Online Poker Micro Stakes Strategy

Micro stakes poker tournaments are the tip of the beginning of a poker player’s cash journey. While some of us might take this stage lightly or as a means of an experiment, micro stakes poker is actually where you need to create a good game practice if you wish to go beyond this limit and create an upward graph in future.

1. Online Poker Micro Stakes Strategy For Beginners
2. Micro Stakes Online Poker Strategy
3. Online Poker Micro Stakes Strategy Tactics

Online Poker » Poker Strategy » Tournament /Sit N Go » Micro Stakes SNG Mistakes. An important concept to understand in poker is that often times it's not what you do, but it's what you don't do that you benefit from the most. A good example is making mistakes. The fewer mistakes you make while playing, the more money you will save. If you’re trying to increase your win rate or maybe just make huge profits by winning in consecutive games then what you need is to play in micro stakes games. Playing in this low stakes field in poker can make it easy for you to gain profit, especially in online poker. You’ll find some of Low Stake Online Poker: A Strategy Guide in Winning Micro Stakes Games Read More ». Neatly organized by the stakes he was playing, the table — which went viral in the poker world around 2009 — catalogs his online poker winnings: He’d made a $53 profit playing at a table.

With the help of a few simple online poker strategy tips, new players like you will be able to beat this scene and fast track your run towards bigger profits in the sport.

Play Loose-Aggressive

We know what you are thinking when we say this out loud. Most players would advise to play tight and aggressive at this stage, however, you must know, this is what every player is doing.

So, if you wish to make profits in micro stakes online poker tournaments, you need to profile your opponents and play loose and exploit their weaknesses when they are being too cautious and shy. The idea is to fight for it till the end even with a decent hand until your opponent gives up. One should always aim to pick his/her fair share of wins from these small pots to get ahead in the game.

Value-Bet your Good hands

Thankfully, micro stakes poker tournaments do not go much beyond level 1 strategy. So, keep your game simple and value bet your strong hands with at least 4-bet or more. With medium strength hands, discover the leaks of your opponents and make small bets often to do the job. The idea is to play fearlessly and not make the game too complicated or you will eventually lose your way.

Steal the Blinds

Stealing the blinds is an excellent micro stakes online poker strategy to raise your profits especially when you are playing against tight-aggressive players. This strategy can be applied in micro stakes poker when you opponents have checked and you are in late position so that you can make big bets to force your opponents to fold.

For example, if two or more players fold on the button and there are two more tight players left to act in the blinds, feel free to raise big with medium to top hands.

Exploit the Fish

Micro stakes online poker tournaments are filled with fish. These are amateurs who are likely to call any hand or chase any draw. In short, they play way too many hands and make huge fundamental mistakes.

As a result, they end up losing money a lot quicker which is why you need to play against these guys as often as possible to max your profits. It is important you tag these players, maybe even with the help of an HUD, however, more than often, they stick out like a sore thumb. So, yes, chasing the bad ones can be highly profitable in the long run.

Bluff High Value Cards

Bluffing is an online poker strategy that can be very effective in micro stakes poker tournaments and even in cash games of poker. This is a part of the loose aggressive strategy we have been talking about and it works best with scare cards like A K and Q. and also a flush or a straight filler.

For instance, let’s say you have a medium strength hand like a 6,6 or 8,9and your opponent (tight player) checks on the flop. A King or an Ace reveals itself on the turn, you should continue to bet. Your opponent calls and then on the river comes a King. You bet again.

This makes it a very intimidating board for a tight player to make a smart decision. The key is to apply constant pressure to force him to fold on the river without showdown. Good players often steal the pot without showdown.

Online Poker Micro Stakes Strategy For Beginners

Take these micro stakes online poker strategy tips to the tables and you shall see visible changes in your next poker tournament. In fact, the timing has been great as Indian poker portal, PokerBaazi has announced the 1^st ever India’s biggest ever micro poker series for players looking to forge their path in this fascinating mind sport.

PokerBaazi’s Indian Micro Poker Series (1.5Crore GTD)

India’s Licensed and Most Trusted Poker Website, PokerBaazi recently announced a brand new series for micro stakers with excellent opportunities to inflate their bankroll at extremely minimal cost. Here, check it out.

IMPS Highlights: (13^th-26^th July)

• 14 days, 120 online micro stakes poker tournaments, 1.5 Crore Guaranteed
• Buy-in directly for INR 100 onwards or join the satellites at a big discount for just INR 10
• 50 more tickets will be given away as part of social media contests on Facebook and Instagram
• Additional Leaderboard prizes worth 10LAC
• Join the Prime Time Specials for bigger guarantees but micro buy-ins

These are the latest updates we have so far on this amazing 14 day poker tournament series. For more details and satellite schedules, visit the PokerBaazi official website. So, buckle up to bring your A game to the felts of online poker and carve your road to poker glory.

In the earlier parts of this series, we covered how to approach micro stakes tournaments from the early stages, approaching the money, and newly in the money but prior to tangible pay jumps that occur closer to and at the final table. Today we’re going to discuss the deeper money stages leading up to the final table.

