You have to beat micro limits to advance and be a "good" player? Wrong in my opinion.

Hello everyone.

Now this has been debated before and I’ve had a thread with something simular before.

It’s the theory of “if you can’t beat micros you will never beat anything higher”

Now, I’m not really a lossing player, more break even at the minute with 0.1/0.2 level. I can sit there for hours, playing but long term success at these levels seems next to impossible to me.

Now i know what people are going to say:


“play preminum hands only and play aggresive” – That’s fine because i do.

Problem is, it works on occasions but everyone literally does call a raise with crap. So say after 2/3hours of grinding for example like the other night i was up about $4.00 playing ABC poker. So...you’d begin to think yeah they are beatable however I’ve literrally had callers all over the show pushing down all sorts of crap and luckily mine have held up.

Anyyyway, so you again get a good hand and play TAG only for now to be sucked out when your massive favorite. This only has to happen a couple of times for your profit to now be in the red. So what am i supposed to do? Fold my premnums when showing a profit or something lol? It’s a joke.

Perfect example last night. I had AA and raised 4xBB and yep you guessed it 5 callers at 6maxtable.
Now, would i of got even one caller caller if the money was actually worth something? Proberly not.

Anywaym on the flop comes rainbow and possible straight draw and i knew someone would be holding a straight draw. I tried one last raise to then be re-raised and re-reaised again by others so i folded. 2 left in and at show down one called my raise with something like 8,5 os and one called with A,4. The 8,5 won with a straight.

I asked the guys “why would you call a raise, clearly i had high pair or at least a pair” Their answer? “it’s only 6 cents” True and indeed it’s nothing to fret about but this is the take everyone has on the game at this level. “its only a few cents i’m gonna call”

The point is, this happens 9 times out of 10. A raise at these levels means absolutely NOTHING so how the **** are you supposed to play? The point is, someone 9 times out of 10 will call your raise. Did i get this at a casino playing cash games for the first time ever at 5/10 stakes? No i didn’t and i walked of with over £500 in profit..

So how does peoples theories of if you can’t beat the lowest levels you can’t beat the higher ones. Absolute rubbish to be honest, people just don’t know how to fold or not bothered about lossing a few bucks. At the higher level this would never of got called unless they was holding something decent.

Over time you might just about show a profit but the basic concept of poker doesn't exsist at this level, what am i supposed to do? It happens time and time again it seems pointless. What are your suggestions? Deposit a lot of monies and try luck at higher levels? It's driving me mad trying to build a roll sat there for hours to show a profit and to carry on playing ABC poker etc to then lose 2 of your BIG hands to absolute garbage..i'm really just stuck on what to do.

the higher the limits you go the harder they become to beat, theres no magic gap where when you step up a few levels the players become worse, and anyways bad players is where you make your money from, fair enough theres variance but this is never going to change.

I AGREE 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALSO THE RAKE WILL DESTROY EVERYONE.

There are a lot of probably good players on this forum who are making money at higher levels but at the 2NL/ 5NL/ 10NL level you are not playing Poker.

Let me give you an example.

You paly TAG, VPIP 11/12 with a 10 PFR. You fold like a mother, You are dealt KK UTG. You raise 4xbb (or 6bb). What happens 90% of the time? Everyone folds and you collect the blinds. Then 5% of the time you get a caller and you flop an overpair. You make a small c-bet to price out any draws. What happens? They fold. Now, 2.5% of the time what happens?
You raise get one opr more callers. You flop an overpair on a ragged board. You bet out and get re-raised. Not knowing what you are up against you re-re-raise. Your opp shoves. You now have close to 1/2 of your stack in the pot and have no idea what you are up against. Figguring that now you may be beat but have invested most in the pot you so call. The villain has flopped two pair or a set orand your money is gone after an hour of folding, waiting for a good hand. The final 2.5% of the time you raise pre-flop, get re-raised by a donkey with VP of 45. You 4bet shove and he calls showing A3o. The 1st card on the flop is of course the A and you are done.

These are NOT hypothetical examples; I can show HUNDREDS of examples of this. Then you figure in the rake which is so exorbitant that it makes perfect sense why Full Tilt gave me tons of free money. ($ 145 in bonuses) because they got every penny plus iin rake. I have gotten to the point where I can tell when Full Tilt decides they need to up their take because you will see lots of AA vs AA and AK vs AK hands.

All the books by Harrington, Miller, Sklansky, etc. will do you ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY ZERO GOOD. They will teach you how to play higher stakes but are useless for the micros and in fact are useless at the $ 1/ $ 2 Casino games where idiots love to call $ 15 preflop raises with J2 "because they feel lucky" and you know what? They are and you're not.

