microstakes??

Hi guys...new member and newbie in poker...
I've been playing for a week now at bet365, and I've been reading articles about hold em for beginners on the net..most of them suggest that I should play on limit in the first place. I've been playing micro stakes 0.02/0.04..and doing quite okay...but I found that most of the players in 0.02/04 don't take it seriously, probably because the bb is only 0.04...either that or most of them are completely newbie like me..(play most of their hands even 27 offsuit)

My question is, should I stick around in this limit? or should I move up to 0.05/0.10? I know my bankroll management said 300bb, so my cash is quite enough for 0.10, but still I haven't got the mental toughness...

So, what do you guys think? I really want to improve my poker skills...

Thank you guys...

Just keep milking these guys until you get close to 10K hands under your belt. You may be running well now. There will be times when every break goes against you. Build a solid foundation of experience at the lower stakes first.

Thanks bluesky,

But, I wonder whether most of the 0.04 limit players take the game seriously? and how can I spot a newbie or a seasoned player in a table?

Thanks..

Due to my choosing I play mostly microstakes on Full Tilt. I would venture to say probably half of the players at this level will call a 4 cent bet if they have any kind of hand or two big over cards. I have found the best way to make money and consistantly raise your bankroll is to bet small on the flop, raise a small amount on the turn and then raise another small amount on the river. Typically, they finally get the picture you actually might have something where you do or dont.

If you are doing "quite ok" at those stakes, heck, stay there until you build up a big enough bankroll to move up. Don't move up if your bankroll isn't quite big enough, because you may play scared as a result...Stay where you are winning, and build it up to "more than enough" before moving up.

Thanks guys for the tips...

I should play more hands on this level first, probably until 5k-10k hands and gain some experiences. In this game, what sort of experiences should I be looking for? I mean, how should I study my game? I know there are no exact answer to this, as poker is a game of situation and random cards. But how do I approach the learning?

My 2 cents for you as a starting player... i think limit is a game that is good to keep the variance to a minimum while you are learning... one thing you may wish to consider is dabbling into No Limit in order to protect your hands and be able to make it too expensive for the players who limp in on a limit table with the 7/2 etc...


This i feel is something that you should take wish a grain of salt, although the information above is accurate in certain situations, in other situations this betting style will get you in trouble... one thing you will learn while you play more is that each hand is different, and may require new and unique betting to achieve desired results.

if trying to spot serious players, these are going to be the players that do NOT play the majority of their hands, etc (hard for me to tell on limit tables personally...) BUT!!! one way to find some other players that are taking the game seriously is to take a look into some of the other games (Razz / Stud / Omaha hi/low) due to the fact that a lot of random people just "want to try" holdem and play horribly where in these other games you get a more concentrated assortment of serious players...

I completely agree with playing a TON of hands at one level so that there is a chance to learn where / when / how / etc as well as situations that you will come across...

some things to watch out for / absorb while playing...

1) The importance of position (Acting last is a SIGNIFICANT advantage)
2) The Importance of pot odds (take the # of cards that improve your hand, and multiply by 4 on flop and 2 on turn, i will explain this more later)
3) Learning when aggression is profitable and when aggression is a loosing play... when people are holding on to the end, and when you can get them to lay down a marginal hand to a bluff...

All in all, poker is a VERY intriguing game with situations that change all the time, and situations that encompass more than just the cards, but pot size, position, etc etc... it is a game that i find can only be taught to a certain extent but mostly needs to be learned through experience...

OOOOK... now to continue my wall of text lol...

Pot odds: a quick and dirty example, I have KK and you have AA, flop comes K/4/10 rainbow (no matching suits), i obviously have the best hand right? but what are your odds for winning and what price do you need to be getting in the pot to call to see the turn / river?... a rule of thumb is multiply your outs by 4 for the turn and 2 for the river, so in the example you have 2 outs, which equates to 8% on the turn card and 4% of it coming on the river (this 4X / 2X rule only works if you see both turn AND river)... so, for pot odds to be in your 8% range, for a 1$ pot the bet would have to be only 8 cents ... forgive me if my math is inaccurate by the way, and please someone correct me if i am wrong (its late :P )

Essentially your price to call a bet has to be equal or less to the % of making a winning hand for you to have the right pot odds ... a good example is a 5$ pot, i bet 3$ into it (total 8 right now) so you have to call 3 $ into an 8$ pot, you are putting in 37% of the pot, and need a 37% worth of draws for pot odds to be there (37% = 9 outs on the turn and 18 outs on the river)...

i REALLY hope this entire wall of texts can be helpful, if not i apologize for the text wall, and if you found it helpful and had any questions please message me and i can rant a bit more :P

For the 8% example, I think the bet would have to be 8c into an 84c pot, so that if the hero calls, he would have called 8c to create a $1 pot.

