Beating micro's thought #2

One of the main keys to beating micros is the value bet. We get the vast majority of our profits from value betting with the best hand.

Forget FPS (fancy play syndrome). Go through your winning hands and start thinking about your betting. Think about how much your opponent will call on the flop, on the turn, or on the river with a 2nd best (or drawing) hand. Is your hand worth 3 streets of value or only 2? Maybe only 1? If its not worth 3 streets, which streets are you more likely to get calls on? Will your opponent call a big bet on the river? Will your opponent fold most of the time, but call one last small bet just incase you're bluffing? If your opponent is very likely to call, then could he call a very big bet instead of a standard sized one?

Really spend some time thinking about when to bet and how much in different circumstances, of course always baring in mind thought #1, we want to avoid losing big pots when we're behind.


Previous thoughts:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...-1-t75533.html

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Is your hand worth 3 streets of value or only 2?

TPGK is one hand where i think a lot of micro players have trouble extracting max value from the rich sea of loooooose micro fish.

Save pot control for people who won't stack off with TPNK, but at the micros they're in (relative) abundance if you can profile them properly.

value betting is key. Value-calling is silly. If you feel like you may be up against a made hand then don't value-bet the turn. If you feel like you're against a draw then do bet the turn. Try to tell the difference - being re-raised is a good clue.
When you have a monster on the river and you're trying to decide how much to value bet, push! if villain is calling 2/3 pot he's calling the push often enough to make it +EV...

Some further thoughts on beating micros:
Don't defend your blinds
Steal blinds
3-bet from the button
flop sets get paid
play high pairs hot and heavy pre-flop
limp Ax suited behind from late position
Fold or raise Kx suited all the time
don't slowplay hands other than sets in 3 bet pots or quads plus.
don't slowplay sets in 3 bet pots or quads plus.

I think you could play only pocket pairs from UTG until the cut-off and win at most limits up to 200nl

You may as well learn how to play poker well at some point and micro-limits is the spot to do it IMHO.

People who play that nitty get stuck at the 100NL/200NL level where they start to run into people who know how to run them over while avoiding paying off too many hands.

Originally Posted by Fnord

You may as well learn how to play poker well at some point and micro-limits is the spot to do it IMHO.

People who play that nitty get stuck at the 100NL/200NL level where they start to run into people who know how to run them over while avoiding paying off too many hands.

wise words again...

depends on the motivation of players I guess

I think that the major micro-leak is playing too loose pre-flop

The nitty suggestion is mostly about learning some poker discipline, and learning to beat the micros.

People should be able to learn to loosen up/play some post-flop poker during the course of moving up. Wow, I've reached 50nl, maybe I'll read about 3-betting. Hmm, seems that I can 3-bet wide from the button. Interesting, wonder what happens if I thrown in the occasionaly 3-bet from the big blind. Hey, when I 3-bet people and then c-bet an ace high flop, people fold! maybe I should c-bet even when I don't hit!
etc...

I'm not sure, but that seems to be how my game has evolved. Right now I'm doing a spoon and moving down to apply some new tools to my game, risk minimisation etc. Then again, I haven't tried to move beyone 200nl yet! not sure if I want to for a while either...

winrate increased a loooooot once i learned how to value bet somewhat