The only way I have figured out to play micros is this. From EVERY Position at the table EXCEPT the button you limp with any pocket pair or suited connector from AKs to 76s or 2 gappers from AQs to 75s. FOLD ALL UNSUITED BROADWAY CARDS INLCUDING AK & AQ. If you make TPTK or two pair you are likely behind if you get resistance and if you are strong you'll get no action. If you are raised a standard amt call unless you hold AA/KK and then 3bet. If the pot is multiway fold everything but AA/KK and then close your eyes and shove. After the flop, you will miss 65-70% of the time so you check/ fold. When you do hit hard you check/ call or check/ raise depending on board texture and opponent. Lead out on the turn regardless of what card hits. If you are raised and the turn did not improve your draw then fold unless you have at least one pair. If you get to the river with one pair then it is check/ fold. If you made the nuts or close to it make a pot sized bet. Don't worry they're going to call.

Don't ever bluff, don't try to 'represent a hand' don't shove with strong draws and remember ANY pair is just one pair. No Limit Hold'em is a game of IMPLIED ODDS. Your hole cards are only 40% of your final hand so don't lose your stack with them.

I didnt even read this whole thread but I disagree with OP.


If your some beast of a poker monster then by all means play the stakes your rolled for.


BUT if you have trouble with the micros your REALLY foolish for thinking you can beat anything higher.



This reminds me of the thought process Ive seen here at CC a few times. " Maybe I should move up where they respect my raises" Then you find out that theyre still calling but now because they dont respect you.


GL wit that.

oH and the best way to beat the micros is trying to focus on playing some good old-fashioned "solid" poker.

Not limping w pp's OOP.
FOLDING AK? There is another nut around thinking the same way. You guys are killing yourselves.




edit: nvm your the same person.

Hahahahah sheer class.

This thread and fx are going the way of the rigtards. So sad to see. May they rest in peace.

You need to raise a lot more at 1c/2c.
Try 10 BB. If everyone is still calling, raise more.

There is nothing better than a table with total lunatics. Sit back, ship it when you have QQ+ and watch as someone calls with two random suited cards.

You don't necessarily have to start at 2nl, it would all depend on your bankroll and what you can afford to lose. I personally cannot stand 2nl.(unless it is a CC drunkament, then that's fun)
I still play micros, 10nl and if I find myself on a horrible downswing will drop to 5nl.

Duh, 2nl is rigged.

Well, the point is I'm making if this was a lot higher stakes then you woulden't raise that much would you? It defeats the whole object of raising 3 times? So if you pick up Aces at 150/200 your going to raise 2k?I doubt it, it's never done. It seems stupid. The whole theory which your taught is non exsistent at micro levels because of the small amounts. That's why it leads me to the conclusion you're overbetting then why not just move up the stakes if you're going ot raise the amounts that will be raised in the higher stakes

Well like i said, i was in a casino the other night and played 5/10 and found it far easier. You can read so much better at where you are. You have zero chance of knowing where you are at micros most of the time. The amount of times when the flop has came and people have gone all-in with basically just the lowest card on the board is un-real. Would this happen at the higher levels? I highly doubt it. No-one is willing to calling a raise 3/4xBB with rubbish but micros its cents so nobbody cares that's my point.

^^^I would disagree with that on 5nl or 10nl.

you played 5/10? 1k? If you have that much to spend on poker then just play 25 or 50nl. Good luck.

It isn't necessary to start at the lowest possible level. But you'll find loose players no matter where you begin, and if you don't learn to beat them, you'll have a pretty hard time becoming a consistent winner.

Solid TAG will beat micros. You won't win every session you play or every time you have a big hand. But you will win over the course of a large number of hands, and at a decent rate.

A fair number of micro players do put money into pots with mediocre and poor holdings because it only costs a few cents. And sometimes, they suck out. But most of the time, they are basically donating to the other players. Your odds of winning multi-way pots are lower, but it balances out because when your hands hold up, you win more.

Live poker is much easier than online poker IMO. People are a lot looser and you can value bet like crazy. But like luckychippy said, if you're playing for 5/10 at a B&M, why don't you just deposit some online and stop complaining, and find out for real that you're wrong. You and fx don't understand that you want those people to be calling you when you have AA/KK/AKs/QQ/.... You aren't guaranteed to win any hand, regardless of what stakes you're playing at or how big of a donkey you're up against. The point is to get those chips into the pot then value bet the shit out of it when you have a dry flop. Do you complain this much when you have AhAd and you have one caller of a 4xBB raise preflop and the flop comes JsTs9s and you get raised out of the hand?