So he would need 92:8 odds to break even if he only has an 8% chance of catching an out (on the river lets say).

Anyhow, position is very important. It's better to play more conservatively from the blinds, don't be afraid to fold hands like KJ, Q10 or A rags from the blinds. Become more aggressive at CO or button when you have the advantage of acting later.

Lets say you call a preflop raise from BB with KJ and the board comes 974, which may have missed your opponent as well, but your opponent could have lots of hands that'll beat you even if he missed the flopoo. Ax to any pair. If you check, he can raise ya, and you'll have to fold (or should fold). The best chance for you to win may be to lead out with a bet and hope he raised with garbage and folds, but at microstakes, many ppl will not fold any pair or ace high, so if he calls you, you are in bad shape. Do you fire ANOTHER bet on the turn even though you have nothing? So you are better off just folding hands like KJ that look enticing but really aren't such a great hand out of position.

It's better to be bluffed off a small pot than to bluff yourself into losing a big one.

As for you have just played poker for one week.I suggest that you stick around 0.02/0.04 for half a year.And then move up according to your money management.

Go to the library and grab a few poker books. Take your time, don't expect to get it all at once. Go to the Golden Archives here, work your way through them, too. Since you just started, don't be afraid to check out other types of games, like SitnGos or Omaha. Remember to have fun. Don't be results oriented - it's entirely possible to get your money in with the correct odds and a good read on your opponent and lose. Focus more on the decisions you make and why you make them.

You answered your question by yourself...
If you do not feel well for the next limit do not play it until you feel well!!!

oh, and not sure if i mentioned it above, but dont play scared...

Scared money where you can be pushed around make it very easy for anyone paying attention to severely punish you...

Thanks guys for the tips...

Last night I played freerolls tournament on Titan. I ended up on rank 94 which gave me $0.07..quite happy about this (either it was a beginner's luck or I could quite understand with the positions and the hole cards). At least I need to keep the motivation . I was beaten in the last hand, which you can see the hand here http://www.cardschat.com/f51/freerol...eeroll-171927/ (http://www.cardschat.com/f51/freeroll-nl-he-50-beginners-freeroll-171927/)

Please give me some feedbacks, what did I do wrong. On the last hand, I tried to push the opponents by giving them some pressure on the betting. I just realized that there were 4 opponents that were still on play, from what I read it's difficult to push 4 opponents.

Also, I was using holdem manager and still couldn't understand the statistics. What does it mean by:

3.52 bb/100
26% VPIP%
8.5% PFR%
0.00 3Bet%
32.7 WTSD%
50 W$SD%
4.00 Agg
44.1 Agg%

I know some of the meanings, but what are the statistics telling me?

Thank you...

breaking these down
1) bb/100 shows essentially your win rate, this means that for ever 100 bb you invest you are getting 103.52 in return (this is a good thing that it is positive ) ... [ please someone correct if im mistaken]
2) VPIP % = Voluntarily Put In Pot, in other words how often you call an opened pot without re-raising, or limp with 2 cards... when you see 26%, that indicates that the player is limping with the top 26% of hands (no idea what this includes... probably suited connectors etc)
3) PFR % = Pre Flop Raise, or how often the player raises a hand pre flop... in this scenario 8.5% or the top 8.5% of all hold cards.
4) 3Bet% = The amount the player is 3 betting, the higher the 3 bet % the most likely the 3 bet is very light and can be 4 bet for some enhanced play and free chips.
5) WTSD% = Went To Show Down, or the amount of time a player hangs on until show down ... (can they be bluffed or do they just hold on no matter what)
6) W$SD = Won MONEY at Show Down... or how often do they hang on and win?
7) Agg = Aggression... this i dont know too much on, but i know that the higher the aggression obviously the more aggressive lol, thats all i know on this one
8) Agg% = the same thing as Agg only in a percentage display, really dontneed both Agg and Agg%...

