Cash Game Strategy @ Micro Stakes

Hello,

New to this site so just wanted to post my cash game strategy and starting hand selection here to see if I could get a few pointers maybe. I currently play the £0.02-0.04 tables.

OK so I used to play the double or nothing sng's on Bet365 but found them to be some what like a lottery. Mainly as the blinds started to increase to 50/100+ after half an hour or so, short stacked players would start going all in with bad hands, taking a lot of skill out of the game imo, that is why I decided to switch to the cash games.

I like the fact that with cash games the blinds always stay the same and you get longer to make your decision. So I would class myself as a TAG player but am starting to think that maybe I play to tight for the micro stakes.

I also forgot to mention that I play at the 6 seated tables. The hands I play differ a lot due to position but I will try and be as accurate as possible for you here.

So there is 6 of us at a table so if I am in an early position say UTG here are the few hands that I will raise 3bb with, AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AQs, AJs, KQs, AKo. I do not like to raise anymore than 3bb as I do not want to scare everyone off, I just want to narrow the opposition down and build the pot up a little bit.

So now here are the ones I will only flat call with, JJ, TT, KQo, KJs, KJo, AQo, AJo. That's about is and as you can see a few small selection of opening hands for that position.

As we move to the middle postion UTg +1 or +2 I open up my range a little and just do the same as UTG but add these hands to flat call 99, KJo, QJs, A10s, K10s.

Then in late position after I know what everyone else is doing and if there is only me and the blinds left I I will raise all of the hands I flat call with in early and middle position by 2bb. I will limp in with all pocket pairs and most suited connectors. I also limp in with suited aces.

This is my flop play rule, If it hit top pair I will raise it by 100% of the pot, if I hit middle pair I will raise 70% of the pot and if I hit bottom pair I will test the water by raising it 50% of the pot.

I try not to chase flushes or straights at all unless it is cheap to do so and also if the pot is decent enough sized. I do not mind calling a tenth of the pot, so if the pot is £1 I do not mind calling £0.10. However I will not do this very often as as a rule I do not like to chase at all, because if you think over the long term I think you would loose more than you would earn by chasing flushes or straights.

I have been a victim of slow playing so many times that now when I hit something good on the flop/river I always raise by what ever is in the pot sometimes more and if it is called I continue to pot bet. Here is an example of how I have lost slow playing things and trying to maximise profits. Say I have KQ and the flop comes AQQ, I check it expecting who ever I am playing to think I am playing to think that I am showing my weakness and raise me, sometimes this happens and then this one time I remeber an Ace coming next, I check again and they raise, the next card another 2 I think. I check and am then raised again which I call and find they have A10. So my QQQAA was beaten by AAAQQ even though I flopped QQQ and could of put a big raise into take him of his AA before he hit the other Ace.

So that is why I do not slow play apart from the odd times when I am lucky enough to flop a Full House or Ace Flush and it is highly unlikely I will be beat.

That's all I can think of for now, if I have left anything out or anyone has any questions please ask or criticism please fire away. Forgot to add one of my faults is that I am very easily scared off by high raises.

Example if I had say Kh Qd and the flop comes Qh 2s 3c, if I was to act before my opponent I would do my standard pot raise say there was £0.24 I would raise £0.24, imo even if he has a QQ like me my kicker will probs be better than his, Ace being the only kicker than can beat mine but if he where to re raise me to £0.28 doubling my raise I would have to fold putting him on either QA or 222 or 333 or Q2 or Q3. Am I playing to tight or am I write to fold with still 2 cards to come ?

I question myself if I play to tight all the time as a few times when in early or middle position I have regularly folded say 77 or 66 pre flop and then a 6 or 7 has come on the flop which would of gave me trips that not many people would have put me on.

Anyway, please let me know what you think and where I might be going wrong, hope you are all having a good night.

C62

Hi Carol,

This is a great post and I really like how you're getting involved in the forum and telling us about yourself.

One suggestion I'd make (or question I'd ask) is that you take the player type of your opponent much more into question. Maybe you already do but just didn't get into it in this post--we all know that poker strategy takes up much more than one thread.

In general I prefer to bet pre-flop and post-flop much more based on the type of opponent I'm against and less on the strength of my hand. If you bet according to your hand strength, your opponents (the thinking ones) will figure that out pretty quickly.

Hello nabmom,

Thanks for your reply. To be honest you have picked up on one of my weaknesses there, I do not pay as much attention to the table and it's players as I should.

When playing online I usually have my poker table open and then will be reading through some forum like this one in between. I do however understand that for me to be able to get a true reading on what type of players I am up against I should concentrate on the game more.

