10k post: micro stakes full ring guide [long]

I realize I'm at 10,005 but we'll just call this my 10,000th post

Beating Micro Stakes Full Ring Cash Games

Full ring is relatively straight-forward, and with some multitabling can be very profitable. This guide is intended to help the relative newbie to micro stakes full ring, but I hope some intermediate players will get something out of it too.

I've averaged $20/hr through my entire 100k hand database, including my subpar results in 100nl, and havemore recently been averaging somewhere near $50/hr. Anyways, the point isn't how much money I make, but how much money is possible to be made, and how much you can make. I'd go so far as to say that 50nl can definitely be considered full-time, 5 or 6-figure job if taken seriously.

Something that might help for the newest of players is this thread (http://www.cardschat.com/f51/hand-analysis-lingo-other-poker-terms-80492/). I realize I use a lot of poker lingo and terms that not all people will understand, so that link should help out.


I have very little to no experience in anything lower or higher than 25nl or 100nl respectively, so unfortunately I can't give any advice in that respect.

25nl is essentially full of very very poor players, and to be blunt, if you aren't beating this level for a significant winrate, there's probably something wrong with your game. Even at PokerStars where there seem to be the most regulars of any site, you rarely run into someone who's actually a 'good' player. You should try to keep your stealing and bluffing frequency relatively low unless you've pegged someone as a tight player, as most will look you up with pretty wide hand ranges. Ideally you want to simply get your money in with your good hands, and stay away from the bad ones. Tossing in very basic, staple bluffs is fine too of course, but pick your spots well.

The jump to 50nl is somewhat significant. The first thing you'll notice is that there are a fair amount of regulars who are actually half-decent. Stealing, playing your position, bluffing - all of these are now more prominent, and you should be adding them to your arsenal of weapons on top of the standard nut-peddling. Adjustments to the regulars are pretty crucial, and we'll get to that later.

From 50nl to 100nl is even more significant. The regulars are now more prominent and, on average, are better. Again, more on them later.

Assuming you are properly bankrolled and are completely new to rings, I'd say it's safe to start at 25nl and take it from there. If you are still having trouble, try 10nl. By 'properly bankrolled' I mean at the very minimum 20 buyins. Yes, you can survive by playing with fewer buyins than that, but the swings will of course be worse. The smaller the portion of your bankroll you play with, the smaller your swings will be, and the less tilt you'll be prone to.


I decided to simplify this section into a video that I'd been meaning to do for a while:

MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

...and some links to the mentioned software:

Poker Tracker and Poker Ace HUD
Poker Office
Holdem Manager
Holdem Ranger and Realtime HUD
PokerStove
AutoHotKey
Overcards (AHK poker scripts, pokergrapher, other stuff)
AllSnap


This is a very general subject and something I definitely would say you shouldn't abide by %100 of the time. This is essentially my opening range if I'm at a table full of unknowns, but as soon as I pick up some reads I will adjust my ranges accordingly.

Early position (UTG-UTG+1): Raise {AJs+, AQo+, TT+}, limp {22-99}
Middle position (MP1-MP3): Raise {ATs+, AJo+, KQs+, 66+}, limp {22-55}
Late position (CO-SB): Raise {most aces, most broadway, suited connectors, some offsuit connectors 22+}

Now again this is very general, and varies depending on a lot of factors including stack sizes, table reads, our image, the action ahead of us, etc. Eventually you get a feel for what you should be opening with in what position, but for beginners without a clue I think this hand chart should be a nice starting guide. A very basic, very standard rule I think one should abide by a very high % of the time is folding to 3-bets out of position without a very strong range. Position is crucial, especially in 3-bet pots. Raising hands like AJo and calling 3-bets with the intention of folding on the flop unimproved (or even improved occasionally) is going to be a HUGE leak in your game. Things like raising AQo in EP and folding to a 3-bet should be routine and standard.


Aside from the four default stats - VP$IP, PFR, AF and total hands - I like to keep the ATS, FFB and the FTS stats on my hud, and of course a couple dozen stats in the popup. Stat explanations and formulas can be found here on the pokertracker documentation page.

