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There seems to be an endless wave of new poker players coming into the game. Most people would think that these players are the typical fish of seven or eight years ago. Well, due to the boom in poker tournaments and the wide variety of poker books and instructional videos available to these players many of them are very knowledgeable even if they are playing online for the first time. Many of these players start out learning the game in Micro-Stakes poker tournaments and cash games. That is not to say that poker strategy is not used in these games but micro-stakes games do have a different feel to them than the standard games that most regular poker players are used to. Micro-Stakes games can be as small as Five and Ten cents blinds all the way up to $1 / $2 blinds. Usually players will be somewhere in between at Twenty-Five cents and Fifty cents blinds. This is the level we will be focused on as I discuss the micro limits.

No matter how high the blinds are you always want to be sure that you are bankrolled properly. In this case 20 buy-ins will suffice. That means you will need a bankroll of $1000 in order to play comfortably. Playing with scared money is a very bad idea and will not allow you to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves as the play at your table proceeds. Assuming that we are playing cash games and not tournament poker you will need to tighten up a bit. Hands like suited connectors and small pocket pairs from early position are hands that you should muck in early position.

Why?

Because you are playing at extremely low stakes and there will be a number of factors that make folding speculative hands in early position the correct play. One of the main reasons is because players at this level will sometimes play a draw for their entire buy-in especially if the buy-in is capped. Second, pre-flop all in raises and re-raises still take place in these kind of tournaments and you, being the intelligent player that you are, are not going to call these kinds of raises with middle pairs even if you do know the raiser is holding Ace King. Lastly, cash games are about patience. There are no blinds crashing down on you like they are in poker tournaments.

The bottom line is that playing in cash games is about being the best player you can be over the long run. Giving up small pot after small pot setting up the play for a big pot is what cash game poker is all about. Online poker play tends to be hyper-aggressive and players will push all their chips in the middle in attempts to protect their hands. You need to make note of these kinds of players because they are the ones that will pay off your Set of Threes when the board has a flush draw on it and they are holding a high pocket pair.

By now you should be getting an idea of where your mindset should be. Playing cash games is all about maximizing the value of your hand versus tournament poker where you are constantly trying to protect your hands to the death to avoid being knocked out of the tournament.

Let’s take a look at a couple of online situations I found myself in recently in a $2 / $1 tournament:

Hero has $175 [A][A] on the button
Villain has $100 [Ks][Qs] in the small blind

The action folds around to the button and our hero make it $8 to go and the SB calls.

The Flop comes down [2s][6c][Kd]

SB bets $10 and the Hero smooth calls. The Turn is the [9s]

SB makes it $25 to go.

(At this point I am confident that I am not up against a Set or Two Pair. However, I am and should be concerned about a flush draw hitting the board and I act accordingly)

Hero makes it $100 and puts the SB All-In. The Small Blind calls and has a number of outs. The River is a [Qd] and the SB scoops the pot.

Should I have played the hand differently? Absolutely not! You played the hand for value and after the turn there was no way to protect your hand as your opponent was pot committed. However, this is exactly what you wanted in that you got all the chips in the middle with the best hand. However, when the Queen hit the board on the Turn it gave him additional outs and made you just a little more than a 3 to 2 favorite in the hand. Although we would love to have better numbers than that going into the River we are still ahead in the hand. Obviously, the River was an extremely bad card for the Hero and we lost the pot. It happens and you have to be prepared for these kinds of things.

The fact that our Hero was on the button didn’t help matters as King Queen was certainly a strong enough hand to call with and it is likely he put you on a steal. On the other hand you are much more likely to win this hand the majority of the time simply because of the strength of your hand and the likeliness of your opponent folding. You could also make an argument for minimum raising in that spot as well but you have to ask yourself this question, “Am I good enough to fold if I face a large raise from either of the blinds?”

Yes, even at the micro-stakes you are going to be faced with difficult decisions that will severely affect your bankroll one way or the other. For a new player to lose one or two-hundred dollars can be devastating but if played well and the cards break even you can dominate and win consistently while earning your stripes and building your bankroll. That is what micro-stakes poker is all about, building your bankroll to play higher stakes.

