Attacking the Microstakes
The first hurdle for any aspiring online poker player is to conquer the microstakes. After all, 0.02/0.05 6-max cash games are harder than 1/2 full ring live. In the beginning, I was a slow losing player. Since I was in elementary school, I would play on the WSOP play money app. I was way too loose, and I did not know what I was doing. Luckily for me, most players don’t know what they are doing either. Since then, I’ve improved a lot. I recently started a bankroll race challenge with a poker friend. Here are my first 10,000 hands:
Screenshot from PokerTracker 4 with my stats at the micros on Ignition
I am crushing the pool, winning at 35bb/100 in the zoom pool and winning 50bb/100 on normal tables. While the sample size is small, I believe I can continue the results for the rest of the challenge. There are quite a few things to consider playing on the PaiWangLuo network.
Don’t play balanced: Ignition has anonymous tables which means one does not have to be balanced. GTO play stipulates that one must be balanced and while playing perfectly to Nash Equilibrium may work, it is not the best strategy. Players are calling stations until 50nl on Ignition which means bluffs lose value. You can have a breakeven red line but have a super nice blue line. You can choose to play certain boards aggressively or passively without mixing actions. Be value heavy and work on winning at showdown.
Extreme polarization: In high stakes online poker, we see a lot of polarized jamming ranges. Players like llinusllove and limitless are going all in for 90bb effective into a 20bb pot. They are doing this with the very top and bottom of their ranges. I am incorporating this in my play on sites with usernames, like GG/Stars/Global. However, on Ignition, you can polarize jam with only the nuts and you will be called down more than you think. Microstakes players do not typically look at pot odds or SPR.
For example, I open from UTG with 77 and get called by BB. Villain is 34/8/0 over 100 hands. Flop comes Ad Qh 6c. It checks to me and this is an obvious range bet. My bet gets called and it gets to a turn which is 4h. It goes check-check. River is 7s. Pot is 8.3bb and when it checks to me, I jam 102bb effective and I get called by AJs. Exploit the microstakes player.Play more hands: At 25nl and higher, you will get punished for this but at the micros, playing more hands is profitable. Hands like 97s and 76s are great because you can draw to strong hands. Yes, you will get outkicked sometimes, but recreational players find it difficult to fold TPTK or trips on very connected and boards with multiple draws. Every hand you play at the microstakes is +EV since you are exclusively playing against bad players.
High PFR and 3-bet: Being aggressive in the right spots will win a lot money. At the microstakes, the rake is very high. Because of this, you can only flat from BU or BB (even then, only in certain spots). Any other position is a 3-bet or fold decision. Taking the pot down preflop will gain a lot of money as players are scared to defend.
No light river calls: It is very rare that the microstakes player is bluff shoving at the microstakes. They almost always have a very strong hand.
Besides this, I am playing very standard. Players are making massive EV blunders all the time and winning at the microstakes requires patience and a general understanding of poker fundamentals.
On the Winning Poker Network (ACR), games are much more difficult. Unlike Ignition, ACR welcomes players that are not just Americans. Players are significantly better since many people from poorer countries are able to grind out a living at the microstakes. These players are playing all day with a HUD and the game is very different. Here are my results after 1200 hands:
Screenshot from PokerTracker 4 with my stats at the micros on ACR
In this very small sample size, I am running extremely hot. I have won 200bb pots while behind and I have gotten AA into KK two times now. However, even accounting for the positive variance, I am still winning at 12bb/100 in the 1200 hands. I am unsure whether I am winning in the 10z pool just yet — I will probably need 50,000 hands at a minimum to start getting an answer to that. This is my game plan:
Play GTO against regs: I need to play very balanced against the good players in the pool. Yes, I know — nobody at 10nl is playing sound theory. However, playing the fundamentals correctly will allow me to get a good baseline for exploitation. So far, my stats are 20/18/7 over 1000 hands. I need to dust up on PIO and maybe resubscribe to GTO Wizard.
Exploit recreational players with HUD data: Unlike my strategies on Ignition, I will have data on other players. If I notice a really low PFR or a really high 3b%, I will need to exploit that. Moreover, I will need to be conscious of my own stats and how they will appear to the other regs.
Less bluffing: One of my biggest leaks is my lack of regard for money at the microstakes. I cannot look at my stack as 5 bucks; I need to look at the money as 100bb. Sometimes, I have a hard time not burning money at these stakes because I want to bluff for fun. When I am playing 5/10 live, I don’t have this problem. It’s a lot more money and the chips are in front of me so losing money feels “real”. Bluffing at the micros is also a bad idea. Many times, a player will call an all-in jam with one pair. I don’t want to give the money back. I think the only times running a large bluff is good is when I am facing a solid reg.
Review my hands: ACR’s pool is significantly more difficult than Ignition. At the micros, Ignition feels very weak and passive. On ACR, it seems I am always in between two Brazilians that have woken up with premium hands. I am not that good at 3/4-bet pots OOP, especially if I am not the PFA. I need to mark hands for review and study more if I want to climb the stakes as quickly as possible.