Yet again I'm generalizing here, but there are essentially four player types I run into regularly, and of course there are infinite variations and 'in-between' player styles, but I think these should give you a nice guide of what to expect and how to adjust. The numbers I'm referring to are VPIP/PFR, and of course are very general. I'm also going to include some general situations relating to each player style that I think I run into the most frequently.

Type one is the maniac (~40/30 or higher). These players are either shoving their whole stack in preflop with marginal AJ-type hands, or they're trying to run bluffs every hand. The fairly straight-forward approach to them is to wait for a hand and trap them. Limp utg with AA, check your set and let him bet pot or more with nothing on the flop, lead-push with monster draws, etc etc etc. Don't get caught up with bluffing or outplaying them - these guys hate to have their egos bruised and simply will rebluff you. These guys usually don't last long, so just wait for a hand and pray it holds up.

Villain (60/40, 100bb) shoves utg
Folds to Hero
Hero in the SB calls with K♣K♥

Easy capeezy

Type two is the LAG (~20/15 to 30/20). Now we're getting into the territory where our opponent might have half a brain. They're no longer shoving their whole stack around, but are seemingly betting and attacking every pot they're in. Yet again, wait for a hand and get your money in.

The difference with this group is that they won't necessarily stack top pair with a weak kicker, or TT all in preflop. Just because they open, say %25 of their range preflop doesn't mean their 3-betting or 4-betting range is proportionally as big. They might give in easily to 3-bets, or they might only stack preflop with AA. It's a little difficult to get reads on these guys in that respect without a stat-tracking program that lets you see exactly what ranges they're doing what with. In general of course it's fine to get your money in a little lighter against these guys since on average they'll usually have a wider range, but don't take it too far.

LAG (28/19/5, 100bbs) limps utg+1

He's been floating you and attacking any sign of weakness with big 'scary' bets the whole session

MP2 limps
Hero raises with A♣A♥ in SB to 6.5bbs
BB folds
LAG calls
MP2 folds

Flop comes 10♥2♣2♠ (pot: 15bb)

Hero bets 11bb
LAG calls

Turn Q♦ (pot: 37bb)

Hero checks

The LAG will most probably bet here, so we're checking as a trap and hoping either that he'll pay us off with a ten, queen, or a draw when we check-raise. Occasionally we'll even get looked up with 99 and similar hands.

The loose-passive or tight-passive fish (40/3/0.5 or 18/5/1) is a fairly common player type. You should be able to make hefty profits against them by either bullying them or by value betting them with your marginal hands. Make sure you're not bluffing the calling stations. WTSD, fold to flop or turn stats and his general play will tip you off to how far he goes with his hands and you can adjust accordingly.

Folds to fish
Fish (30/3/0.5, FFB %75, 100bbs) open limps HJ
Folds to Hero
Hero Raises 9♠7♠

The fish's high fold to flop bet % gives us reason to raise nearly our entire range and if we get called, bet just about any flop. Occasionally we'll take it down pf, and a good chunk of the time we'll take it down postflop. When we get called on the flop, occasionally we'll improve to the better hand, or occasionally we can double barrel him off of a weak second pair or other hand.

Another key factor in this hand is that villain has a full stack. If we're up against someone with 20bbs we should be folding this a much higher percent of the time. Villain will commit his stack with a wider range of hands (draws, weak pairs, etc) and our play becomes much less profitable.

Then we have the aggressive regular (~17/13). These are by far the toughest to play in my book, and they're usually the biggest winners over the long-haul. They resteal your button raises, float your c-bets, and are generally just a pain in the butt to play against. These are the types you will run into more and more as you move up in stakes, and putting it simply, there's no use tangling with them unless you truly feel you can outplay them. I generally try to keep away from them without a big hand or a solid, high percentage opportunity to play back at them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with avoiding these players entirely - in fact, table selection should ensure you don't run into them very often at all at 50nl and below.

Folds to TAG
TAG (15/12/3, ATS of %30, 100bbs) opens CO for 4bbs
Folds to Hero
Hero 3-bets 9♣10♣ to 13bbs

The TAG's high attempt to steal means he's opening a very wide range on the button, and considering we have position, we can really take advantage of this spot by attacking his steal. We can also float here and make a move postflop.