Curtis Mayfield III

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In business, leverage usually refers to what you have to push against someone who is trying to get the better of you in order to assert your position. If someone is trying to push a lowball job offer on you, having another job offer gives you leverage to push back. In poker, leverage refers to a bet that has more force because of the advantage created by the promise of future bets.

Using Leverage in Poker

Leverage in poker is most effective in a no limit game when you have a deep stack. When you make a bet at the pot, an opponent may be reluctant to call not because of the initial bet, but because he may be anticipating bets on future streets. Depending on the situation, you may win many pots on the flop or turn with minimal risk, simply because an opponent is not prepared to call bigger bets down the line.

However, if you wish to gain leverage, you must be sure that your opponent fears losing his chips. A bet made in later stages of a multi-table tournament with large prizes is not the same as a bet in a free poker tournament.

How to Gain Leverage in Poker

The way you gain leverage when you play poker online is by showing your opponents that you are an aggressive player who is willing to make big bets and are controlling most pots you’re involved in. If you are the type of player who makes one bet, then gives up and checks it down to the river, you will not get any leverage on your bets.

Similarly, if you are a short stack, you have no leverage because opponents know exactly how big a threat you are. In the same vein, if you are facing a short stack you have little leverage because this player is much more likely to be willing to commit himself to the pot if he likes his hand.

Notes on Leverage

Leverage is only one tool in a poker arsenal and should be used wisely. Try to determine which situations will create fear in your opponents and use your loose, dangerous image to push marginal hands. When you have strong hands, try to play in such a way that keeps your opponents relaxed and unsuspecting until the moment you bring the hammer down.

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As I have mentioned in my Author Biography I am a keen poker player, both online and offline. A few months ago whilst playing a tournament a friend of my emailed me details of something called a Poker Analyzer. In its most simplest form the Poker Analyzer is computer software which can automatically calculate the odds of a poker game instantly, a helpful tool when playing fast paced games, such as Texas Hold ‘em.

The Poker Analyzer Software was developed back in 2005 when a group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology clubbed together with a plan with students from University of Alberta, Canada. Between the two teams they devised a plan for the software which made direct links between mathematics and poker games.

What the Poker Analyzer software does is allows is to make the new online poker scene a little less daunting. Initially, poker was played as an offline game, where both social and physchological information would persuade people to play in a certain way. The new ‘block’ that online poker gives players means that many players are not able to ‘read’ a game, making it less skilful.

The group of students who have designed the Poker Analyzer Software have suggested that this means that the only way one can win on online poker is to look at the maths. That is what they have done by creating the software and they claim to have made $25,000 in one month.

As far as I’m concerned, I do actually agree with Adam Brinks (the founder), the online poker scene is definitely a game of luck and probability rather than analysis and skill, so this piece of software is definitely worth a look!”

Online heads up poker is a very hard field to get into, although I do know several players who play the $50-100 stakes and win a good percentage of the time. They are not your average gamblers though; they have strict routines and probably tilt 1/100 games if they are having an incredibly bad streak!

That is the key anyway, take it match by match, but overall you need to be hitting somewhere between a 58-60% win rate to be profitable overall, and have the bankroll to take your downswings in online heads up poker. Do not think that 100 games is a good enough sample either, I’d be looking at around 500-1000 games before you will see a clear indication of where your game is with online heads up poker, mainly due to the variation of results.

Playing online heads up poker is slightly different to offline, mainly due to the fact that you can’t see the opponents face. If you give off your emotions fairly easily, then this is definitely a good thing, as they can’t see your face either.

The only way you can portray or perceive an emotion in online heads up poker is by giving off vibes from bets, folds or by showing opponents your cards. Give off as little information as possible, mix up your play and keep your opponent guessing and you will begin to see them making huge amounts of mistakes.

Using your position, raising a mix of hands, showing a few bluffs, even calling and loosing chips just to see their hand is always a good way to work out your opponents play in online heads up poker.

I’ve been using Sharkscope over the last few weeks to monitor my progress over at pokerstars, but it has come to my attention that Pokerstars are not happy with members using the service.

I’m not sure whether this is for the subscription, free service or both, but I’d just thought I’d let fellow poker players know incase they get their Pokerstars account revoked.

The link to the story on the ban by Pokerstars regarding Sharkscope can be found here: Sharkscope