micro-stakes no-limit strategy for inexperienced players

[ashmc2]

I personally always (just recently, I know) buyin for max and advocate that everyone does, because you maximize your profits with your big hands.

But there is a different approach. If you aren't an experienced player whose seen a lot of hands and situations, this strategy might work for you. I used this stratagem starting out and made money playing this method. When your the fish at the table (yes, the first step to growth is admitting that you need to grow) sometimes you need a handicap to bring you up to par. So I'll stop yakking and get to it.

I used to multi-table with this micro-stakes no-limit strategy, but single tabling will work also.

Buyin for the minimum.

Play super tight - no suited-cons, one gappers, or small prs, just premium hands. Multi-tabling you will get these hands quite often.

Play aggressive when you hit - often push allin on flop when you hit. You will get called often by marginal hands because you are the short stack at the table and won't put a huge dent in their stack.

Hit and run - when you double-up or make 1/2 of your original buyin, leave and start again at a new unsuspecting table. You are accomplishing 2 things here, you are retaining your newly acquired assets and you aren't giving the table time to read your style. Once they find that you are super tight, it's a little harder to get a call even with your short stack. So leave while the getting's good and hit a new table.

This strategy did good by me, keeping me in money, while I gained experience. Then start adding in new hands and plays at the pot and start buyin for max because you'll be the big stack with skills at the tables.

[eejit101]

I was having a thought the other day on a similar topic.

Ok, so you find every big game going on, with blinds of $25/$50 NL or higher, and it has to be NL. From what ive seen there are about 200 of these going on right now.

You sit with the max, post the BB out of position, when its your turn to act, you push all in. everyone folds to a $5k overbet, you win the pot, the SB and the BB. You sit up form the table $75 richer.

Now say you do this at all 200 tables, the blind average is $100. if it worked succesfully each time, thats $20,000 per night.

[thrash1294]

I also used close to the same style min buy-in tight aggresive and hit and run.
It works very well for micro no limit. I called it shoe clerking cheap and wimpy but it worked like a charm. for begginers I recomend it .Hell I have been playing poker for 20yrs and at times I still feel like a newbie

[PShabi]

What about when there's a raise in front of your blind post? What about when it's raised and reraised in front of you? Do you push then? Just because you post doesn't mean it's going to be folded around to you EVERY time.

Think about that and the times when you'll get called by a better hand and you've got yet another stupid idea. Quit thinking about hair-brained, poker-related schemes to make money and invest some time into learning how to play poker.

[ashmc2]

YEA, what he said. Get rich quick scheme boy.

[eejit101]

gotta love that bit. thanx man, your the best

I was thinking about it, figured it was not the best plan, but i was wondering on the schematics of it

[ashmc2]

I just got some gray rep. there was no comment. Is this neg rep?

[Spuddy]

Thanks for the tips guys!

[thrash1294]

qq kk aa jj ak allin with those hands and all others I would fold to raise reraise
using that style. Dont get me wrong phasbi I am not saying this is a great style
for all but for me it worked. I started at planet poker in 2000 put in min deposit which was $15 bucks. played the 1c 2c nl talbes with buy in of $1 when got to $2 I would bail and jump to another table. did this over and over playing an average of 3 hrs a day first year made close to $800 bucks go figure

but the again I raise 24xbb on poket aces

[Talking Poker]

I'm +Repping this. This should put you well ahead of me on the Repometer.

Seriously though, this has to be the single worst one of eejit's get rich quick ideas yet. I would LOVE to see someone actually try this (at any limit - do it at the microlimits for all I care) to see just how -EV this really is. Because I'm assuming it's VERY -EV.

Just for fun, let's make up some numbers. Let's first assume that with ANY ACTION in front of him, eejit will fold his $50 BB. We could make the numbers more complex if we wanted to, but this is the simplest way to start.

