Poker Cash Game Strategy Low Stakes
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”).
Small Stakes Leaks Strategy Guide. A good attack is no good without a good offense. Most Small Stakes poker regulars know how to blind steal 3bet, c-bet and double barrel proficiently. Low stakes online poker Poker is one of the best low value games to play. This is the only game where you can use low stakes live poker strategy and gain an upper hand through experience. As mentioned above, the skill threshold for this type of game is usually much less. Beating Low Stakes Poker Games. When you sit down at a low stakes poker game, you’re expecting easy pickings. A lot of these games are filled with some of the real novices. The skilled players generally rise up higher, moving into the poker games with bigger limits. However, you shouldn’t turn your nose up at these games, because sometimes you’ll run into some solid players. 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. Avoid Complicated Spots. When playing for nickels and dimes online at the micro stakes, it’s not the.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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The majority of online poker players are losing low stakes players. I think it’s only appropriate to go over some strategy for those types of games. In this article we’ll discuss some of the unique attributes you’ll find when playing low stakes games that are only found strictly at low limit games. We’ll go over both Sit n Go strategy and cash game strategy for low stake tables.
Who Plays Low Stakes Poker
It’s pretty obvious who plays online these days by listening to the chat box. By the rude drunken comments you can usually assume they are college students. It is harmless fun even though it can be quite rude. Mostly college students and possibly even some high school students are playing at these low stakes games.
College students really can’t afford to lose or risk too much money. Most of the time $5-$10 is actually a lot of money to a college student who’s playing with dinner money…for the next couple days. Even though its ten bucks to them they’re really not too worried about losing it even if it may cost them a couple beers for then next couple nights.
While I say a lot of college players stick to low stakes, most of the high stakes online poker pros are very young. Many are still in college when they hit the million dollar mark.
Why Low Stake Poker Games Are Easy
Low stakes poker games are really easy to win money at. Who really cares if you lose $25 these days. It’s just not enough money to stress about. When I say low stakes games I’m generally talking about $50 cash tables or $10 or less Sit n Go’s.
You are much more likely to double your starting stack 10-20 times a month playing low stakes than you are high stakes. Let’s say you start out with $25 as a bank roll. There is really no reason you shouldn’t make $500 a month playing low stakes games. That would mean you would have to double up 20 times a month to pay your rent. Is it doable? Absolutely it’s doable.
It does take some strategy which we’ll soon discuss but it’s what I did every month in college back a couple years ago. On average I cashed out $500 every month playing the $25 cash tables and $10 Sit n Go’s from Party Poker. The great thing was I wasn’t risking a lot of money and the strategy I used almost guaranteed me to win. Low stakes poker is really just common sense. High stakes poker on the other hand takes serious skills and risk taking.
How To Play Low Stakes Cash Games
Strategy for Low Stakes Poker
Let’s say you start a bankroll off with $100. Depending on what your specialty is you should adjust your stakes accordingly. With this bankroll size you should either play $10-20 Sit n Go’s or the $25 cash tables.
I wouldn’t play too much more than that until you build your bankroll. This gives you about 5-10 Sit n Go’s to play in and 4 buy in’s on a cash table at worst. Hopefully you won’t have to buy in more than twice without making some money on a cash table or tournament.
If you are a complete newbie at online poker I would suggest playing the Sit n go tournaments first. More advanced players should play a mix of Sit n Go’s and cash tables. Ok so here we go.
Low Stake Sit n Go’s
Sit n Go’s are low risk high payouts. Because we are going to be playing such low stakes you will find that players generally get eliminated very quickly. Within the first few hands you generally have a few players on tilt that will go out after just a few hands have been dealt. You won’t see this too often at the $100 Sit n Go’s. Even if someone is on tilt they think about it a lot more when they could lose $100. Besides, what’s $10 these days. You can barely get lunch for that much.
Persistence and patience pays in low stake games. Players are willing to call your bluffs and pay you off because the stakes are so low. In sit n go’s you will see this very often as well. A player would rather rebuy into another tournament than be left with half a stack and a small chance to win a small payout. They will just pay off your all in bets much more often even when they know they are beat. Unfortunately this can cause a lot more bad beats but just go with the flow and you’ll come out on top.
Another thing to remember is that low stakes sit n go’s are much harder to win. I’m not saying you won’t win money. I’m saying you will find yourself placing in 2nd and 3rd a lot more often than first. Players are so aggressive that they usually double or triple up one or two players in the very beginning making them hard to catch.
Cash High Stakes Poker
Once you make it into the money the player with the most skills will win. This is where you can begin to bluff and take down some larger size blinds not risking your stack too much.
Cash Games – Low stakes
In low stakes cash games you need to be very patient. Players can be way too aggressive and patience will win you a lot of money. Like any time you are playing overly aggressive players you want to be patient and let them make the wrong move. One bad move on their part will give you a large percentage of their stack.
Once again players will be extremely over aggressive in these low stakes cash games. They over bet small pots, re-raise trying to bluff out of position and go all in when they know they are beat. Please do yourself a favor and don’t slow play when at low stake games. There is absolutely no point to slow play. You will find that you will get more callers the higher you bet. All in bets are called more often than not. This is one reason so many players get so upset when they play low stakes games. They try to bluff at pots when their opponent doesn’t care if they lose or not. There is really no skill involved at winning. Playing basic poker will win you more money than if you try to get fancy.
Low Stakes Strategy Review
– Be patient and play preminum hands
– Limp in with small pairs and suited connectors.Overbet the pot when you hit these hands
– Play Sit n Go’s regularly. Play patient and let others knock each other out
– Learn basic poker strategy and stick to the book.
– Make your trips and straights pay you off. Bet big and they will call.
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