If there is one thing I hear the most from small stakes poker players it is they can't seem to consistently turn a profit at the poker tables.
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They will win big one session — or even several sessions in a row — but then inevitably the cards will go south on them and they will lose all of their profit back.
This is a problem because everybody has winning and losing days in poker. What the most successful poker players do, however, is lose less on their bad days and win more on their good days.
In this article I am going to give you five of my top strategies for learning how to win consistently in small stakes poker games.
1. Maximize Your Winnings on the Good Days
As I mentioned above, you are going to have good days and bad days in poker. Some days you will be hitting every top pair, making your flushes and the like. And just as importantly, on those good days your opponents will keep having decent second-best hands with which to pay you off as well.
But there will also be other days when you can't make a hand to save your life. And when you finally do make a hand, guess what? That's right — they will have the higher flush, the higher set, and other better hands. If you have played poker for any amount of time, I think you know what I am talking about here.
Now half the battle to learning how to win consistently at the poker tables is simply maximizing your winnings on the good days. You know that on some days you are going to have to take some losses, so winning as much as possible on the good days is absolutely key.
This is why you need immediately to shed the 'protectionist' mentality many small stakes players have of winning a few buy-ins and then wanting to quit in order to 'lock up the win.' This isn't how poker works. Poker is one long session and your results on any individual day literally matter very little.
By quitting early when things are going well — and, more importantly, when you are probably playing well also — you are only hurting yourself. When the cards are falling your way, try to keep playing as long as possible.
2. Minimize Your Losses on the Bad Days
The reverse is true as well. On the days when absolutely nothing is working for you, you want to quit early and stop the bleeding.
But again, many small stakes players do the exact opposite. They want to keep playing to get back what they've lost. Or even worse, they'll jump up in stakes if they are stuck a lot to try and win it back faster.
The problem with this strategy is that even though you might not realize it in the moment, you are likely playing very poorly on days like this. Your judgment and decision-making is clouded by emotions. You are likely to play a looser game and more aggressively, and as a result you'll be more apt to make bad calls and other poor decisions.
If you want to start turning a long term consistent profit in poker, one of the absolute best things you can do is just leave the poker table on these bad days. You have to remember that poker games literally run around the clock. That's true both for online poker and even for live games for the most part. In other words, the games aren't going anywhere.
One of the absolute most valuable lessons you can learn in poker is how to take a small loss and come back the next day with a clear head rather than continuing to play and burying yourself with a big loss.
3. Don't Play in Unprofitable Games
Something else you can do in order to win consistently in poker is to start paying more attention when it comes to game selection. If there isn't a clear reason why you are at the table (i.e., somebody at the table who plays much worse than you), there is no reason why you should be at that table.
This is a big mistake that I see small stakes players making all the time. That is, they sit down and play in games full of other strong regulars, not thinking how detrimental taking on such a challenge is likely going to be to their bankroll.
While I know it can be a pain to change tables or even poker sites or casinos, you have to understand that the profit in poker does not come from playing with other people who are equally skilled to you or better. You are going to be essentially trading money back and forth with them in the long run (if not losing). And truthfully, even if you hang in there against such opponents, you will often still show a loss once the rake is taken out.
It is absolutely crucial, then, that there is always at least one player who is a clear soft spot in any poker game that you choose to play.
4. Don't Pay Attention to the Short Term
As I touched on before, short term results (day-to-day, week-to-week) really just aren't that important in poker. It is only the long run of months and years of play that really matters.
This is why I would suggest you make a real effort, especially if you play online, to stop checking your bankroll so often. Keep recording your results after each session, of course, but avoid the constant checking. As long as you are properly bankrolled for the games in which you are playing, there should be no issue.
By not checking your bankroll so frequently, you prevent yourself from getting emotional during the downswings. You also prevent yourself from getting a false sense of superiority during the good times.