hopefully this helps...

i play 1c/2c on pokerstars and fulltilt, i have 200.000 hands played at these limits and for the past 2 weeks i barely make a dollar or two playing 2000 hands a day at least, so basically i am on a downswing, so dont get fooled about doing pretty ok, and you started few days ago. i lost AA vs 27 today preflop all in, i will post on bad beats forum later.

what i suggest is you stay, build a bankroll, stay here until you can crush the stakes on a regular basses, also, the best advice i can give you: dont limp too much, just small pocket pairs (i would suggest) to try and catch a set, play only big hands, personally i fold AJ preflop if i am in bad position. bet when you have something, dont try to bluff, as you sayd people see it as just another 4c, dont go all in with top pair top kicked, unless you have a read on the opponent and you know he plays a lot of hands, dont play on tilt, keep an eye on everyone at the table if you can.

best of luck.

No, bb/100 means big bets per 100 hands. A big bet = 2 big blinds. So 3.52bb/100 means he is winning on average 3.52 big bets per every 100 hands played. So if he was playing 10nl (.05/.10) He would be winning on average about $0.70 per 100 hands played. Which is an average win rate for 10nl. A really good win rate would be 5bb/100 and higher.

VPIP does = Voluntarily put in pot, but you are kinda wrong it what means. It's exactly what it says though, voluntarily put in pot, so it includes every limp, raise and call preflop. The only thing it doesn't include is if you were in the big blind and there were a few limpers and you just checked to see the flop. You are not voluntarily putting money in the pot from the big blind, that is a forced bet. However if you were in the big blind and it raised, and you called or three bet, that would count towards the VPIP. Same with the SB, if you call to complete your SB it's counting that as well, same if you raise your SB. It's not counting it if you fold your SB.

And you are sorta right with what that stat is saying, but I'll expand on that in a second post. I think a video would explain it better.

Yes, it's how often someone raises, but it's also going to count the hands you three bet with. Essentially, if you raised or reraised any bet or bets in front of you, your VPIP and PFR would be the same number. Like the ultra nitty ssers that run a 3/3. They are never calling and only shoving. So over a large sample size you could bet the farm and say their range would be any pair form 99+ and AK suited, possibly AKo. Will do a video in a second and this will make more sense.

Yes 9% and higher is high. 3 to 4% is about normal. Again the video will make this all make more sense.

Yes


Agg somtimes Af = Aggression factor. The formula for Af = (Raise + Bet)/Call This is a usless stat for a small sample size, It can swing high and low in a few hands with a small sample. 5+ Af means they are really aggressive. 1 and below and they are passive and playing fold or fit poker. Around 2 to 3 is what you usually see a lot of regs at. I normally use this stat as a last resort to making a decision. Meaning if I got to show down with TPTK and a flush hit on the river and I put in a blocking bet and villain raised me. If someone has a really low Af, and I don't have a good idea, I'm probably folding to them. However, if they have a high AF I'm probably more likely to call, because they are more capable of bluffing the flush in that spot. Not a great example, but you get the idea.

I'm not real sure what the Agg% is. Sometimes it's relates close to the Af number and sometimes it doesn't. Probably something I should look into. If anyone knows please post ITT. I'm actually curious now, but to lazy to look it up right now.

YouTube- Ranges



Jillychemung's How to use PokerStove video (http://www.cardschat.com/f53/how-use-pokerstove-165772/)

TPC .. player like u will be the reason why i will play from more than one account when i will have a highest bankroll) Happely i learned not to play the same every time but to play the situation. I have to adjust my play a lilttle so i keep track of the mistakes i make. I steel a lot but also i tight my play when i see loose players there. I do not know how my stats look to other players but i think it looks like i play tight agrresive sometimes and chaothic some other times. I know players have trackers and i know that if i make a sudden move out of the regullar play i can make someone fold even if he has a clear advantage. I do not know something else.

How to erase from my had tilting times. How to control myself. Somebody give me and advice. Is about of experience? I tilt less but i tilt.

Players tend to chase cards in limit poker. Even at the higher stakes limit is a game of chasing draws because you can't raise a player off his/her hand.If you don't like the chase game you might consider pot limit or no limit. In these games you have the opportunity to protect your top pair with a large raise. I agree with the comment though that if you are a beginner you might consider sticking with limit for now to control variance.