How To Win Low Stakes Online Poker
In my opinion, you can easily get away with stealing the blinds with 30% or even 40% of your hands in your typically passive low stakes cash games, live or online. Most opponents will simply let.
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- How To Win Low Stakes Online Poker Strategy
How to Win Low Stakes Sit'N'Go Tournaments. Sit-n-gos (SNGs) are single-table tournaments with usually six or nine players. CardsChat is an online poker community of 326,008 members in 190. In poker, as in life, the strong prey on the weak. One noted poker tome made famous the poker truism that if all players played perfect poker, only the house would win, via the rake. To win at low stakes poker you must identify weaknesses in your opponents, and exploit them. There are nights where you're just playing with friends for low stakes and it's more about the fun than the poker. But if you're in a casino, watch the alcohol. But if you're in a casino, watch the alcohol. Beginning at low stakes gives you more change of being able to win at poker in the long term. Starting out at lower stakes also enables the novice to begin playing online with a smaller smaller.
Many people struggle to break through in a big way in small stakes cash games. Perhaps they squeak by with break-even results or they even become minor winners. But most people want to win big. Indeed, for many that is the primary reason for playing the game.
The key to accomplishing that goal is to learn how to exploit the small edges most other people do not know about or do not apply often enough. In this article I am going to discuss five simple strategy tips that will help increase your profit margins in low stakes cash games.
1. Steal the Blinds
Most people think they do a good job of stealing the blinds, but many still pass up a lot of golden opportunities to do so. It is simply a fact that the button and the cutoff will be by far the most profitable seats for you at the poker table. Why on earth, then, would you not exploit the heck out of this when it is folded to you in these positions?
In my opinion, you can easily get away with stealing the blinds with 30% or even 40% of your hands in your typically passive low stakes cash games, live or online. Most opponents will simply let you take it down, only three-betting you if they happen to have a strong hand. Or even better, they will flat your steal attempt from out of position and then you can take down an even bigger pot with a simple continuation bet on the flop and/or turn.
The bottom line is that stealing the blinds is a highly effective way to increase your profit in small stakes cash games. Make sure that you are raising with anything that is even remotely playable.
2. Double-Barrel
Another effective strategy in passive low stakes cash games is to continuation bet the flop and then follow it up again on the turn. This is also referred to as a “double-barrel.”
The reason why this strategy is so effective is because many people at these stakes play no-limit cash games as if they were fixed-limit games. That is, they will call you on the flop but if you can follow it up on the turn with another bet, then they will assume that you are serious and let you have the pot.
This is a very effective strategy to use in particular against weak-tight opponents who won’t call you down with weak pairs or draws. Some players will even fold a small overpair if you continue to apply the pressure like this! Target these players more often by making another continuation bet on the turn.
3. Three-Bet Light
One of my favorite strategies against these same weak-tight opponents is to three-bet them light before the flop. By three-bet light I mean rereaise their open raise with a bunch of hands that aren’t quite premium — e.g., suited connectors, suited aces, and small pairs. I never do it with total junk. I always want to have some equity.
I will also do it more often when I am in position. This allows me to control the pace of the hand should they decide to call. This also allows me to get more value bets in if I manage to hit the board or to bluff if I feel like they aren’t confident about their hand.
4. Bluff the River
Once again the target here are the weak-tight opponents you see everywhere these days in small stakes cash games, especially online. Many of the players in this category do not like to go to showdown without a strong hand.
If you’re online and using a HUD, the WTSD% or “Went to Showdown” stat is crucial here. If an opponent is in the low 20s or less, then that is exactly the kind of player I want to be bluffing against more on the river.
It is important not to do it every time, though, and it is also important to make sure that your line makes some sense before firing that river bluff. By this I mean that given your previous actions in the hand, you want to find spots in which you could easily show up with several good made hands as well.
The river is often a spot where there is some big value to be made. Don’t just give up on the pot if you are against one of these nitty types who you think might fold. If you know that you cannot win at showdown, then sometimes you have very little to lose and everything to gain by making a bet.
5. Raise With Your Draws
One final way to open up your game and exploit the tendencies of weak opponents in particular is to play your draws fast. I mean significant draws such open-ended straight draws (8 outs), flush draws (9 outs), and everything better.
You already have plenty of equity with these hands, so it is a great strategy to play them like they are the nuts a little more often. One of my favorite ways to do this is simply to raise the flop and then bet any turn. This line puts a tremendous amount of pressure on opponents and really forces them to have a real hand in order to continue.
Once again, I will be targeting the weak-tight players with this play, a consideration that goes for pretty much every other strategy discussed in this article as well. There are still plenty of calling stations at the lower stakes and it is not a good idea to start bluffing up a storm against them.
Final Thoughts
The difference between the biggest winners and everybody else at any limit often boils down to how effectively the winning players exploit the smaller edges. And really what this means is taking down the smaller pots over which nobody else truly wants to fight.
Most players know how to play pocket aces before the flop or how to proceed after flopping a set. And everybody gets dealt these big hands in equal frequencies in the long run.
What the biggest winners do better than everybody else is win more than their fair share of the pots with their mediocre or even total junk hands. They do this by applying pressure in some of the key spots listed in this article.
Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books, Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.
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People sometimes complain these days about how tough the cash games are even at the lowest limits online — a topic I considered not long ago in “How to Beat Tough Low Stakes Cash Games”).
However, if you play on some of the smaller lesser known online sites and utilize some table selection — or if you play live at all — then you know that there is still plenty of very loose low stakes action out there.
How To Win Low Stakes Online Poker Results
These games require a completely different approach to beat them, though, and that is what I am going to address those strategies separately here. What follows are three ways you can beat loose low stakes cash games, live or online.
1. Practice Patience, Not Aggression
As I discussed last time, in order to beat the tougher low stakes cash games, you need to identify the weaker regulars and play aggressively in the right spots against them. When you are playing against a bunch of loose calling stations (including recreational players), however, you need to employ the exact opposite strategy.
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In these looser games, most of the time when you have nothing it is better just to give up on the pot and let them have it. You can shovel as much money in the middle as you want, but if your opponent won’t fold bottom pair, you are still going to lose the hand. And, of course, your failed bluff attempts will only cost you even more.
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Instead, the way to beat a loose calling station is to wait patiently for your opportunities. The reason why is that most recreational players are only first-level thinkers (i.e., thinking about their own hands). They aren’t thinking about what you are trying to represent.
Now don’t get me wrong — I am not advocating here that you wait for aces before getting involved. In fact, against the bad players you should try to get in as many pots with them as possible, ideally when you are in position.
How To Win Low Stakes Online Poker Strategy
Before the flop, you should often raise when they try to limp in (an “isolation raise”). Then most of the time you should take a stab at the pot on the flop with a continuation bet. This includes any time that you have connected with the board in any way as well as with all of your reasonable no pair/no draw hands such as ace-high and king-high.
The reason why you should continuation bet this wide is that loose calling stations do still fold sometimes, too, and if they are going to fold it will most likely be on the flop. Furthermore, when you are only betting 50%-60% of the pot with your continuation bet (as you should), then you don’t need that many folds in order to turn a profit.
The turn and the river are a different story. If you get called on the flop, this means that they connected with the board in some way. They may only have a weak draw or bottom pair, but they like something about their hand. And players like this do not like to fold when they like something about their hand.
This is why it is crucial that on the turn and river, where the pot starts to get a lot bigger, that you do not make the mistake of trying to bluff these players off of their hands with nothing. Patience instead is the key to success. This often means checking it down or even folding if they bet. (I discuss further the importance of being patient at the micros here.)
2. Value Bet Absurdly Wide
Another key strategy difference when playing against bad opponents — as opposed to decent and competent ones — is that you need to value bet a lot wider.
Against thinking opponents, it often doesn’t make sense to value bet bottom pair or sometimes even middle pair on the river, because they will usually only call with better and fold all worse hands. Loose calling stations, though, will call you down with bottom pair and even ace-high or king-high hands. So while you need to be extra patient against these types of players when you have nothing, ironically you should be hyper-aggressive against them when you have any kind of made hand.
I will routinely bet all three streets with top pair versus these types of players. But I would never do the same against a competent player, because there is no way I could get this much value out of them. In fact, if I am up against a bad player I believe might be on tilt, I might even take a middle-pair hand and just bet all three streets with it for value.
In a nutshell, versus loose calling stations just bet absurdly wide even when you can’t think of a hand with which they can possibly call. They will come up with something.
3. Stagger Your Bet Sizes Both Preflop and Postflop
I famously (or infamously) claimed in my first book, Crushing the Microstakes, that you should stagger your bet sizes versus bad poker players. A lot of people misread this to mean all poker players and criticized me because of it. I was never talking about all poker players, but only the category of players we are focusing on in this article. Versus those players, this is absolutely still the correct strategy.
What do I mean by “staggering” your bet sizes? I mean you should make your raise amount preflop according to the strength of your hand. In a crazily loose, live $1/$2 game, there is no reason why you should be raising the same amount with all of your hands. Your opponents aren’t paying any attention to what your bet sizes mean, so you should simply make it more when you have a premium hand in order to build the pot and prevent too many callers.
The same goes for postflop. If I am trying to pick up the pot with ace-high on the flop, I will make my continuation bet 60% of the pot at most. If I have top pair or better, however, I might just pot it or even over-pot it if I know that my opponent is on tilt against me.
You should never follow any kind of standardized betting rules against really bad poker players. Doing so is only important against competent players who might be paying attention to what you are doing. Against loose calling stations, simply bet more when you have it, and less when you don’t.
Final Thoughts
The strategy to beat loose low stakes cash games is actually very simple. First off, get involved with plenty of hands preflop by coming in for a raise whenever you can. You don’t need to wait for the nuts against opponents who are playing any two cards.
But be patient if you do not hit the board in any meaningful way postflop. The worst thing that you can do is try to bluff a player whose favorite thing to do is call. On the flip side, you should aggressively value bet with all sorts of made hands against these types of opponents because they will call you down extremely wide.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to stagger your bet sizes according to the strength of your hand against really bad players. A marginal increase in the size of your bet size means very little to them if they are intent on calling. But it allows you to build a much bigger pot when you have a big hand and stack them quicker.
Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books, Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
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