When you read about online poker action at different internet poker forums you will usually only find people talking about the absolute biggest games such as $500/$1000 NL texas holdem, however over 90% of the online poker action actually happens in the low stakes tables. So with that in mind we decided to share some advice for those low stakes games.
For the sake of this article we have defined small stake game as one that has a maximum buyin of $200 or less. There are already obviously some differences in $20 buyin and $200 games as far as your opponent’s skill level goes, however the games play similar enough for us to give 5 general tips that should improve your results.
These following small stakes NL (no limit) texas hold’em tips are aimed for the people who at the very least know the rules of the poker game and ideally also have some experience with playing it. The tips are also mainly aimed for the online games, for the simple reason that in majority of the world it is hard to find cash games which have buyin of less than $200 at casinos and in home games and such the relationships and history between the players plays such a huge role in what is the optimal move in every given situation that it would be hard to give tips those games. Also as a final note it is worth mentioning that most of my experience comes from playing games with at most 6 players so the tips are most likely best suited for the short handed (=only few players) games.
Top 5 small stakes online NL texas holdem poker tips:
1: Game selection. Assuming your goal is to make money playing poker you should always seek games with at least one bad player in them. So next time you are playing poker online, instead of simply getting a seat in the first table that has room browse around the online poker lobby for a while and find a table that either has at least one player that you know to be a so called fish or find a table where you can assume to be bad players.
One thing that lot of poker pros pay attention to when browsing the lobby is how high the players per flop percentage is in each game and usually the games with high percentage peak their interest. This is because usually higher the number the more likely it is that the game has at least one bad player playing way too many hands.
2: Take care of your bankroll. You should always do everything you can to avoid going broke. Obviously if you are a losing poker player you will end losing your whole bankroll sooner or later, however even if you are a winning poker player there is always the chance that you will go through some really bad runs which take toll on your poker bankroll. Because of that even the winning poker players should try to keep at least 50 maximum buyin bankroll for the level they are playing. So if you are playing games that have $20 maximum buyin you should have a $1,000 poker bankroll. That might sound like a lot, but history has shown that it is much better to be overly cautious than too aggressive when it comes to bankroll requirements. Taking care of your bankroll also means that when your poker room is offering for an example reload bonus offers you should always take advantage of them and that way getting some nice extra money to your bankroll.
3: Don’t lose your patience. While it is certainly annoying when you go through the long streaks of bad hands and outdraws, you should always stay calm during those times. During those bad runs simply try to keep in mind that if you go on tilt you will simply end up losing more money and thus it will be even harder to get your bankroll up at where it used to be.
4: Find a strategy that suits your style. If you are naturally aggressive don’t try to play super tight style, and on the other hand if you are by nature timid don’t try to play super aggressive style. You can win in poker by playing loose and tight and thus you should always play with the style that comes more naturally for you.
5: Stay aware of what your opponents think about you. If your opponent thinks that you are aggressive poker player who only bluffs you should naturally quite bluffing against him and instead bet your good hands aggressively. And on other hand if you think that your opponent thinks you are tight passive player who only bets with premium hands it is time to make some bluffs against him.
I hope you enjoyed the tips and find them useful the next time you play poker online.