Here are my guesses:
1. 10% of the time, there will be action in front of him and he'll fold or check, but end up losing his $50 one way or another (this number will depend mostly on eejit's average position at the table, but I think it's safely conservative).
2. 85% of the time he'll push in and win the blinds ($75).
3. 5% of the time, he'll get a call (that's only 1 in 20, which I think is probably on the low side, but let's go with it). Of this 5% of the time, let's say eejit wins 20% (1% total) of the hands and loses 80% (4% total), winning $5075 and losing $5000 respectively (we'll assume it's not a blind or a short stack who calls, for simplicity).

I actually think those numbers are semi-realistic, but if anything, they are probably on the conservative (good for eejit) side. If all of that is true, that means that after 100 hands, we would have the following results:

1. Lose $50 * 10 = -$500
2. Win $75 * 85 = +$6375
3a. Win $5075 * 1 = $5075
3b. Lose $5000 * 4 = -$20,000
Grand Total = -$9050 / 100 hands = EV of -$90.50.

So, using eejit's numbers and doing this 200 times per night, he would "win" 200 * -90.50 = -$18,100 per night. Minus ($3*86=) $258 in rake = a grand total of -$18,358 per night.

Best... idea.... EVER.

[Talking Poker]

That's Rep from someone with no Rep giving power.

[ashmc2]

Was it + rep or - rep.

I'm helping out the new players with a proven strategy (Thrash and I) to help them make money while they learn, and no positive rep, but Pshabi tells eejit his dumb idea is stupid and gets +rep. Man this rep system is working great. HEY eejit your idea sucks dude. Waaaaaaa

[Talking Poker]

I don't know if it was + or -. It doesn't count, so it doesn't matter. Assume it was +.

Edit: As for your original post, it sounds reasonable enough, but I wouldn't know one way or the other. It's definitely not my style... It's kinda hard to rep something that might be either a good or bad idea.

And yes, the Rep system IS working great.

[ashmc2]

Figured that be your response. My dad used to call me smart ass also. No hard feelings, just venting.

[Talking Poker]

I wasn't calling you a smart ass... but I also don't know why you are venting or what exactly you are venting about.

And I couldn't be any more "chill" right now.

[Zybomb]

Not saying I agree with this idea (which I definately don't), but lemme play with the numbers for a second

First of all, the "schemer" can post UTG, to avoid any action before him disrupting his "scheme", so we can wipe away the - 500 (small change in the big picture but still), in addition increase his blind steals from 17 to 19 out of 20 (since we are ignoring the 2 times he'd fold, since he is posting UTG)

Next, you can reduce the amount of your buy-in to $1500. You have close to as much fold equity with $1500 as $5000 (I think) they are both drastic overbets.

So say you win 1 out of 5 times that you are called, you'd lose 6000 and win 1500 (for a net of -4500) everytime you are called. So you'd need to make this up in blind steals. You'd steal 19 times without being called on average. SO lets go through 5 rounds (since youd win a showdown 1x out of 5) which means you'd steal blinds 95 times (19 times per round times 5 rounds). 95* 75 = 7125

For an overall net of $2625 per 100 hands

Again, I AM NOT SAYING I BACK THIS IDEA WHATSOEVER nor would I ever do it -- but playing with the numbers this way gives it a different spin

Comments?

[thrash1294]

for micro stakes I did well with the system but in higher stakes no way.The reason being in micro stakes they play alot of trash but in higher stakes you tend to see much less trash starting hands played.

[eejit101]

Praise the lord. Im not saying im EVER going to do this, i was wondering on the ideas of it.

As i was reading TPs post, i was writing down my own numbers, but i couldnt make them work like Zys does.

I agree it is possible to do this, however i would definatly say that actually doing this is a insane idea.

Like i said in my post, im never going to fucking DO THIS, thats mad, very mad, so get off my back shabi, i didnt say give me advice on how to do this, i was posting a thought on if this would work, and expected some kind of ethical response somewhere down the line.