As I often say in poker, neither the heaters nor the downswings are what is real. Both are illusions — the outliers, the abnormal. The truth about your abilities actually lies somewhere in the middle.
5. Take Them to Value Town
Small stakes poker games are often dominated these days by tight-passive regs and loose, 'calling station' recreational players. The biggest key to your success in these games therefore is going to be getting the maximum value with your good hands.
There is no point in trying to bluff a lot at stakes like this. They are just going to call you down, which will cause you to get even more tilted.
You need to become a master of the value bet instead. And I am not talking about situations here where you have or a flush. Everybody knows how to value bet in these spots. I am talking instead about the thin value bets where you have something like second or even third pair on the river and they check it to you.
Oftentimes many of these bad players at the lower limits will be willing to hero call you with their ace-high if you make a bet. This is especially the case with smaller bets like one-third of the pot.
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Don't just check it back and take the showdown like most people do at these stakes. The very biggest winners in these games are always getting that thin value even when it seems impossible that they can call you with worse. Trust me, they can and will at the micros!
Final Thoughts
Learning how to win consistently in the lower limit poker games is one of the very first steps you need to take in order to have a lot of success in this game.
One of the most important keys to remember is to maximize your winnings on the good days and minimize your losses on the bad days. Most players do the exact opposite.
You also want to make sure that you are always playing in profitable games, getting the absolute maximum value out of them, and ignoring your short term results.
Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes, Modern Small Stakes, and The Microstakes Playbook. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.
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Ah, the micro stakes. The limits where you can play poker online for as little as a couple of bucks. The limits where million-dollar poker dreams are born!
So why is it that so many people fail to achieve any success at all even at these incredibly low limits? Why do they struggle to turn a profit against some of the most inexperienced and poorly-skilled players in the world?
Well, after having played millions and millions of hands at these stakes myself over the years with a lot of success, I have noticed several reasons why this is the case.
In this article I am going to list the top five reasons why people fail to consistently win at the micro stakes.
1. They Don't Have a Plan
Most people who play at the lower limits don't have a real plan for what they are trying to accomplish at the poker tables.
When they sit down to play, they jump in at whatever stakes they feel like on that particular day and end up bouncing all over the place with no real direction. Sometimes they will even jump across different formats, too — for instance, playing cash games one day and tournaments the next.
This is a recipe for disaster. If you want to have success in poker, then it is extremely important that you initially stick to one game type and create a real game plan for exactly when and how you will be moving up the limits.
I would highly recommend starting at the very lowest stakes, no matter how good you think you are or how experienced you are. Create clear monetary goals for when you will move up to the next stake and when you will move back down. For example..
Move up to 2c/5c when your bankroll reaches $150
Move up to 5c/10c when your bankroll reaches $300
Move up to 10c/25c when your bankroll reaches $750
And so on.
Having such a plan in place will ensure that each day when you sit down to play poker you know exactly what the game plan is, what you are doing, and where you are headed.
2. They Don't Have the Bankroll
You also need to have the proper bankroll in order to avoid going broke, even when playing micro stakes.
We have all heard the stories of someone who started with $20 and ran it up to five figures, six figures, or even more. But here's the truth — only very rarely do these stories actually work out in reality.
The problem is that $20 is simply not an adequate bankroll for any cash game on the internet, even at the lowest limits. I suggest having at least 30 buy-ins for any stake that you are playing.
Since the buy-in at the very lowest limit online is $2, this means that you should have a starting bankroll of at least $60. Doing so will help prevent you from going broke again and again due to the natural cycles of variance (bad luck) that occur in this game.
Bottom line, if you are serious about poker, then it is time to get serious about your bankroll, too.
Related: 'Micro Stakes Poker: Why Is Bankroll Management So Important?'
3. They Gamble Too Much
Another reason why people fail to achieve their goals at the micros is because they play too many hands and/or they try to win every single pot.
