If you’re looking to crush the micros and take your low-stakes cash game to the next level, you’re in the right place.
In this episode of Made to Learn, 888poker ambassador Nick “eastyyy22” Eastwood shares five simple yet powerful tips to help you up your game and grow your bankroll. Whether you’re just starting out or want to fine-tune your strategy, Eastwood’s got the advice you need.
Simplify Your Strategy
If you’re playing high-stakes cash games, a complex strategy makes a lot of sense, but if you’re stuck at the micros, this isn’t necessary because you won’t be playing the most skilled players.
It would be best if you simplified your strategy at low stakes to make it as easy to understand and execute as possible. There is no need to mix up your frequencies and fall into the trap of fancy play syndrome, and there are two reasons for this.
Firstly, your opponents are significantly likely to be playing at a level that a simplified strategy could exploit. Remember, you only need to beat what’s in front of you. Preparing a highly complex strategy for low-stakes opponents not only isn’t necessary, it’s also very difficult and may just be downright bad against the players you’ll see on a daily basis.
Secondly, an inferior strategy that’s well executed is far better than an advanced strategy executed poorly. So, keep things simple.
Play Exploitatively
There are a much higher number of weaker players at low stakes than at high stakes, and they make far more errors that we can and should punish.
For example, you might be playing someone who just doesn’t fold. You’ve seen them play a few orbits and consistently call bets with weak hands. The first thing to do is take note of their tendencies. The next time you see them, even if you have a prime candidate to bluff, justdon’t. We know the player isn’t going to release their hand, even if it’s a hand that should never be calling bets.
However, when you have a good or mediocre hand, it’s appropriate to value bet more aggressively. Bet huge with your big hands and extract value with hands you may not be able to bet against other players.
Identify a weakness, take note and push your edge to the limit.
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Play In Position
Players tend to hugely undervalue the power of position at the lower stakes. The player in position gets to act last on all streets, which comes with significant advantages.
You get to see what your opponent does before you act, meaning we often have more information that we might not have had if we had to ask first. Having position makes it much easier to navigate almost every situation. The more often we can play in position, the more profitable we will likely be.
Consider The Rake
Many low-stakes players don’t consider the rake when playing online poker cash games and how it should influence their strategy.
The rake is the percentage taken from each pot when the hand reaches the flop. At lower stakes, these percentages tend to be higher. So, how should this affect your strategy?
You’ll want to play a bit tighter, call a lot less preflop and do more raising instead. This is because you’re getting a worse price when you call than when you call in a lower rake structure. Consider cutting out more marginal hands because they may no longer be profitable after the rake is accounted for. At the same time, try three-betting more often than calling preflop. If you take down a hand preflop, you don’t pay any rake, making a three-bet or fold strategy more viable at lower stakes.
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Slowplay Less
It can feel really smart and tricky to slow play a big hand, but almost always, at lower stakes, it costs you money. This is because slow playing, in part, relies on your opponent. When we’re slow playing, we need our opponents to put in the money for us by bluffing or value-betting themselves. In reality, many players don’t bluff or value bet as often as they should, and if they don’t reopen the action, we get no value from our strong hands.
Players at low stakes also often call a bit too much. When facing a river bet, they get to close the action by calling, which is a much more comfortable feeling than betting a hand they’re not certain is good or bluffing a hand they definitely know is not good.
In addition, these players tend to be inelastic to bet sizes, meaning they’re not much more likely to fold to a large bet than to a small one. By betting ourselves, we can get even more value by betting very large with our strong hands rather than slow playing.