I do however check hand history now and again and see what type of cards people are pre flop raising with and what have you. I do not have anything like poker tracker but Bet365 have built in hand history which is quite useful.

I suppose you can kinda tell what players you are up against after a good few hands, but I agree with what you said I do really need to take things a bit more seriously and weigh up my opponents properly.

I may seem to get away with it at these micro blinds but hopefully if I manage to move up a level or 2 this will most probs be an issue for me, so better to start now so it becomes second nature to me.

Are you a cash player yourself or do you prefer sng ? In relation to your post, so do you think if you where sat at a table with a few loose players and also a few TAG players it would be wise to adjust your starting hand selection and also how you play them dependant on your opponent.

Thanks again, C62

Hello Carol and welcome to CC!!!

first what i noticed that you said that you have range of hands that you open raise with from UTG and range of hands you flat call with, do you mean by that that you open limp (pay 1BB from UTG)? if that is the case i would suggest you to avoid limping from UTG, you give the chance to your opponents to isolate you and force you to play OOP, create a range for UTG that you would open with 3bb and forget the hands you would wanna limp with, i would say 22+ ATs AQo KQs or even tighter 66+ AQs AKo, fold everything else and fold to 3 bet with anything but QQ+ AKs. Same approach but with wider range of hands should be used for any later position still with the same rule for opening the pot with a raise and not with a limp. there are some great charts online and some great posts about opening ranges on this forum, ill try to find them and ill post it here... Important thing that i must add is that you cant let hand strength affect your bet size, tho there is not much players that can spot it and exploit it betting patters are a huge tell online and you dont want to have it, bet same size when you openinig the pot no madder do you have AA or 98s. Same goes to your flop play, bet 2/3 of the pot if you think that you should bet, and you should bet for two reasons, for value or as bluff, dont bet bigger with big pair and smaller with smaller pairs, or opposite bet the same size, dont let anyone to pick on your bet sizes and exploit you.
You definitely should play draws, no one will give you 10:1 odds to draw and you dont need it, you just need to have pot odds to call your draw and you will be fine in a long run, take a look at strategy articles here on this ite, it is explained great how to calculate pot odds and how to use rule of 2 and 4 that will help you with your drawing hands...

This is just on a first glance and to subscribe to your thread, will be back!!!

GL at the tables...

Listen to @Draza, he knows what he's talking about

Also:

Carol_W said:

So now here are the ones I will only flat call with, JJ, TT, KQo, KJs, KJo, AQo, AJo. That's about is and as you can see a few small selection of opening hands for that position.

As we move to the middle postion UTg +1 or +2 I open up my range a little and just do the same as UTG but add these hands to flat call 99, KJo, QJs, A10s, K10s.

Click to expand...

Hands that flop or turn either a lot or a small amount of equity are better (and easier to play) than hands which always flop or turn a medium amount of equity.

Great post, thanks for taking the time time to write it

Yes you are right, the first 8 hands I mention are the hands that i raise 3bb with, and then the other 7 hands are the ones I just limp in with. So am I right in thinking that you are saying never limp in with a hand UTG, if you are going to go get a raise in ?

Also sorry for sounding daft here buy what is OOP mean ? Also are you suggesting raising 3bb with small pocket pairs 22, 33, 44 etc UTG ? Usually they are folds for me not even a flat call.

Taking in what you have said about bet size, that really makes sense. As time goes by and you have been playing with the same people for a while they will be able to read in to your betting sizes.

Say for instance, I had Kh 10h UTG and I pre flop riase 3bb (0.12 if playing 0.02-0.02) then flop comes Ad Kc 4s. There is just me and one other person in the hand and the pot is mine and his 0.12 and a folders small blind, so 0.26.

I am first in even though there is an over card would I be wise to bet 2/3 the pot say 0.16 ? If he calls and something that doesn't really effect the board comes 5d would I be right to continue bet 2/3 pot again ? 0.40 ? If he calls again now making the pot somewhere near £1.40 and out comes say another 5s.

What would you do now ? Check and show your weakness as it is getting expensive to keep on continue betting when you might have a loosing hand, or do you continue bet 2/3 or the pot again maybe 0.90 ? Do you always bet 2/3 no matter what ? Maybes after the river I would not of went 2/3 of the pot incase he had the ace, would you class that as showing to much weakness ?

I have been reading through the cash table forum and am on page 36 now so have read some really good stuff, as they say KNOWLEDGE is POWER Thanks again for your post, I will take your advice and have a read through some of the strategies.

