Micro Stakes Online NL Poker Forums

This looks like a thinly veiled whine, but after 18 months of playing/studying... i still suck.

if after 18months you still cant beat microstakes, either poker isn't for you or you just aren't playing/studying at all.

Because at uNL your winrate doesnt come from making people fold it comes from getting the most value possible from hands that are +EV vs villians range.

Horrific non-sense. Working on your redline does mean making people fold. Most redline issues lie in folding marginal hands too often, calling too often when chasing draws and calling too often in the blinds. So you can loose quite a bit of money that way, which I suspect may be happening in Dcarts game.

The latter part is a bit of a meh statement as well. I think 90% of DC members that are subscribers and are actively studying the game are well capable of value betting / getting value. The biggest issue that I've seen in other peoples games and my own game at these stakes is attachment to money (omg I'm going to loose all my profits that I worked so hard for for months!) which can prevent you from making the best play and subsequently causes more variance. Dealing with aggression can also be a big problem.

Horrific non-sense. Working on your redline does mean making people fold. Most redline issues lie in folding marginal hands too often, calling too often when chasing draws and calling too often in the blinds. So you can loose quite a bit of money that way, which I suspect may be happening in Dcarts game.

The latter part is a bit of a meh statement as well. I think 90% of DC members that are subscribers and are actively studying the game are well capable of value betting / getting value. The biggest issue that I've seen in other peoples games and my own game at these stakes is attachment to money (omg I'm going to loose all my profits that I worked so hard for for months!) which can prevent you from making the best play and subsequently causes more variance. Dealing with aggression can also be a big problem.

Fair points but i still think redline takes a backseat to blueline at the micros.

your goal should be to improve your green line, not your red line.

People often miss the bit where Grindcore talked about that his redline was mostly because of trying to make the correct play. Poker is poker so this will also apply to micro stakes. Blatenly assuming that following bog standard lines will make you fly through 5NL, 10NL, 25NL is in my opinion day dreaming. The majority of DC subscribers (as said before) will be capable of executing bog standard lines yet the same majority are not capable of moving up so easily. Most players are stuck at these stakes for years even studying and playing every day. That means something. Once you start looking at your overall game, start identyfing marginal profitable spots and putting yourself in spots that are not so easy, you will improve and you will make substantially more money to support your bankroll to move up. Grindcore's concepts can be easily applied to micro regs and as I said in my post before, you can even apply reverse strategies on the basis of these concepts.

I believe the redline to be imporant and it should certainly not be worse than - 45 degrees.

Fair points but i still think redline takes a backseat to blueline at the micros.

Now your saying it's okay to just pass on profitable spots on the basis that people will pay you off frequently enough when you do have a hand. Two things, it's hard to make the nuts and people have improved over the years so getting paid off isn't even that easy anymore. I'd hapilly take the extra bbs/100 that I can get out of improving my redline.

if after 18months you still cant beat microstakes, either poker isn't for you or you just aren't playing/studying at all.

Nasty...

Now your saying it's okay to just pass on profitable spots on the basis that people will pay you off frequently enough when you do have a hand. Two things, it's hard to make the nuts and people have improved over the years so getting paid off isn't even that easy anymore. I'd hapilly take the extra bbs/100 that I can get out of improving my redline.



Nasty...

Im not saying that at all, im saying stop looking at graphs and trying to improve your red line. Stop bluffing and try to make the most +EV play you can while getting as much value as you can. It is very hard to have a positive red line at 10nl because of the nature of the game, even grindcore would struggle. Lets say he managed it, compare his greenline to someone who had a negative redline but a killer blue line.
I dont understand why you keep saying "standard", if i feel my c bet will work 50% of the time and villian only folds 20% of the time, i will not c bet, i do not care if this is standard or not it just simply is the correct play.

The game has changed/ is changing. Players who made it out of the micros years ago who now play mid stakes and up seem to think of micros as how they were a couple years ago and maybe dont realize how different it is.

Stop trying to address your red line at uNL, problem solved.

Edit: And put in real volume, that many hands in 18 months is a joke.

The 20k hands is from the last 3 weeks. I have about 300K hands in total but they were on an old account which is now gone.

