23 Oct 2024 Intermediate This material is for medium-skilled players Some mistakes are common to all players who are having difficulty beating microstakes. So if you need to increase your profitability and improve your game, this article is for you! Here are 7 tips that will help you play more effectively and avoid common mistakes at microstakes cash tables. Let's dive in! 1. Always Open with a Raise Always raise when you are the first to act instead of just limping (calling the blind). If you're not a complete newbie in poker, you probably already do this (at least I hope so!), but I know beginners still have their doubts. The blinds are what keep poker action going. Without them, players would have no reason to play any hand besides AA, as there would be nothing to win. SB and BB encourage players to play more hands and try to steal these mandatory bets. Every time you win a pot pre-flop with a simple raise, you win 1.5bb, and that’s a lot to win in one hand! Poker benefits players who play aggressively! It’s much easier to play against a passive player than against an aggressive player for many reasons, but mainly because aggressive players put us in difficult situations more often. Every time we’re in a tough spot, the more likely we are to make mistakes. And the more mistakes we make, the more money we lose. So, whenever you’re the first to act, enter the hand by raising! But if your hand isn’t strong enough to do that and you’re tempted to just call, fold! Fold and go to the next hand. 2. C-bet on Most Flops Quick reminder: C-bet is when the last player who raised pre-flop continues to bet on the flop. For example, you raised from the BTN with AK, the BB called you, the flop came with three random cards, BB checked, and you bet. That’s a c-bet. Players at microstakes still defend very poorly against c-bets. It doesn’t matter what the situation is or even your position, as long as you were the aggressor pre-flop, you should c-bet on most flops. Only avoid very connected boards, especially those with medium cards (like 9♥️8♥️6♠️). In other cases, bet with all your hands using a small bet-sizing — 33% of the pot is quite enough. I won’t go into detail on this today, but understand that c-betting more than you currently do will naturally make you more aggressive and a difficult player to face. Plus, you’ll generate winnings that you might not even notice at first. 3. Fire a Second Barrel More Often Even though I won’t go deep into c-betting, I need to talk about what happens when you make a small c-bet on most flops. When we bet a very small size, other players should: Fold less with weak hands Check/raise more with bluffs But the truth is that most microstakes players make mistakes in these two areas. They fold more than they should on the flop — creating an instant profit for the c-bettor — and don’t check-raise enough with bluffs. So what does that mean? When most microplayers check-raise, they usually have very strong hands. Therefore, if they don’t, they likely have weak hands. Let’s look at an example. Suppose you made a small c-bet, and the opponent just called. It’s unlikely that this player has a very strong hand. This is because players at micros often re-raise too often on the flop with strong hands, and they don’t bluff enough. So what should you do? Keep betting aggressively on most turns, knowing that player isn't as protected as they should be. If they only called, you can continue betting with many bluffs! 4. Call More Against Maniacs (And Let Them Bluff) Most of the money you win in poker comes from this action! The easiest way to make mistakes in poker is by playing too many hands, and that’s exactly what maniacs do. When you play against someone who doesn’t fold pre-flop, believe me, you’re in a dream situation! So take advantage of the opportunity. Since these players play many more hands than they should, they also have many more natural bluffs in different situations. Suppose you are playing, on average, 25% of the hands. There won't be many situations in which you will have extremely bad hands, such as Q6o, 74o, 32s, 95o, etc. But if someone plays over 50% of hands (what we call a maniac), many of these hands will often hit nothing and be very weak — so the only way for that player to win the pot is by bluffing. Even if the loose player isn’t very aggressive, they will have so many opportunities to bluff that they won’t be able to control their bluffing frequency. Next time you play against a maniac, don’t be afraid to call down with a 3rd pair. This player will have such a large amount of natural bluffs that, mathematically, your call will win a lot of money. 5. Don’t Cold Call 3-bets Quick reminder: A cold call in a 3-bet situation happens when one player raises, another re-raises, and you just call. And why shouldn’t you do this? Because it reveals the real strength of your hand. To make this move, you likely don’t have a very strong hand like AA or KK, and you don’t have a very weak hand like 56s. It becomes easy to play against you because your range is clear and your strategy is vulnerable. The next time you find yourself in this spot, either re-raise (4-bet) or fold. This will save you a lot of money and make you a much stronger player! 6. Check-Raise on Low or Paired Boards Here’s a situation: I was playing 200NL Zoom on PokerStars. A player raised from the BTN, and I defended from the BB. On the flop of A♠️2♠️2♣️, I checked, and when he bet, I check-raised. Do you know how hard it is for my opponent to defend the number of times he should in this situation? Here’s the perfect defense strategy he should be using: He should defend with hands like KQ, KJ, KT, all pairs, and even hands like Q9o with a backdoor flush draw! See how hard it is to play this situation correctly? So next time you're on a paired board and wonder whether to just call or raise with a certain hand, go for the raise! 7. The Closer to the Button, the More Hands You Should Play The last tip is simple but important: Poker is a game of information. The more information you have, the better. When you’re on the BTN, you have a lot of information about what other players did. If everyone folded, you should use this to your advantage and play more hands than if you were the first to act. Let’s see this in practice. Consider a 6-max cash table. Here’s the range of hands UTG should open-raise with: Only 17% of hands! Now look at a situation where everyone folded, and you're the first to act from the BTN: 43% of hands! So always remember: The closer you are to the Button, the more hands you should play and the more aggressive you should be! This will bring many advantages that don’t exist when you’re one of the first to act.
