Micro Stakes = Setting Money on Fire?

For me play on microstakes is easy by name. Must have strong psyche because get a lot of bad beats, bad coolers, I think more times than higher stakes. Before play more aggressive person now dominate people who shove only AA preflop, no 3/4bet KK/QQ/AK preflop, slowplay sets postflop on very wet boards.

Knowing the type of your opponents is very important on microstakes because they can vary from very weak opponents to those that never fold. By weak opponent I mean a person that plays tight preflop range or folds to continuation bets. They are easier to put on range and you can eventually run over them. Recognize those villains and start betting more often against them. On many of the cases you are making instant profit against them because they fold too much. And if they call start thinking a reasonable story you could tell them on later streets.

Let's say you are making a continuation bet on a draw heavy flop because your opponent is folding half of the times and only check-raises top of the range. He calls. Turn doesn't complete the draws. How would you play your strong hands? Do that and see if he continues to river. If you have showdown value on river then check. There is no need to overbluff those hands because you are winning the pot often enough. Else consider still betting. Weak opponents make ridiculous folds sometimes. Even some calling stations have really high fold to river bet %.

Against calling stations you are betting for value. If they are passive don't try to be tricky with check-raising or stuff like that. You can even start donk betting against them as an exploit. Just bet more often for value and play tight when they raise you. Out of all the stakes I've played I have the highest continuation bet %, donk bet %, fold to continuation bet % and fold to river bet % on the micros and also the lowest check-raise %. In general players don't bluff-raise much in microstakes.

Betting three streets for value can get tough sometimes. There are two things you could do. First of all you can delay your continuation bet for turn with some of your weaker valuehands especially against villains that are aggressive. That is how you can avoid situations where you have to check either turn in position or river out of position. Because when you check either of those situations, aggressive players can smell the blood and decide to bluff you out of the hand. It is much easier to check-call a tough river as a bluffcatcher when you have only bet the turn, not just because the pot is smaller but also because your opponents range is weaker.

Another way to make your life easier on river is to use a block bet on a scary board. Let's say you have two pairs and you have bet both flop and turn out of position. Calling station is still in the hand and some of the draws complete. Instead of checking and getting yourself possible in trouble start using small block bets. They are great because they work in two ways. In best case scenario you are still getting value when they call with worse hand. If you are raised you are most likely behind and you get to fold easily.

Also bet sizing matters. It is often good to keep flop bets smaller so you can keep your own range and your opponents range wider. Let's say you bet big on a paired board with trips or overpair, what is the most likely result? Your opponent folds. What about if you bet big as a bluff and the opponent calls? There are less hands you can double barrell as a bluff because your bet size on flop lead to a situation where he has stronger range. Then you check turn and face a bet on river and you end up folding too much or calling too wide. The thing is you don't exactly want them to fold on flop but on turn instead. That is how you get more value for your good hands but also get your bluffs to win slightly more. To achieve that bet smaller on flop so you can bet bigger and more often on turn. It will make your turn continuation bets much more efficient.

Lastly play more against bad players and less against good players. Being in position is very important. Steal more if the blinds are bad or tight players and they don't 3-bet a lot. That will make your winrate in position much higher.

Hey ColorFlusher

All the stuff you wrote looks like straight out of the Crushing the Micro Stakes by Alton Hardin or Blackrain79

I have both courses and books, went through everything a couple of times, in theory it sounds great, in practice it just does not work... At least not at the micro stakes, it seems. I will test the higher stakes, gonna play a bit at the US$25, US$50 and US$100 and see how it goes.

Hey Nazgos, it is not about mistakes, it is about playing against players who are not afraid of losing. They just don't respect position, don't fear raising, shoving... They are just playing roulette or raising war.

I will discover that myself, but I am pretty sure it is a completely different game up in stakes, where people play poker and respect the game.

Microstakes goes like this:

Let's say you have AA in EP. You open raise. Someone calls you , does not matter where, but let's say BTN.