Have a good day, C62

Fknife said:

Listen to @Draza, he knows what he's talking about

Also:



Hands that flop or turn either a lot or a small amount of equity are better (and easier to play) than hands which always flop or turn a medium amount of equity.

Click to expand...

Hello,

Thanks for your reply, do not mean to sound stupid but can you explain what you mean by your post please.

Thanks, C62

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#O

Useful for beginners (and translating posts)

Carol_W said:

Great post, thanks for taking the time time to write it

Yes you are right, the first 8 hands I mention are the hands that i raise 3bb with, and then the other 7 hands are the ones I just limp in with. So am I right in thinking that you are saying never limp in with a hand UTG, if you are going to go get a raise in ?

what i meant is never limp, at all, never open a pot with a limp no madder what position you are at.

Also sorry for sounding daft here buy what is OOP mean ? Also are you suggesting raising 3bb with small pocket pairs 22, 33, 44 etc UTG ? Usually they are folds for me not even a flat call.

OOP means playing Out Of the Position which means that you will act before the opponent.
It is your choice will you play small pockets on UTG, it s not mistake to fold them but it is not mistake to open raise withh them, specially if the table is really tight

Taking in what you have said about bet size, that really makes sense. As time goes by and you have been playing with the same people for a while they will be able to read in to your betting sizes.
absolutely true, and it only takes one intuitive player to pick it up and he will take advantage of that, betting the same amount with bluff and for value prevents it...

Say for instance, I had Kh 10h UTG and I pre flop riase 3bb (0.12 if playing 0.02-0.04) then flop comes Ad Kc 4s. There is just me and one other person in the hand and the pot is mine and his 0.12 and a folders small blind, so 0.26.
KT UTG is fold pre imo but in this case scenario you raised 12, sb folded and BB called you should bet on flop something between 15 and 20 cents but fold to a raise (assuming here that BB checked because you have position on him)

I am first in even though there is an over card would I be wise to bet 2/3 the pot say 0.16 ? If he calls and something that doesn't really effect the board comes 5d would I be right to continue bet 2/3 pot again ? 0.40 ? If he calls again now making the pot somewhere near £1.40 and out comes say another 5s.

this is exactly what was @Fknife point in his post, with playing mediocre hands like KT you cant make really strong hand often, most of the time when you connect with the board you will be dominated no madder if you flop T as a top pair ot K as a top pair, even worse with A on the board, there is a lot of hands that dominates you any ace, KJ+ 44... all you can do the is to c-bet as we said and fold to a raise and shutdown (stop betting) later streets, you dont wanna play big pot with mediocre hand and here you will get called by either ace or atleast good king, c-bet by itself is a profitable play because you already represented strong range by opening from utg, if you get called you are probably behind and should stop betting. Realize that this is a specific for this kind of hands, mediocre hole cards, and connected medium. If you had AK and flop Axx or Kxx you should continue betting, and this time it would be value bet, see the difference?

What would you do now ? Check and show your weakness as it is getting expensive to keep on continue betting when you might have a loosing hand, or do you continue bet 2/3 or the pot again maybe 0.90 ? Do you always bet 2/3 no matter what ? Maybes after the river I would not of went 2/3 of the pot incase he had the ace, would you class that as showing to much weakness ?

I have been reading through the cash table forum and am on page 36 now so have read some really good stuff, as they say KNOWLEDGE is POWER Thanks again for your post, I will take your advice and have a read through some of the strategies.

Have a good day, C62

Click to expand...

I answered in bold, hope it helps...

Carol_W said:

Thanks for your reply, do not mean to sound stupid but can you explain what you mean by your post please.

Click to expand...

Its kinda hard to give a simple explanation in 2 sentances because its all opponent/range dependent. Generally against strong ranges you want to play hands that have a "potential" of making the best hand By flatting hands like AJ, KJ, KT etc you have lots of equity vs. opponent's check-folding range but very little vs. his value range. Basically very often you may find yourself in a situation where your hand is dominated AK vs AJ, AK vs KQ or has a medium equity and you're forced to play a guessing game (eg: you have KJ on a AJ4 flop). On the other hand: suited and connected cards are easier to play because you know immediately OTF (on the flop) whether you want to continue in a hand or not. Additionally there are situations where, despite having very little equity OTF, there are lots of turn cards that could potentialy increase your equity of making the best hand (eg: bring a flush draw, straight draw, second pair, trips etc) and/or allow you to semibluff on. Makes sense?

Yes makes sense, I have never really put this much deep thought into poker but although it is a little hard to grasp I am enjoying learning as it will really improve my game.

Thanks again, C62