, you should always just buy in full.

FIRST

Good to see some of this type of proactive content from members, will comment after I read/digest and suggest all members do the same.

Hey Joe,

This is a really interesting read. I can't see any flaws at the moment in your points. I'm going to have a ponder about this and I might give it a go tonight to see how it goes.

Thanks for the post!

i came up with this idea 3 days ago and have played a little over 2k hands with it. i'm running hot and doing much better bb/hour than buying in full. i'll post the results after i have 20k hands.

one added benefit i didn't notice before was that although i have slightly lowered my AIPF standards

100BB (AA,KK, QQ mostly, AK mostly)
60BB (AA,KK,QQ,AK, JJ depends)

other people lower their AIPF against me drastically. I hardly EVER, almost NEVER, got it all in with my AK dominating. but at 60 BBs people are repopping me with AQ and i have once gotten it all in, and i'm sure after i play enough hands, AJ and KQ could come up also.

if i lead i like this line:

me: 3.5BB
him: 11 BB
me: 28 BB (a smaller bet here would make for a more reasonable cbet and entice shoves more often, but i don't mind taking down pots preflop with AK. i just hate how any pair puts me as a slight dog)

now if he calls or pushes, both are easy plays. on the flop i only have enough left for a cbet (32BB into 56BB). but the raise to 27 induces some aggressive players to repush all in on me with AQ.

I played ~100k hands of .5/1 with a similar approach. I would buy in for 40bb and rathole at 100bb. I never mention it, because online poker forum people often get very angry about it.

It worked reasonably well for me, and you can find 20bb-60bb short-stackers apparently winning at any stakes.

I've started buying in full because there are so many donkeys out there who seem equally willing to lose 100bb as 20bb. Also, it's a bit more involved and I'd really like to learn how to play well, as opposed to being content w/ $50/hr. Hmmm...put that way, I'm sure I'll keep playing short at times. Say, when I'm off my game but don't have the will to quit, or after a series of losses, etc.

i feel that 60 is more optimum than say 40 or any other number below.

at 40 you cannot 3bet + cbet effectively (as i explained in the long blog post) taking away very valuable "deep stack" like weapons (you can effectively still play an agr lag style PF not possible at 20BB and not really even at 40BB). at 40, your set mining is not as valuable. 60BB also allows you to bet out nearly pot on all 3 streets taking BIG advantage of fish/calling stations and does not give them any implied odds that they get when you're deep. finally 60 covers most of fishes stack as opposed to 40. more often than not, a fish's stack is less than 100BB. you're not losing much value coming in at 60.

one other thing that i find good is that when you are isolating a fish when you're deep, a good tough player just calls behind you and now it's 3 way. you're squeezed between value betting the fish while having a good player still to act behind you. very scary when deep, not so scary when at 60. in some ways you can iso fish's preflop mistakes better.

I just tried this...it worked out well...about 80bb in less than 45 minutes...making my nut flush on the river twice, betting big and being called never hurts though.

wash, rinse and repeat = 46bb in less than 30 minutes...

thank you joethepro
thank you deucescracked(memoirs of a limidonk, UW, and WoT's Math series)
lol

This is an interessting topic

Atm, the reason why im not playing short-stacked, its because I dont want to keep my errors of play etc.. by having full buy-in, it force me to still concentrate and try to make the better decisions and improve my poker.

Very interessing btw joe

I just tried this...it worked out well...about 80bb in less than 45 minutes...making my nut flush on the river twice, betting big and being called never hurts though.

wash, rinse and repeat = 46bb in less than 30 minutes...

thank you joethepro
thank you deucescracked(memoirs of a limidonk, UW, and WoT's Math series)
lol

your welcome. if you continue to do it, tell me how it goes. i had my first neg. 1 hour session today. looking forward to try it out more, but ftp is down for 1-2 mins....AGAIN.

This is an interessting topic

Atm, the reason why im not playing short-stacked, its because I dont want to keep my errors of play etc.. by having full buy-in, it force me to still concentrate and try to make the better decisions and improve my poker.