[Talking Poker]

I'm certainly ok with changin the numbers as you see fit, but the format that you wrote up this post is very confusing. Can you just stick to the format that I used, so it's nice and clear? I think I follow what you are suggesting (and I like the UTG post and the $1500 suggestions, but I think your 95% no call is definitely too high), so let's plug your numbers into my format:

1. Lose $50 * 10 = -$500
2. Win $75 * 95 = +$7125 (19/20 can't be right, IMO)
3a. Win $1575 * 1 = +$1575 (you forgot the blinds in your calculation)
3b. Lose $1500 * 4 = -$6000
Grand Total = +$2700 / 100 hands = EV of $27.50.

My problem with that though is still the 95% of the time that you think you won't get called. Let's change that to just 90% (18/20) and see what that does to the numbers:

1. Lose $50 * 10 = -$500
2. Win $75 * 90 = +$6750
3a. Win $1575 * 2 = +$3150
3b. Lose $1500 * 8 = -$12000
Grand Total = -$2100 / 100 hands = EV of -$21.00.

Notice how significantly that changes the results by just saying that you'll get called TWO times out of 20 instead of ONE time out of 20. To support my argument, let's say that you are ONLY called by AA, KK, QQ, and AK. Some people will fold the QQ and AK (we all agree that no one will fold AA/KK), but others will call with JJ, TT, AQs and far worse than that (especially considering they are facing an all in from a guy sitting with < 1/3 of the max buy in who just posted UTG instead of waiting one more hand and then immediately pushed in - I actually think some people will call you here with any pair, and even hands like Ax and KQ), so I think my assumption is reasonable.

The odds of any individual player being dealt one of those four hands is:
220:1 + 220:1 + 220:1 + 46:1 = ~3.5% of the time. So, with 9 players left to act behind you, assuming a full table, you're going to be up against one of those hands 31% of the time! Wow.... is that right? That seems really high to me, but I think my math is correct. Someone call MathBabe.

Even if we throw the AK completely out of the equation and say we'll ONLY be called by AA, KK, and QQ (and that just can't be right) we are going to be facing those hands and get a call (1.36% * 9 = 12.3%) of the time! My original assumption in my first post was 15%, Zy said 5%, and in my final example, I said to use 10%. This makes it sound like all of those numbers are on the conservative side, if anything, making this an even MORE -EV play.

Any responses to this? Zy, especially?

[Talking Poker]

I think you've gotten a couple of very detailed, mathematical responses here. I'm not sure what more you can be looking for in terms of if this will work or not. If you disagree with my numbers - and that's fine - back them up with some of your own.

It's just math.

[eejit101]

thanks for the maths TP, nice posts.

I was gonna say 6MAX tables, i would not like the risk of doing this in a full game. Which is why i was more inclined to go with Zys 95% of the time itll win, as with the maths i worked out of getting called 4.5% of the time, it could be profitable.

So we all know the maths isnt spot on untill someone does this, which wont happen, maybe if one of us wins the WSOP we can test it out or something.

How about ethics, is this idea against the idea of fair play, poker, and everything else?

[Talking Poker]

Of course not. You are welcome to commit suicide at my table any time!

As for the math, that's the thing about math - See, it's just math! All you need to do are make a few assumptions, namely what hands will call you. After that, the math does itself.

For 6 max tables, the odds of someone behind you being dealt a monster are lower, of course (less players), but people are going to call you with more hands too (because there are less players). I think the EV from doing this at a full table, a 6 max table, or even a heads up table will work out to be about the same in the end. It's less likely that your opponent(s) will have a monster hand, but the fewer players at the table, the larger the range of hands that are going to call you.

[eejit101]

Luckbox

[thrash1294]

I agree with TP wont work shorthaned I did this with at least 8 players at a table ,and tried to find full tables when possible but only micro nl.

[eejit101]

you did my idea or ashmc2s idea?