BTW...for people at the micros, "just 6 cents" is nothing to them, but people even at the nosebleeds, "just 6k" is nothing to them as well. If you're playing within your means, then 3 or 4BB isn't going to be a significant amount and you will still have times that it is called around to you.

Couldn't agree more with you Poof
Also couldn't agree more with you Chippy...

I have a free video at dragthebar.com on this type of concept.

http://www.dragthebar.com/poker-vide...wer.php?id=556

The thing about which limit to start. Basically, you're probably going to be losing while you learn to play the game well. Because of this, you get to pay for your education while you learn. The new player starting at $1kNL will obviously lose much more while learning than the player starting at 10NL. Not only that, the average player at 1k will be much more skilled at carving up new players than the average player at 10nl. If a player wants to start learning at 1knl, that's their prerogative of course, but it makes little financial sense.

The common misconception among new players is that they need to move up where people respect their raises. They decide they can't win because no one folds to their bluffs. The truth is those are the easiest games to beat. If you can't beat those games, forget about beating the higher stakes. With poker being basically a zero sum game (minus the rake), the money a winning player makes comes from their opponent's mistakes. The opponents at the micros are making the most costly mistakes in poker and are doing it very frequently.

^^!!^^

You have to ask yourself what are you playing poker for? Are you playing for fun? or for money? or both? If your playing for fun then play whatever game makes it fun. if both then find a game that is profitable for you and also fun. If playing just for the money like myself then you have to branch out. I started by playing micro stakes nlholdem. I played for few years and realised you cnat beat it simple as that. You raise with great hands get called by a few players then your chances winning are slim. you cant bluff and you have to always have better than a pair to win with the amount of callers you get. In the long run its unbeatable. So i changed game, i went played omaha hi lo. I played well and won a bit but again soon realised its hard to beat. As soon as flop comes and theyve hit a high hand they put in big bet and you cnat call with low draw and 2nd pair. Youl often get quartered and you got play it differently due to people betting you off pots if your holding no high hand. So again i changed my game. Im playing for money only. I moved to 8 game where there is every game there played 6 hands at a time. Now im a consistent winner and will always play this game. The games are soft, players are soft, very easy money. Bad beats occur yes but the bad beats are cushioned by your winnings. I suggest to look at other alternative games if you feel you cant beat the game. If your in it for money though. Razz is an easy game to win at. But gets a bit tedious. Change games, learn new games and may also help you with nl holdem in which you can go back to. Stud hi lo is also another great easy game to win at. Especially when you got 5 low cards 2 mugs only have high and they raising and reraising each other. Check out all the games and eventually youl find a game that suits you and you can win at.

P.s you may say but i love nl holdem and only play that. I love nlholdem But when playing it comes at a cost of me losing money, playing for hours for no return, getting bad beats after bad beats i reserve my nlholdem game for live events and for 8 game. Dont let yourself get disalusioned with such a great game just because the stakes your at is full of donks. Change game, you may become a great stud player make loads money and be able to take stab at higher levels nlholdem and start playing there.

Another one right here. If it is unbeatable then why are there so many respected members on CC and other sites(I'll go ahead and include myself in this) that say you are 100% completely wrong? I have built my bankroll up to triple and quadruple digits on multiple sites by working my way up through the micros and staying within my bankroll until I was able to comfortably move up. Yes, there are calling stations and overaggressive players, and I love them. Who gives a shit when their 53o makes the straight that one time when I have stacked them 5 times prior to that when they tried doing the same thing.

You mention that you can't bluff someone out of a hand, that makes me believe that you are trying to bluff way too often. It is not something that should be used on every other hand that you take to showdown. If your bluffs aren't working, then just value bet, value bet, value bet.

I will agree with you that a lot of the mixed games are easy to beat because people don't know the ins and outs of a lot of the games and Razz is one of my favorites, but that isn't where the fish are, so I don't go there often.

What's with all the rigtard/god-awful posters recently?

It's nothing new...

http://www.pokertableratings.com/sta...ch/BlackRain79

That's one of our new coaches at dragthebar.com

Notice he has almost 2 million hands on there at stakes of .01/.02 and .02/.05 and is crushing it over 20 bb/100. I think it's safe to say it's beatable over the long run

The problem is players don't understand how to exploit their opponent's mistakes. They want to play loosely preflop and bluff. That's not a profitable strategy against opponents that refuse to fold. You want to have patience, get strong starting hands and then make solid value bets. It's the foundation to good poker, and people saying you can't beat the micros simply don't even have the footers down to start making a solid foundation to play good poker. It's not understanding the very basics of the game.

qft!