Flop comes 10h 5c Qd

You fire a C-Bet, 80% pot, they call, or even raise you. You raise them. They call (doesn t matter what you do, they call)

Turn comes Kh, You bet pot, they call.

River comes 3c, you go all in, or make an over bet, really does not matter.

They call. All they had all along was 53o which beats you...

So it is just one example of how they don t care about what cards they have, someone who really plays poker would never call a raise from EP holding 53o, and then call bets until the river.

They get away with teaching this stuff for micros because they say that the short term stuff does not matter , "variance" right? "Oh, after 1 million hands, things should even out", yeah sure, if you have infinite bankroll, perhaps. All this theory assumes that you have infinite money.

PS:

I am slowly moving up in stakes and forgot to mention, yesterday I played for some hours 10NL, which by any means is higher stakes, still micro, but it is a US$10 buy in, not US$2. I already noticed a difference in people play style, it was way calmer. I believe that as I move up, it will get better, we'll see. Pretty sure that as I get to US$50 buy in and higher, I won't see people engaging in re-raising wars and everyone going all in with air.

Good luck. But my honest opinion is that if you don’t beat the micros, you just suck and are not willing to accept it.

That AA example is horribly overplayed, unless you know villain is an extreme maniac or calling station

Not overplayed at all...

As I said, you can't compare micros to games where people are actually worried about losing money.

There is no such thing as beating the micros, even those guys who teach, they don't have anything to back up, they don't even play it anymore because they can't beat it. All they have are some sessions reports screenshots from 10 years ago or so, when it was actually easy.

If there are, please post here your reports. Even if you are making some money, the time Vs. effort Vs. reward is barely worth it.

Look, I am not stupid, I am a trader, I trade for a living for 6 years now, trading is way way harder than playing poker. What actually made me interested in poker was the similarity with trading. You wait for a high probability set up, and act on it. They are just not working out in the micros.

"Unless you know villain is maniac or calling station", buddy, that is 90% of the micros stakes.

Originally posted by Gauer
Does anyone here makes any money playing the micros?

Always a good idea to go to higher stakes, when you are not beating the micros. Let us know how it worked out.
Just as comparison, look at my winrate between the 3 stakes and take your conclusions on how easier it is as you go up.

GL. You're gonna need it.

That is a very small sample. When did you start playing the micros? Show me the complete run, since you started til today.

EDIT: 123 hours to win 93, that is like 0.75 per hours, 10x less than minimum wage for all the wasted hours and effort into it.

@Gauer

You're describing opponents, who's literally trying to hand over their money to you. And you don't like that ?!

And don't think "move up to where they respect your raises" is the way to win at poker.

Study - put in volume - rinse and repeat 🔁

I will make my own experiments here, discover on my own.

In the meantime I will focus more on tourneys, if I am going to rely on luck or play bingo, at least on tourneys there is a better return on investment (time and money).

Originally posted by Gauer
That is a very small sample. When did you start playing the micros? Show me the complete run, since you started til today.

EDIT: 123 hours to win 93 - 157 in NL2 and 176 on NL10 (you were looking at rake paid, not profit), that is like 0.75 per hours, 10x less than minimum wage for all the wasted hours and effort into it.

This is my sample since October 7th, on regular tables. I no longer have the DB of 10+ years ago, when I stopped playing. You can see more details in my blog.
Obviously, poker is a hobby for me. I have a full time job. I don't play for the money, I play because I like it and I don't burn money with it, if any of the 2 didn't occur I wouldn't.

Anyway, despite small sample and "working" below minimum wage, your question was "Does anyone here makes any money playing the micros?" and the answer is yes.
Just out of curiosity, what would be a good sample for you in the micros? Because I don't see interest in playing NL2(e.g) after you've built BR to jump to NL5. Would you preffer the stats if it shown 2BBs/100 and 350K hands to achieve the same in NL2?