Very interessing btw joe

yes, i will totally agree that playing this will not fix your leaks. it is meant to cover your leaks and make the game easier and make more money multitabling average players. i want to make some MONIES first, then i will fix my ugly fugly leaky game.

also i am not advising to play short-stack. i'm suggesting to play "mid-stack." imo, a much better buy in size for people with some skill and want to massively multitable.

Here are my results after 10K hands.

the reason why there is suddenly a second line midway through the graph is, Holdem Manager, poker tracking stats software, recently got an update that allows you to graph your EV on top of the actual value you got. Sort of a luck graph. it's for all those people who wonder if they are unlucky as they think they are.

As you can see, the past 5 days I have been unlucky and down 10 buy ins (60BB = buy in). that's like winning my fair share of pots (percentage wise and also throwing in 20 races where i lose every single one (in 4k hands). i really do think this strategy does work. If you look at the expected value line then i made about 7bb/100. i believe i was making 5bb/100 buying in full and i wasn't 6 tabling so i'm missing out on a few hundred extra dollars from rakeback so it ups it even more.

downswings really drain you. i'm going to take a break and play video games!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v195/tanglefast/SnapShot-200831-123313.png

My results after 30+k hands.

6.9 BB/Hour.

This is even better than my BB/Hr when i was playing full stack. YET, i've now added 2-3 tables. (i used to play 4, now i can easily do 6 and i sometimes do 7 on occasion i've handled 8).

ever since i've started doing this strategy, i've doubled my dollars/hour naturally. (throw in the increased rakeback and it's even more).

The only modification i've done after 30k hands is instead of buying in for 60, i now buy in for 65 and constantly reload to 65. I leave when i've hit 100BB. the extra 5BB helps me with 3betting and cbetting the 3bets and gives me a little extra money won while still keeping the stack small and the decisions easy (top pair is still very good vs most flops/people).

This is a very interesting idea I might give it a try when playing NL100. Just one question. How do you adjust when you play Pocket pairs?? I suppose you basically don't call with them when there is a raise. How do you handle being 3bet when in position??? let's say you raise A,Js or A,Qs OTB and BB 3bets you. Do you always fold???

This is a very interesting idea I might give it a try when playing NL100. Just one question. How do you adjust when you play Pocket pairs?? I suppose you basically don't call with them when there is a raise. How do you handle being 3bet when in position??? let's say you raise A,Js or A,Qs OTB and BB 3bets you. Do you always fold???

if the player has a PRF raise percent of 11 or less i will always call with any pocket pair to set mine. 65BB is plenty deep enough. you just need to make 10x what you are calling, so the popular 3.5BB or 4BB raises can very easily be called. if the person is a LAG, i will usually not call with most pairs (the sets aren't going to get paid off and i won't know where i stand with a weak pair) and i will raise with the good pairs.

i don't like being 3bet. if i'm 3bet and i have AJ, i usually trash it. AQ is player dependant but i will usually call with position.

Sorry I missed the aprt where you were explainning how you can call with pocket pairs.

Sorry I missed the aprt where you were explainning how you can call with pocket pairs.

i just read your post where you wrote you were having problems at 100NL. i think this is a good way to get used to playing at a higher stakes than you are used to. the variance is much much lower. this strat will not help you fix your leaks, but it will help you grind out a lot of tables and make good money.

i don't understand your question. are you saying you dont' understand my explanation?

pairs 22-88, if tehre is a raise before me, i will only call if the person who raised is very tight preflop. PFR percent of 11 or less, so he is raising with QUALITY hands. i'm hoping to flop a set and stack him. on the other hand, if a LAG player raises and i have 22-88 i will not call because he likely has trash and if i hit my set, i will not get paid off. having 65 BBs is plenty deep enough to try to hit your set as it's commonly said that you need to make 10 times what you are calling preflop to make set mining worth it.