At this stage, all players have locked up a nice little payday. But typically, nerves and tension is now higher than ever. You’ve made it through thousands of players, and now are down to the final few tables. Every one of your opponents knows how much the winner of the tournament will be adding to their account. To many of your micro stakes opponents, this sum represents a big score, perhaps in some cases making their account balance the largest it’s ever been. And when entering tournaments with thousands of runners, who knows when we’ll be back to this point again?

The desire to capitalize on this opportunity right now will be strong. Winning tournament regulars are much less impacted by this pressure, because they understand they are profitable with volume, and they’ve been here before, probably many times. In micro stakes tournaments however, most of these players won’t be in that category. Many are recreational players who may be looking at their biggest potential score to date. And it’s not just the money that’s a factor. They are eager to tell their family, friends, significant others about their success. They want to say they won. Not that they finished 35^th. There is emotional and psychological pressure that comes with this spot as well as financial. How much each of these affects individual players varies, but they are all going to be present in some sense.

How can you identify who’s feeling the pressure, vs. who’s playing to win?

Actions: Players who are feeling ominous about busting out will instinctively start playing not to lose, which is very different from playing to win. The natural direction of a not-to-lose mentality is to become tighter, more conservative, and being more reluctant to put their stack at risk. When a player who was playing more reasonably starts getting very tight in these later stages, it’s a decent indicator they are feeling pressure. If they go broke getting KK cracked, their poker friends will all understand and commiserate. If they go broke 3B resteal jamming over a wide button opener with A3s because they ran into AK or QQ this time, not all their poker friends (many of whom will be losing players) will understand and may scoff at them, declaring it a punt. Forget about their family or significant other understanding. A bad beat story provides an “excuse” for the exit they can save face with. A well-executed exploit that is unluckily timed doesn’t.

Verbal: This happens more in live events, but online sometimes chatters can give themselves away. They may fold to a raise on the turn saying in chat “it’s not worth the risk”, or viewing an aggressively active player, may admonish them for “being foolish” or “trying to punt”. These comments or statements can take many forms, but they tend to revolve around the same thing… the player is projecting their own insecurity about the situation onto their opponents while adjusting their play to a more conservative, not-to-lose mentality.

Stack Size Movement: A slow decline in stack size is another indicator that naturally flows from the conservative, wait for strong hands and scared to bust mentality. They are folding. A lot. Blinds and antes are large now and eroding the stacks of the folders. By this stage of the tournament, even if you multi-table, you are now likely paying close attention to your table. Noticing who’s stack is slowly shrinking, and who is folding a lot vs. being more active will help you devise a strategy to exploit them.

The best ways to adjust now at this stage of the game include:

Keep the Faith: What I mean by this is, try and make a conscious effort to continue playing to win, i.e. don’t fall prey to the above pressures yourself. This can be easier said than done, but if you don’t do it, then it will be your stack eroding and it will require a large amount of luck for you to final table, and end up in the top few spots… the luck of getting some big hands, and having them both get action and hold up, or getting lucky over and over as a short stack to fade elimination at the hands of the bigger stacks.

Micro Stakes Online Poker Strategy

Attack the Folders: Those people who seem to have gone into a not-to-lose mentality can be stolen from quite liberally. They’ll be reluctant to risk their tournament life or a chunk of their stack on a marginal holding. They may still open some weaker hands in late position, because they know they should be, but will quickly discard them to pressure. So 3-bet their LP opens a bit more liberally, steal their blinds more, etc.

Online Poker Micro Stakes Strategy Tactics

Attack Playing to Win Players: Some players will be ramping it up a bit to exploit the folders and leverage the pressure of the late stage game. When one of these players opens with a wide range, don’t be afraid to attack them. Everyone is scared of engaging these types, but that’s just the fear of busting rearing its ugly head. The truth is most of these will be the fearless players and stronger players, but they don’t want to punt any more than the tight players do. They likely perceive themselves to have a decent edge now given all the folders handing them small pots, and won’t want to relinquish that with a bad call off. So they provide a situation where they are likely opening wider than normal, but content to concede when played back at and they don’t have the goods… creating even more fold equity for you should you chose to seize it.

One last thing… invariably, deep in these tournaments some players will straight up punt their stack. It can be the loose-aggressive players not recognizing when to slow down, but the tight folders do it too sometimes. I see it in virtually every tournament I’ve ever run deep in at low or micro stakes. The pressure sometimes builds up until someone snaps. How can this guy who’s folded for 50 hands in a row suddenly 3B shove for 8bb over a 2.5x open (thus having no realistic expectation of fold equity) with 97o? That’s the big hand they were waiting for all this time? No, of course not… they just snapped. It can be difficult to adjust to this since it’s hard to predict when someone might snap… but the key is to make sure it’s not you this happens to. My best advice is to try and continue taking deep breaths, stay as relaxed as possible, and stay the course with your game plan. So while the other player may say to themselves “I’m sick of this bully opening constantly, taking all my spots, controlling the table, they’re full of it, I’m all in” and sheepishly showing 97o when they are obviously called, you’ll say to yourself “I’m sick of this bully opening constantly, clearly they are light. But I have 8 big blinds and they really aren’t likely to fold to a shove after opening 2.5x. And 97o is a really bad hand so to have a profitable shove spot I really need that fold equity. Sigh, I really do need to let this go.”

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