Estist, thanks again for the great input.

record your play and post it

Two things, it's hard to make the nuts and people have improved over the years so getting paid off isn't even that easy anymore. I'd hapilly take the extra bbs/100 that I can get out of improving my redline.

2NL to 25NL the game as not improved if you table select. There is so many fishes that you can find easily 3-10 tables with half fishes on it and fishes can pay off full buyin with second pair +.

Even 50nl @ stars has a lot of fish and the 20tabling regs are bad too. They don't have enough time to think about the hand and call too light or fold to often

People often miss the bit where Grindcore talked about that his redline was mostly because of trying to make the correct play. Poker is poker so this will also apply to micro stakes. Blatenly assuming that following bog standard lines will make you fly through 5NL, 10NL, 25NL is in my opinion day dreaming. The majority of DC subscribers (as said before) will be capable of executing bog standard lines yet the same majority are not capable of moving up so easily. Most players are stuck at these stakes for years even studying and playing every day. That means something. Once you start looking at your overall game, start identyfing marginal profitable spots and putting yourself in spots that are not so easy, you will improve and you will make substantially more money to support your bankroll to move up. Grindcore's concepts can be easily applied to micro regs and as I said in my post before, you can even apply reverse strategies on the basis of these concepts.

I believe the redline to be imporant and it should certainly not be worse than - 45 degrees.

You're over thinking what you need to do to beat 25NL and under. These non standard spots are difficult to play as the majority of players are so erratic and call too often.

You're either advocating bluffing people off of hands which is never going to be a healthy source of profit in games where the biggest fault people have is calling too much, or you're suggesting hero calls in games where people don't bluff as much as you think post flop, and even if you find some good spots the amount of EV you gain compared to value betting isn't even a lot, and leaves you open to making huge errors if your read is off or youre relying too heavily on HUD stats.

ABC std poker is enough to make you fly through 2NL to 50NL if executed properly.
You can stay away from 3 bet bluffing anyone who makes 4 bet bluffs, exploit them by tightening up. Don't overestimate your implied odds when calling stuff like 56s in position, and understand that playing draws out of position isn't as profitable as you might think, even with the initiative .
eg calling SC from the blinds, or opening JTs from MP and facing a raise on a KQx flop, how many regs would over estimate their implied odds there?, a lot I would say . This could be a very long list, but the implication is by playing simple ABC poker you exploit people who aren't and don't adjust, or if they doadjust, they do it very poorly by overcompensating.

There's a ton of ways the better regs at 25NL are going wrong with what they consider standard lines, you don't need to involve yourself too much trying to force every EV cent, just keep it simple and don't pay off passive players and the bigger fish will soon give you enough money to make a start at 50NL where it begins to get slightly trickier.

If you can't beat the micros a lot of the time it is because you are too wrapped up in the 'ABC' poker of waiting for good hands, waiting to flop TPGK+ and betting for value. If this is all you do in today's games you will likely lose. I see too many 19/15s over large sample sizes. I am not suggesting you go nuts increasing your range to 24 - 25% of hands in the right spots would be more beneficial. This does not mean just opening more hands but rather exploiting opponent's post flop mistakes. Instead of just isolating limpers, isolate weak ranges that are open raising with 3 bets with wider ranges of hands. I suggest watching Blah234's series on LAG play at small stakes. Most of it is pretty relevant for microstakes. Even if you don't open your range up a tonne if you just play a little more marginal hands against weaker players and stop other TAGs isolating by use of calls/3bets preflop you can really increase your win rate.

OP add me on sky, ID leggoera. Im going through the same thing at the micros and would be cool to have someone to move up with who feels the same way i do. I am currently taking a shot at 25nl, went on a 9BI downswing straight out of the gate basically playing like a bluffy maniac for no reason. Got my head straight now im only 3BI down in like 6k hands, not too bad.
I was a losing 25nl player who reloaded monthly with a good job, decided it wasnt working and moved down to 10nl, crushed it for 30bi in 30k hands and so am taking a shot at 25nl.

^^Done.

dcart1987 ID if anyone else fancies joining in.