TAG (15/11/4, ATS of %40, 100bbs) opens utg for 4bbs
Folds to Hero
Hero folds A♠Q♠ in the BB

It might seem strange noting his attempt to steal stat here, but it has an indirect and crucial affect on his range. ATS is effectively a preflop raise percentage for the last three positions (CO, BTN and SB). If the stat is relatively high (read: %40), then that means that his early position raising ranges must be inversely proportional, ie very tight, in order to average out to the PFR% we see. I'll omit the maths behind it for the sake of simplicity, but in general if a player's ATS is much higher than his PFR, then not only will his late position range be wide, but his early position range should be proportionally smaller.

So in our example hand, considering the fact that his range is much tighter than the perceived %11, and that we'll be out of position against a very aggressive player for the rest of the hand, our A♠Q♠ isn't looking so hot anymore, and we pitch it.

The next player type is the tight, nitty regular (~10/7 or tighter). Now we're approaching our bread-and-butter, believe it or not. There's plenty of money to be made playing lags and maniacs, but huge chunks of your profit should spawn from playing your small 'potential' hands. These are the types that can't let go of overpairs or TPTK hands, and stacking them when your pair of deuces hits a set is like taking candy from a baby. Hell, occasionally you'll get them to stack AK on raggy flops like 257 just because they hate getting pushed off of the hands they only get once every 200 hands.

Nit (8/3/7, 100bbs) raises utg to 6bb
Folds to Hero
Hero calls with 2♣2♥

"6bb raise! Shabby-looking baby pair! Fold!" Wrong. These are the bread and butter spots I touched on. A nit has raised to a huge amount utg. He's in effect telling the whole table that he has a big pair, and we want in there with any pair purely for the implied odds. Our 2♣2♥ is obviously crushed by his range, but he's rarely getting away from his big pair postflop, and we can make tons by calling in spots like this and set-mining.

Nit (8/3/7, 100bbs) raises utg to 4bb
Folds to Hero
Hero mucks A♦Q♣

Something to be careful of is getting involved with marginal hands like AQo here. A simple way to analyze the situation is to use the aforementioned pokerstove and actually plug his %3 preflop raising range and our AQo into the program, and see what our equity looks like:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 34.548% 34.08% 00.46% 19258847 262672.50 { AdQh }
Hand 1: 65.452% 64.99% 00.46% 36721840 262672.50 { 99+, AKs }

As you can see we're about a 2:1 underdog against his range. Also remember if his range opens in late position (ie his ATS is higher than his PFR), then his range is even tighter from early position, and we're even more of an dog. Run with your tail between your legs.

Stack sizes and hand ranges are crucial. Stack sizes will dictate nearly everything with regards to your hand range and how you play against any type of opponent. If a nit raises utg with a 20bb stack, you should be folding all but the best of your premium hands, whereas if he raises with a 100bb stack you will want to call with all of your pairs and probably a good chunk of your suited connectors too.

The bigger the effective stack sizes, the bigger the implied odds, and the wider range of hands you can call. Keeping the concept simple, we'll ignore unpaired hands for now as it just complicates things. Small pairs are a good example of a small hand that can potentially make a big hand postflop, ie an implied odds hand, or a potential hand. So what kind of implied odds to you need to call a small pair? At what stack size does it become profitable? Well, it depends. Several books by highly respected poker authorities suggest different values, and in reality I think the best resource for this would be your own experience.

The implied odds needed to call with a small pair is essentially a function of both the odds of hitting your hand, and the likelihood of you getting paid off. The former part of the equation is roughly 8:1, but the latter is a much murkier subject, and will be something you'll get a feel for over time.

I've heard all types of 'solutions' to the implied odds subject, but to be honest am still not %100 sure where the line should be drawn. I think as a good starting point, with 100bb effective stacks I would call with any pair, and usually fold to a 3-bet. I generally like to commit as much under %10 of my stack with a pair, but if that threshold is approached, I have to make sure that I know my opponent will stack often enough to make this a profitable play. The more you commit preflop, the more you'll have to make postflop in order to be playing profitably.

Getting back to unpaired hands and implied odds, the combination of the fact that these hands actually flopping a monster is much less likely, and the fact that you'll often flop draws and marginal pairs makes these hands much harder to play. In general without an incredible read, I'm usually pitching these to 3-bets as we usually won't be getting implied odds to call. Calling a raise with a suited connector is generally a bad idea unless you're given really good pot odds and/or have a good chance of taking down the pot unimproved as well as when you actually hit your hand.


