How Do I Beat Microstakes

Learn preflop charts
Learn to fold TT-JJ vs 4bets
Learn proper betsizing

Check out baluga theorem - still applies today. Pretty much means that if someone (especially passive fish) calls your flop cbet then raises your turn cbet in a single raised pot he has at least two pairs. This more or less applies to micro stakes regs as well because they are mostly nits.

Check our Carrot corner's youtube channel I think he's great. I am not affiliated with him and do not gain any advantage by "promoting" him.

Thanks for the help. I have studied a pretty good amount of pre flop charts and Im pretty sure I have pre-flop well understood compared to other aspects of my game. I have a very strong memory and am a math major in college so I think I can learn a lot of stuff fairly quickly I honestly just don't know how to access certain things. People always say to study and work on their game but I don't really know what tools to use to study. I will make sure I check out baluga theorem. I think a lot of my troubles honestly come from bet sizing and extracting the most out of my best hands as well as not losing as much with my marginal ones. I appreciate the help brotha.

You can try From the Group Up also by Peter Clark (Carrot Corner) on Run it Once which is a pretty good introduction, I think he says some information is a bit of date (for grinders manual, the book it is mostly based on) but overall it is good for explaining how to think about different spots and different factors to consider.

Game selection. With the high rake at micros (10bb +/100) you're not gonna win much vs the regs even if you're better than them. You need to play vs players you can win 20bb+/100 from. If there's not at least 2 fish at your table you should be looking to move.

I think that course is very very out dated now, you're probably better of by just studying free YT content and once you get a grasp of theory maybe invest into a subscription like RunItOnce, or maybe get a coach, or a cfp, depending on what your goals are and how serious you take poker.

If you decide to learn by yourself:
- Study preflop charts
- Find materials that explain BUvBB and BvB play well, as those will be the most frequent spots , but a lot of concepts apply to other spots
- Try to understand the concepts behind: why are certain bet sizes picked in certain situations? what combos we want to bet and why ?
- Play few tables and apply the newfound knowledge.
- Review your hands thoroughly.

If you like math get a solver (GTO+ is cheap), buy Andrew Brokos' Play Optimal Poker which will break down indifference and essentially how solvers work. Welcome to paradise.

Don't worry about beating microstakes. Beating microstakes is an inevitable consequence of impoving understanding.

I appreciate the help from everyone

There´s a book by Jonathan Little specifically on beating small stakes cash games. I don´t have it, but I have two other books he wrote which I like very much, so I assume it´s good. He´s a coach and auhtor who knows his GTO, but he´s still able to explain that, exploitatively, if player type ABC does X, you should do Y, because reason Z. I like that mix.

What are the main things out of date in it would you say?

Regular tables are basically always going to be higher potential win rates at the cost of less hands/hr. For the vast majority of people I'd recommend regular tables over fast fold formats. Fast fold formats make more sense if your goal is specifically volume which is often the case for leaderboards/rake races or if you're just trying to put in volume for any number of other reasons.

As a newer player to online by playing regular tables you'll have more information to analyze and more time to think and make your decisions which is important for improvement.

Any advice on when/how to add tables? I currently only play one to get maximum focus, and i have noticed improvements, but its really hard to get any volume like that.

THIS.

When you have a win rate and more decisions are quicker... then you can add tables/volume in order to increase $/hr and move up to next stake.

Im playing 5NL and I'm having trouble with limpers. I know, embarrassing. My problem with them is they continue to limp with hands they should probably be opening with and I don't know if im being too aggressive and underestimating the strength of their hands, but I don't know what to do. Should I shrink my opening range if there is limpers before me?

It's just super frustrating dealing with it and they play so unexpectedly. I have a decent win rate but these are the only players that get under my skin

Limped pots are v profitable when you zoom out.

Also easy to play really. Cbet when you think you can rep something but mostly slow down when called and especially on Axx because fish love to limp/call Ax. The EV comes mostly from them stationing so plenty of thin value to be harvested whilst getting out of the way the second they play back. Typical fish play.

You can get into the minutiae of opening ranges etc but there are simple rules like 'iso the range you would open from villain's position' that work well enough and save brain energy. Some cheeky UTG just limp/reraised and is now repping AA/KK? yeah they probably have it. Easy fold. They are screwing up their range so bad it's like an EV Catherine wheel.

Everything, preflop ranges, the way it talks about the game to people who are just starting... Makes you understand the basics of poker but it really doesn't tell you what you should be thinking about in game, but rather stuff that's impossible to think about for a beginner and even pros don't really think like that.

It seems like half the skill in poker these days is deducing where and what to study/ what is important. RIO still sells and advertises FTGU for $99 I think so it is likely attracting a lot of new players. Grinders Manual did help me a lot.. I think what it says about exploting fish must still apply and how to think about preflop ranges... although as I approach 25nl+ I am wondering what is the best way to study pf, should I just follow GTO ranges/adjust?

I never read grinder's manual, but yeah stuff vs fish should still apply. There's nothing about that in FTGU though, and it's probably what you need to beat these lower stakes. Game selection, exploiting fish, underbluffed/ overbluffed /overfolded / overcalled lines, understanding the basics of how ranges interact etc. Nothing like that is in FTGU, just some over-simplified GTO concepts out of which some aren't even correct.

I just learned to beat 5NL if I'm not very lucky.
Harrington on Online Cash games is a very good book.
Also includes preflop charts.
But the main thing is to analyze your big loosers. Try to extract something out of each loss that will prevent that in the future. And put into place some sort of study of old mistakes so you don't repeat them.

Well I agree its outdated because the author says the book is outdated and ftgu is supposedly based on the book.. they are quite similar. But ftgu does mention lots of times adjustments against fish, including different types of fish, particularly preflop.

"underbluffed/ overbluffed /overfolded / overcalled lines" - how would you study this without MDA? and do these change significantly over the stakes/formats (fast/standard) for it to not be possible to cover in an entry-level guide?

Trouble with mda is you need to understand GTO to a reasonable level anyway, which is often the logical play based on the data. It's one of those things that's relatively straight forward to explain conceptually but impossible to master without a lot of intricate knowledge and application practice. Plus it's worthless without that conceptual understanding because the second someone adjusts you're toast and back to square one.

You also don't need it to crush micros. Everyone is still miles from optimal it makes mda much less important. I can see why they leave it out of beginner materials

When you cbet a fish 1/3 he knows you're employing some kind of line against him, he just doesn't understand how or why it's working no matter how he responds. Once you understand that you're probably ready to understand mda i would think