Hi mate,

I've been in a similar boat grinding out micro stakes on Stars on and off for quite a while now. There is a lot of very very loose games at $2 NL (0.01-0.02 blinds) - in fact - I'm not sure I ever see more than a table or two with <30% players seeing the pot - esp in prime time. You'll regularly see 40-60% in! (I'm assuming you're looking at full ring - don't know much about 6-max)

Just a little bit surprised by your thinking these tables are tight. What I find is there are generally 1-2 tight players per table - and these guys generally seem to slowly make money while all the other looser players build and lose buyins quickly.

Obviously there are some parts of playing poker you can learn well at these stakes (playing quality hands, position, etc) but it really isn't the arena to try learning bluffing, c-betting etc.. there are so many ppl who will just call every hand you raise..

Keep in mind also, that leaving a table because it gets "loose" isn't nesc going to make you better off - if you're learning to only play quality hands - then the looser the other players - the more often they'll pay you off when they go all in to you good hands with their second best hands - believe me - this happens a lot!!!

As for buy ins - the standard buy in is 100xBB - IE - $2 for 0.01-0.02 games and so on. There may be reasons to buy in for more than this but I don't see this as being the normal thing to do - esp when you're learning and could stack off by miss reading the board

Just a few hints for Stars: Make sure you turn on 4 colour decks + show bet amounts - def makes life easier

Keep patient and make sure you're profitable over a few months before thinking of moving up!!