Put simply, you should aim to create a pot of a size proportional to your hand strength. In other words, small hand, small pot; big hand, big pot. Professional No-Limit Hold'em and the Harrington on Cash series both deal with this subject in great depth, but I'll try and reiterate it in simpler terms.

When you reach the river in a pot that's been bet on every street, on average your opponent will have a much better hand than if you had checked one or two streets previous to, or including the river. In general people will put more money in with good hands than they will with bad hands. This means that in general we want to maintain pot control with our marginal hands (checking a street or two), and build the pot with our big hands (bet/raise as many streets as possible).

Some very good examples of pot control are found in way ahead/way behind (wa/wb) and barely ahead/way behind (ba/wb) situations. Here are some good threads on the subject: wa/wb, ba/wb.

So it seems elementary and straight-forward, but planning ahead and knowing what your goal is in a hand is absolutely crucial. Huge mistakes can be made with big stacks (believe me, I've made plenty), and getting to the river with a hand that should have been folded on the flop can result in being committed in the hand and being being stacked.

An example:

Unknown villain (100bb) opens in the Hi-Jack for 3.5bb
Hero 3-bets with A♠Q♦ on the button for 14bb
Blinds fold
Villain calls

Flop comes A♥9♦2♣ (pot = 29.5bb)

Villain checks
Hero...

This is where we have to stop and think about our plan for the hand. What range do we put our opponent on? What hands in his range will call a flop bet? What will check-raise us? What will fold? How does our hand shape up against his range (ie is it weak, marginal, or strong)? What sized pot do we want to aim for? What action or sequence of actions will best accomplish that goal?

In this situation I like a check. Our opponent is probably on a range that includes medium pairs, some medium to large Ax hands, and if he's really bad he might have small pairs or hands like KQ. So our hand does shape up well against his range, but the trick to this kind of situation is that generally betting doesn't do us much good. Usually by betting we scare out the worse hands and only get action from hands that beat us. Checking will both induce action from worse hands (as bluffs, or as what they think is value betting), and it will also maintain a 'medium' sized pot so that we don't lose too much when we're actually behind.

So my standard line here would be to check the flop, and usually just value bet if checked to again on the turn and river, or call down if bet into.

Another example of pot sizing:

Fish (30/3/1) limps in MP
Hero raises button with 4♣4♥ to 4.5bb
Folds back to fish who calls

Flop comes Q♣8♠4♦ (pot is 10.5bb)

Fish checks
Hero...

This should be a clear bet. Without going into too much thought, you should realize that your hand is a monster, and that your opponent who is generally loose will probably looks us up with a pretty wide range. The first thought that should come to mind when thinking about your goals in this hand should be "BIG POT!!!". We want to build the pot, and usually slowplaying this hand until the river only to overbet the pot will not accomplish that goal. Another reason to bet this flop is for balance, the topic of our next section.


Loosely paraphrasing Dan Harrington here, we ensure that any one of our actions or series of actions can be interpreted as multiple hand types. In other words, we want to make sure that just because we took a certain line, or bet a certain amount, or bet a certain type of flop, doesn't mean our opponent can narrow our range down to one type of hand.

Something to definitely take note on is that we're playing microstakes, and the average micro player just plain isn't observant. That means that a lot of the time you actually don't need to balance your play properly, and you can simply take the action or line of actions that yields the highest possible average return, or the most profit for you.

Let's take a look at a simple example.

Early position - which hands are we limping and which are we raising?

Well really ideally we should be limping with small pairs to set mine cheaply, and raising most other hands we're playing since they have immediate value (like AA for example).

So if we raise, what can our opponent put us on? Probably medium-big pairs and big broadway cards. That's really not that wide of a range, but at least there are more than one type of hand. How about if we limp? Well then he can only put us on one type of hand: small pairs. Nothing else. If you're up against unobservant players, they won't notice this, and you can go ahead and play your hands straight-forward. If you're up against observant opponents, you'll have to balance your play.

In my experience, this is something you can generally do at 25nl without getting punished. Once you reach 50nl and higher, you run into more regulars, most of which are more observant. That means if you limp in early position, they'll know it means a small pair, and they adjust accordingly by either attacking your limps, laying down overpairs to resistance postflop, or just generally outplaying you. In order to balance your range in this example, you'd have to either start raising your small pairs a significant portion of the time, or limping the other hands in your range some portion of the time too, maybe both.

