Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em

I play about the same limits and you're correct to state that just the stats won't do to see if a player can lay down his hand when he has a small pair,… I mostly play ABC-poker but try to adjust my betsize according to the stats of the player(s) in the hand. When you see a player lay down a hand on a big turnbet or call down with a small pair…, make a note of this and play according to that note. Try to reduce the multiple street bluffing against players you don't know that well. Theres a bigger chance they'll pay you off on good hands then on bluffs at this stakes so play according unless you have a reason not to.

I notice that a lot of players at the micro stakes (10max) have trouble adjusting so most players will keep playing the same move over and over even if you keep doing the same thing.

So if I have a good read on someone, I try to isolate him and play according to the read, if not I stick to abc as much as possible.

I would love to hear from others if they share the same opinion or can give some further advice

I limp more then I should as well. I limp all the small and middle pairs sometimes up to 10-10, even J-J. If someone (re)raises preflop I look at their stack. If it's not at least 10 times the raise I give up. Then on the flop play hit of fold. If I hit the set I bet every street unless I have a good read he's very agressive and will try to bet me out of the hand (so I check) or for example the board shows 4 clubs on the turn and there are 3 players in the hand or there's a 10,J,Q,K on the board (fold).

I try not to play that much suited connectors because if you hit the flop, you mostly only have a draw and I find it very difficult to play them profitable.

As a long time nano-stakes loser, I'll add my 2¢

Great book, certainly 100% okay for NL50+as is. For the nanos, everything's in there, but there's some work to do, like sifting through the material to keep what works at nanos, and throw away what doesn't. I think it's a great book, btw.

"Games up to NL10 are easy to crush."

This sentence is true, but after sweating so much these stakes, I think I'm one among many that need a more developed sentence.

"Games up to NL10 are easy to crush UNLESS you do things that crush YOU."

There's not absolute best play in poker. What is correct in some situation is just the awfulest worst in some other context. What happens is that plays that are correct at higher stakes are just the worst thing to do at NL10 or less. The ebook gives all the clues to destroy these stakes, but unless you're careful about what you put in your game, it also gives all the clues to get absolutely destroyed.

Here's the core of nanos-strategy; I invented nothing, it's all out there, I just put it together my way; I believe that reading the same concepts in many different ways, written by different people, helps some people me for example), to digest the ideas.

Big hand, big pot. Small hand, small pot.

Burn it on the plastic of your monitor, tatoo it on your arm, whatever. It's really at the heart of every problem I have in anos, and it's the starting point of every solution.

Just one move: the Value Bet

There's just one move to know at nanos: value bet. The section in the ebook about thin river value bet is pure gold, and it's just like printing money. TPMK is a small hand, and pot control is mandatory (especially when OOP), but it's often worth a small river bet; and don't forget to insta muck if vilain raises. Vilains will call with all kind of shit, even just a high card, but at nanos they'll almost never raise without at least 2p or some monster they slowplayed.

All these river bets will add-up and make a very nice profit.

Anything below top 2p is a small hand after the flop

Yep, even pocket aces. And even a set on a board with a lot of draws should be played with caution when multiway and the turn realizes some draws. The more cards are out, the weaker a pair becomes.

Why do you lose ? Why do you win ?

Understanding why you make money is just as important as understanding why you're losing money. You can win because :

1. you're on a heater; any card you need, you get it.
2. or, you're playing well.
3. or both.

Try to be honest about it, because heater is a bad teacher.

In poker, you must invest money to get back money. If you invest more than what goes your way, you're losing money. How do you lose money (excluding beats) ?

1. you often put yourself in situation where you lose small/medium amount of money.
2. you play correctly 99.5% of the time, but make some huge blunder like 1 hand in 300.
3. both, or a combination of both.

You MUST analyze your play and understand what's wrong to correct it. Maybe you consistently overplay big aces while you completely missed the flop; maybe you c-bet indiscriminately and make a 2nd-barrel, because you're convinced you "big hands" gives you some right to the pot, at least more than this fish who made a pair on the flop with 92s.

Personnaly, I tend to overplay some hands, which leads me to tilt, which makes me lose even more money. Then, I must play several thousand hands to get it back, and so on. I have other leaks of course, but by far, this is what keeps me on the ground.

Put a lid on your ego and Adapt !

Maybe it's vilain's day, and though he's playing horribly, cards go HIS way, NOT YOUR way. There's nothing you can do albeit keeping on playing your best poker. Experience proved me that it's very difficult, and consistently being oudrawn by someone you despise tends to make you play YOUR WORST poker. It creates some kind of resonnance where you play exactly the worst possible moves against this donk.

This is a solid sign that you should stand up and stop playing poker for the moment.

Pay attention to the other players, and play what works against them (see the ebook for that, works great). Take a stand with a decent hand against a maniac, vb to death the calling station, play agressively the loose passive that will play fit or fold post-flop. I've tried it, it all works, but not everything works against everyone. So, adapt !

Formulaic poker will get you up to some point (16-tabling NL200 for exemple), but working on your understanding of the game and learning about you and how to put yourself consistently at peak efficiency, will make you a true winning player.

Don't bluff, don't balance, don't slowplay

Bluffing is EV- in the long term at the nanos. Period.

Balancing your game is necessary against observing people who will play several hundreds/thousand hands with you. Most nano-players forget almost everything that happened before the last couple of orbits. Play good hands strongly, play carefully small hands that you want to see a showdown with, but don't go overboard, and throw away small/mid-pairs when there's action and/or overcards.

Slowplay is evil; it's rampant in nanos; you know the drill: you want to trap the fish, not scare your prey, and a whole lot of bs like that. And then you see thousands of posts where hero got his set destroyed by rivered gutshots/flushes.

Here's my 2¢ about slowplay (curiously, it's in the ebook too):

• only the strongest hands, the ones unaffraid of giving free cards, can bear a slowplay.
• is the clear best way to extract some value from player(s) who have zip.
• the board is so dry and scary that the smallest bet will make everyone insta-muck, and your only way to make some value is to bluff induce.

At nanos, so many players play some perverted reverse strategy that a pot bet often has better chances to get called than a smaller one. And you won't make money if there's no hand out there. So betting is usually the best play, especially against passive players; passive players call, they don't bet (unless they have the nuts).

wow, that was a big post; I hope it helps.