You have to remember that micro stakes poker is not like the million-dollar final table tournaments that they show on TV. Winning poker at the lowest limits is not played like that at all, in fact.
Turning a profit in the micro stakes games actually requires a lot of discipline and patience. And, to be honest, it is also downright boring at times as well.
You need to play fairly tight preflop and also make a lot of disciplined folds after the flop. This isn't the place to gamble it up. Keep it simple and win more.
4. They Don't Have the Patience
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Closely related to the last point is the fact that you must learn to be extremely patient at these limits in order to succeed. In fact, many people are surprised or even shocked to learn what I consider to be the biggest secret to my success at the very lowest limits online.
What's the big secret? I fold a lot. Yes, that's right. I often just hit the fold button again and again and again. I just let them have it.
I don't bother trying to win every single little pot. I would rather lose the battle and win the war. I also know that they aren't trying to bluff me anywhere near as often as I would like to think sometimes.
You simply have to learn to play your cards at the micro stakes. You can't bluff them, nor can you 'make moves' on them. It will go right over their heads. Most of the time if they are betting big or raising you big, trust me, they have it.
In order to win big at the lower limits, you need to learn to be extremely patient. Yes, it will be boring. There is nothing flashy or exciting about beating the micro stakes. They call it a 'grind' for a reason.
If becoming a consistent winning poker player at these limits is your goal, then it's time to forget all those fancy all-in bluffs that you saw in the million-dollar tournaments on TV. That stuff simply does not work at the micros.
5. They Don't Control Their Emotions
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Lastly, the single biggest reason why most people fail to win consistently at the micro stakes is because they do not control their emotions well at the poker tables. This leads to tilt, poor decision-making and, ultimately, losses.
The thing about poker is that it doesn't work the way that we want it to. And quite frankly, it never will. Just because you got all the money in the middle while holding the best hand, that does not mean that you will win. Poker just doesn't work this way.
There is an ever present element of short-term luck that exists in this game. Somebody almost always has 20 or 30 percent 'equity' in a given pot. This is the chance or percentage that they will end up making the best hand.
For example, say you get all the money in on the flop with and your opponent has a flush draw. The player with the draw is going to win the pot close to once every three times. This is a very substantial amount of the time, when you think about it.
That means you will lose such hands frequently, sometimes several times in a row as well. This is the kind of thing that causes many micro stakes poker players to go on tilt and start throwing away their money with terrible calls and silly bluffs.
It is extremely important, then, that you learn to view the game of poker through a broader lens and see through all of the short-term madness.
It will get crazy sometimes at the micros, believe me! These are the stakes where you will find the players who love to chase every draw and call you with any pair. These players are going to make their hand sometimes. However, if you consistently get the money in against them as a favorite, then the math will take care of them — and you — in the long run.
You must recognize that sometimes it will not be your day, week, or even month at the poker tables. Getting emotional and sabotaging your results though will only end up hurting you.
You need to learn how to quit for the day before this happens. Don't throw away all of your hard work over a couple of stupid bad beats.
Final Thoughts
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Learning how to win consistently at the lower limits is not easy. You will encounter some of the wildest players on the planet at these stakes and it will be downright maddening at times to play against them. This is why it is important to remember that poker is a long-term game and that what happens in a single day or even week simply does not matter.
This is also the reason why it is imperative that you are properly bankrolled for any game you are playing (with 30 or more buy-ins). That will help ensure that these short-term fluctuations don't bother you as much.
You also need to make sure that you are playing a patient and disciplined game in order to beat the micros. Forget all those fancy all-in bluffs that you saw some poker pro make in a high-stakes game. They simply won't work at these stakes.
Keep everything as simple as possible at the micros. Get your money in consistently with the best hand and keep the bluffs to an absolute minimum.
It won't be pretty. In fact it will be downright tedious at times. And it will be frustrating now and then, too. But believe me, this is the only way to consistent profit at the micro stakes.
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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