Again, there really aren't all that many observant players at 25nl, but once you reach 50nl and 100nl you will start running into a lot more regulars, and in order to beat them you'll have to balance your play properly.

For another example of balance, let's go back to a previous example:

Fish (30/3/1) limps in MP
Hero raises button with 4♣4♥ to 4.5bb
Folds back to fish who calls

Flop comes Q♣8♠4♦ (pot is 10.5bb)

Fish checks
Hero...

Here with the set I said we should bet, which is correct, but what's our play with 9♠7♠?

Again we want to bet to balance our play for two reasons: 1) We want to show our opponents we'll bet our trash hands so that our range isn't weighted towards monsters, and 2) we want to bet our monsters so that we get respect when we're bluffing.

-Play tight, especially out of position
-Use your HUD stats to your advantage to exploit the weaknesses of your opponents
-Play your small potential hands. Make sure you commit well under %10 of the effective stack size with small pairs, and try to stay away from suited connectors unless the price is exceptionally cheap
-Small hand, small pot; big hand, big pot. Identify your hand's strength relative to your opponent's range and plan your hand around aiming to build a pot proportional to that strength.
-Balance your play. Make sure every action or sequence of actions can be interpreted as more than one hand type.

Sorry for the length of this thing, but I hope this was useful. I'll be adding a link to a small session which will hopefully tie everything together and give you the big picture. Thanks for reading!

This is Gold Dust!

Excellent stuff Taylor, this should be stickied or posted as a strategy guide or probably both. I wish I had this when I started.

Newbies and intermediate players will refer to this on a regular basis imo.

Excellent 10k post, looking forward to the 20k one.

Great thread Chuck, <3.

Congrats on the milestone, and i have a feeling that this thread will be around for a long time.

Having finally gotten to the point where I believe (delusion still possible) I can follow directions, I will put this to work for a week.

It will have to be at UB or FT. PS has been unkind recently, while FT has been good.

I'm a self developed tourney player, with little confidence in my ring game, so this guideline will be my bible for a week. I expect to run into personal problems dealing with an EV vs Survival as one is more important in tourneys, and the other in ring, or so I believe.

I will do my best to document my endeavor, with emphasis on where I strayed, why I strayed, and particular results.


Question;
Do you think most 25NL players are running some tracker or another, and what do you, or do you think you notice when an unknown player starts the circuit?

n1

An immediate classic. Good job Chuck. A lot of time and thought has gone into to this and I'm sure no one would disagree that this, and your 10,000 posts, are amongst the best parts of CC.

you have good posts, then you have great posts, then you have magical godlike posts, then you have this post imo

When I start playing rings again I am definitely going to use this as my guideline. It is not often a member will put this much time and effort into a thread that's sole purpose is to help other members become better poker players.

Congrats on 10K and for making one of the top threads ever posted in CC.

I just recently started to consider the switch from sng, mtt to ring games, This sure is going to make it alot easier for me. Thx Taylor your time and effort in this is really appreciated and a guide I can really understand.

One of the best CC threads

Congrats on 10K

Congrats on the 10K posts Chuck!

This is definitely one of the best posts Ive ever seen on CC. This should be put in the golden archive asap.

wow

Thank you for your posts, as usual very informative. Good Luck.

Very nice post there. Should help a lot of players improve their cash game play. Congrats on 10K, I'm on my way to 100...

Thanks guys, always a pleasure.

Uploaded the video of the small session I talked about, if mods could edit it in or something please:
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Wow, I am honoured to have read that post. As a bigginer / intermediate player, I definitely learned a lot (especially about software). My issue is that I have a mac (this is the first time I have ever had a mac related issue). I dont want to have to start up vmware or bootcamp just to play poker, so as of now I dont have a viable HUD option or tracker option really. Also at the stakes I play at (0.02/0.05nl and $5 husngs) I dont think the investment would be worth it until I moved up a bit more. Great post and thanks

Great post. Lots of good information.

What is AF? is that the third number x/x/AF? I tried looking for it on the PokerTracker website, but couldn't find it.

