Adjustments to Make in Low Stakes Online Poker
One common complaint we hear from people new to online poker is that it is difficult to beat micro stakes. Often, these complaints are coming from people who are used to playing live poker or are trying to apply live poker theory to online poker.
They are failing to make certain adjustments that are necessary to improve their results. Today, we will go over a few adjustments you should make when playing low-stakes online poker. This is most applicable to cash game poker but can often be used for low-stakes tournaments as well.
30 Big Blinds Doesn’t Mean Much
If you sit down to a $1-$2 NL Hold’em table, you’re investing at least $60 if you buy in for a 30 big blind minimum. Most online poker games, including low-stakes games, will require a 30 big blind minimum. However, 30 big blinds is not a lot of money in the micros.
For .01-.02 poker, you are talking about .60. For .05-.10, you’re talking $3. Even at .25-.50, you’re talking $15 bucks. Many low-stakes players will take a hit-and-run type of approach to playing cash games. They buy-in for the minimum and try to double up as quickly as possible. As such, 30 big blinds isn’t much to players as they are looking at the small amount of money they are betting. Expect to have big bets shoved by small stacks quite frequently.
Many More Family Pots
A family pot is when you have three or more players seeing the flop. You’ll see this a lot in Limit poker in live card rooms, but not as much in NL games unless you have some really loose players. It happens quite regularly in low-stakes games.
As such, you may have to raise a bit more than normal to try and take down pots with premium holdings. Either that or you will have to be more careful on the flop and later streets as you’ll face many more lottery/bingo-style players.
Play Will Be Faster
You have more recreational players in micro stakes than anywhere else and they usually want to gamble it up. As such, you will see players act much more quickly than in other games. Some players are going to be used to playing games like Zoom Poker so they aren’t going to waste a lot of time tanking.
As such, you may want to learn to speed up your pace of play to accommodate. Don’t become “that player” that wants to “take their time” to make every decision. Most decisions are not that tough.
Fancy Play Will Burn You
While the average online poker player is smarter than players of even 10 years ago, most are still not clever enough to pick up on fancy plays. As such, you will see players make what seem incredible calls based on the scenario, your bet size, or even what you perceive to be your range.
While you might be thinking three or four moves ahead, your opponent is only thinking one or two moves ahead – at most.
If You Aren’t Multi-Tabling -You Need to Start
Online poker offers you the chance to play multiple games of poker at one time. This has multiple advantages. For starters, you have more opportunities for profit. Making $8 an hour on three tables is superior to making $15 per hour on one table.
Also, playing multiple tables will help to spread some of the variances. If you’re running bad on one table, you can make up for it by crushing on another. If you’re on a site that hasn’t instituted anonymous tables, you may be able to pick up some reads on certain players that are at multiple tables.
Multi-tabling is a skill you can work on like any other in poker. Start slow with two tables and add as you’re comfortable.