I didn't want to say this, but I think someone has to...
You don't seem to be able to separate poker from money. While you don't, you won't be a good player. 1BB is what you pay on the BB, despite being NL2, NL10, NL50.
The difference if you jump directly to NL50 (e.g) is that your opponents (at least bigger part of the pool, than in micros) have earned their BR playing poker, so they will be less afraid of losing 100BBs than a guy that took it from his account to play (aka you).
But none of this is my concern, afterall, is your money. To bad we are unlikely to play in the same geographic zone, so the money you are going to deposit has little to no chance of ending up in my tables.

As said, GL, you look like you're going to need it.

No one plays micros to earn actual money. You play them to develop your game as you move up to higher limits.

I had the wrong idea about this, I thought it would require less hours, but I was clearly wrong. It is too many hours invested to earn peanuts. And playing zoom is even worst because everyone is just pressing "fold" waiting for AA or KK, so when you land on a table where people call or raise, you can bet your ass they have AA or KK...

I really like poker, so I think that for me (if I have to seat for hours in front of the PC), at least playing a tourney you have the chance to win more, spending less time and money.

I already wasted too much time in front of the PC on my early years of trading, refined my day trading into swing trading, so I just spend a couple of hours tops per day doing my analysis and adjusting my stop losses and stuff.

I think I will stick with playing a couple of mid stakes tourneys per week, and that is it. I will play a couple of hours of 50NL and 100NL and see how it goes, out of curiosity.

Won't be going back to sitting the whole day in front of the PC, not to earn peanuts at least...

Originally posted by frib
No one plays micros to earn actual money. You play them to develop your game as you move up to higher limits.

I don't agree with that because you are playing against people who are not playing poker.

If you are going to waste hours and hours "improving your game at the micros", just stick with play money then, it will be the same thing...

Originally posted by Gauer

Originally posted by frib
No one plays micros to earn actual money. You play them to develop your game as you move up to higher limits.

I don't agree with that because you are playing against people who are not playing poker.

If you are going to waste hours and hours "improving your game at the micros", just stick with play money then, it will be the same thing...

Dude please stream your games, I could use a good laugh.

Do you stream yours? Give me the link.

Also, post here a complete session report of yours since you started playing micros, let me see where you stand after playing a couple millions of hands

Maybe playing a higher limit will work ... for a while. Until the players have reads on you and know how to play you.

I do agree players at higher stakes make some better plays, although there even are donks at the highest limits, but your problem doesn't seems to be the donks, it's being able to accept (a lot of) bad run outs and surviving the high rake (that actually is better on higher stakes).

No player should hate when someone calls you down with trash, even when they hit. I know variance is a bitch, especially to accept the fact that you have to conquer it, but asking players to play better against you is weard. It will only cost you more money when they know what they are doing.

Playing higher limits because you like the gameplay more, however, is something you could consider. As long as you don't expect to get a higher winrate, but play it to enjoy the game more.

Originally posted by Gauer
Do you stream yours? Give me the link.

Also, post here a complete session report of yours since you started playing micros, let me see where you stand after playing a couple millions of hands

Not yet, but when I do, I will post the link

Did you ever ask yourself why you play poker?

Originally posted by Gauer
Do you stream yours? Give me the link.

Also, post here a complete session report of yours since you started playing micros, let me see where you stand after playing a couple millions of hands

Million hands on micros?
Man, make your thoughts clear, you're just making a fool of yourself.

I just shown you my stats with 20+BBs/100 hands, and you say playing X hours for 150€ is stupid. Why would someone play millions of hands in the micros? EIther is writing a book on it, or has -1BB/100 and lives by the bonus.
Unless you bet with anyone 10K€ he wouldn't be profitable in NL2 over 1M hands, why would someone play more than necessary to escalte the stake? Is just stupid. It'd be 3 years playing. If you don't beat the micros in 1 year (300k to 500k hands), sorry to say, but poker probably isn't for you.