What do you use allsnap for? (I know that Stars automatically tiles tables)

Agression Factor - how aggressive the player is overall. They have AF for turn and river also...

Awesome post Chuck, am certainly going to use this as a guideline for when I start serious ring play.

And congrats on the 10k.

Ah, thank you for that. Does anyone know how they calculate that, or what the range of numbers might mean?

Top work, good sir *doffs cap*

Now all I've gotta do is get myself rolled for ring games and I'm away

Wow! Instant sticky. Unreal Chuck. To think that I just spent $70 on HOC when stuff like this is available for free .

You know this post could have been better...






















if you had done it for your 5000th post and it would have been here the 1st day I found CC. Really great Chuck.

Congrats.

Haven't read it yet, but am sure it is great and plan to read it carefully soon. Always nice to see a post from Taylor on strategy.

ABorges PMed me with a few questions and with his permission I thought I'd answer them here:

YES it's a good investment. PT3 has yet to be released, but the PT2 I use was easily the best $55 I invested in poker, right alongside the ~$15 for the heads-up display. Best product in the business, best support in the business.

You can still buy the current versions, so if you're dying to use the program go ahead and buy them at the pokertracker website - keep in mind when PT3 comes out on the 15th of this month you'll actually be getting it for free since you bought PT2 so close to the release date.

But ya, Poker Tracker is a great product and you'll find it's essential if you're adding more tables, which it sounds like you are.

Well I use a widescreen 32" monitor, and although that sounds huge, the resolution is pretty poor, so I can really only fit 4 without any overlap with a resolution of 1280x760, and they're minimized. I tile my 12 tables but there's tons of overlap, and it took quite a while of 6 tabling and 8 tabling to get to this point.

I'd just take it slowly though, especially if you're still learning and are running into tough spots every now and then where you're not sure what to do, I'd just stick to 4 or 6 tables until you really have it down pat. Multitabling can increase your hourly winrate multiple times, but it can also decrease it if you have leaks, or even if you're a winning player who has trouble multitabling.

Q&A #103: Is My Winrate High Enough? · Professional Texas Hold'em Tips and Strategy from Noted Poker Authority

If you're winning, it's good

To give you some kind of comparison, I ran at 7.5ptbb/100 at 25nl, but quickly moved up to 50nl after only 11,000 hands, so I'm not sure how accurate that is. I've played 40,000 hands of 50nl and sustain a 9ptbb/100 winrate there, but again that sample size really isn't that big, and I know I've been running pretty good.

I'd say cracking 10ptbb/100 long-term is close to unsustainable at 25nl, but anything is possible. I wouldn't be discouraged if you can 'only' reach 5 - that's still a great winrate. Read Ed Miller's article above, he says it much better than I do.

No problemo, and thanks

Just awesome Chuck!

This will be printed off and stuck next to my monitor while I play.

TY sir and congrats on 10K.

Thanks again Chuck, I'll definitely be getting PT. I don't feel like I'll need it for now, I don't have time to play a lot, but it looks like a very good investment when my Summer break comes.

Chuck just wanted to say congratulations on the 10k and what a valued member you are around here. A superstar amongst superstars IMO

Anyway, amazing thread which I'm sure tons of members will find useful, and thanks again for your huge contribution to CC.

didnt see this till now,,Congrats on the 10,000 chuck,,, it will take me 3 hrs. to read all that,, Great job,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, buck

Chuck quick question on the basis of pot control.

Say you 3 bet a 30/25 lag with a,j on the button and are checked to on a jack high rag flop, would you bet than?

General question so I'll give you a general answer: if I think he's a lag who was on a steal or something, I'll happily go broke there. Remember hand strength is relative - against a nit stacking would be terrible.

plenty, cheers chuck

I found this to be especially enlightening. I never would have thought to look at steal attempts this way. I don't pitch the AQs here because, well, they're suited, and I'm in position, but the rest of this is solid gold. Thanks Chuck .

PS. Printed this and read it at work today.

Same here on both counts. Using an opponent's ATS combined with their total PFR% to narrow their EP range is pure gold. Again maybe you could have mentioned this earlier!

Fantastic post.

The part about nits paying you off the most is specially true, I estimate more than half my winnings are from these people.

I'm glad you are a member here, I've personally learned tons from you.