+1

Proof if needed...and it isn't.

i agree that .1/.2 limits will not agree with everyone,for example one of my previous bosses liked online poker but he would have to sit at a table with 50 euros to play(because he had and was making good money so he would not be able to take the game seriously at lower levels)

if people are calling when you raise 4x bb, then raise to 5, or 6, or.... how ever much you can get the fish to call with when you are a favorite.

I see the merit of this. The only part that is confusing is the contradiction between 'don't go broke with one pair' concept causing one to fold their QQ to a re-raise OOP on a dry board vs. dealing with the bad players to shove with ANY pair postflop. I've seen players shove unimproved 77 on a K high board and had someone shove over my c-bet with QQ on a K high board when I held AA. Is there some kind of range/ equity concept that applies here? I hate to fold when I am a favorite.

Oh i see blackrain. I stand corrected, maybe it's purely because I'm to impatient i don't know. Very impressive results and indeed clearly possible. Maybe i need to look at my game a bit, maybe I'm playing it completely wrong.

By the way to the people who are saying rigtard. \what is a "rigtard"? Sounds like something some spotty faced kid would say back in my on line computer gaming days....sigh... If it's some sort of insult for a retard then please, don't. I'm not retarded I'm asking questions because I'm fairly new to the poker scene which is what this forum is about I thought?

Thanks for all the positive replies guys though I think I'm going to work more on my game.

I think patience is key at any level. Post some hands in the HA section and not just the ones where you lose with KK or AA, That happens but not as often as you should be winning. Post some of the more marginal hands up - this is where your main leaks will be.

As for the rigtard bit - there was another poster in this thread that nearly derailed it spouting nonsense about getting more pocket aces when the sites need more rake. The usual 'OMG poker is rigged rubbish'.

Seriously, stick with it you'll get there. I'm not ashamed to admit that I struggle at $2NL and not for the 'people don't respect my rasies' reasons but because I'm yet to be a good enough player. However, in the last 3 months I have really studied the game, posted hands, made videos, read books, sweated sessions and it has helped HUGELY. I've grinded now a BR enabling me to play $5NL with 30 buyins though I'm sticking at $2NL until I'm convinced i'm beating it and not just on a big heater.

Finally. Now you see that you must improve you can improve. I am a bad player, everyone on this site is a bad player. Virtually nobody in the whole poker world is solid and everyone can improve, its this realisation then acting upon it which will lead you to beat the game, and when you can, learn to beat it for more or at higher stakes.

Awesome ♥

But seriously, 2 great posts there.

agree, i have been doing it for 200k hands, works fine, when you raise this much, they will give you more respect.

these players don't see a 3x as a raise, but as 6c just as they told you, make it 16c with AA.

He is right, when i started playing 2nl i had no idea what to do, lucky me i kept seeing blackrain79 at my tables, always winning and guess what i did, i studied this guy, i checked out his sessions on pokertableratings, looked at his winning hands, and at what he was doing. didn't take me long to catch up, added a little bit of me in the mix, as soon as you know it i was winning without at tracker at 2nl full ring at 11 bb/100.

now when i got a tracker, i was winning at 20 bb/100. 2nl is just a donating machine, learn how to use it.

I see the bolded as a mistake nearly as big as wanting to move up because you think the micros are unbeatable. If you're comfortable with a 30BI BR (and I think you should be at 5nl) move up NOW! The absolute worse thing that could happen is that you lose ~5 BIs and have to move down. No biggie. But you guys should be looking to get out of micro stakes as quickly as possible. The rake is REALLY hard to beat when it's such a huge % of every pot. So yes, stay at 2nl until you've won something but the second you feel rolled for the next step move up. You're costing yourself money down the road and delaying your development. Don't fall into the "I want 50K hands at a level before I know I'm really beating it" trap. Who cares. Move up as quickly as good BRM practices allow imo.

Some of the comments are clearly rigtard but I am not sure the entire topic is.

If I am raising with AA KK QQ and other quality hands as i should be and I am getting like 4-5 callers per hand aren;t my chances of losing a lot greater than if say I only get one or two callers because these high PPs go down in value when the amount of people that see the flop goes up.

Having said that does it become a matter of Shove fold play all the time?

These types of plays do not exist (at at least not as much) at the higher levels so it only makes sens that the bad beats would happen less often. This isnt to say you will be able to beat the higher levels just to say that you most likely arent going to showdown with AA vs 52 72 and Q3o