Calling / Raising Conditions @ Microstakes

I'm just wondering what we should be doing when grinding it out at the microstakes levels. I'm currently playing at Party Poker at .02/.04 ($5)NL cash tables, playing with $25 party sent me for being away for awhile. I cashed out a few months ago, since I didn't have any time to devote to poker, due to a new job taking up all my time.

I find the players at party to be fairly weak tight for the most part, calling way to much and not raising enough. I've been strugging with keeping my aggression factor up recently, but now I'm starting to get into a groove.

At these games, i'm finding that raising in position is taking in way too many blinds. I don't know what's going on. I'm running 18.99 / 7.16 / 2.03 over the last 4300 hands, with BB / 100 @ 10.52.

Now on to my question. Under what conditions should we be calling at the micro stakes limits? If I think I can out play the entire table after the flop, I'll call in position with hands like KTo, and raise if I hit any piece of the flop. If I'm in position with any premium hand, I'm raising / reraisng preflop / on the flop regardless, and seeiing what happens on the turn before I commit any more chips.

I think in the past I was afraid of calling because I was afraid of losing money., Now that I'm playing with "free" money, i can now focus on playing the hand optimally (taking the psychological side of losing money out of the equation).

Any thoughts on calling at the micro NL stakes? I'm liking the attitude of raising as many hands as possible, and stealing in position.

Cheers,
Jerome

For the record, I used to play poker only playing the top tier hands (e.g. AOK 19), mainly because that's what the poker books / web sites suggested.

I think the problem I was having was not discovering the reasons for playing hands / not playing hands from my own experience.

Originally Posted by jterry

At these games, i'm finding that raising in position is taking in way too many blinds. I don't know what's going on.

I don't understand this sentence. If you're agro enough, you be stealing the blinds at least 20 - 25% of the time. And that's a good thing.

Originally Posted by jterry

I'm running 18.99 / 7.16 / 2.03 over the last 4300 hands, with BB / 100 @ 10.52.

6max or FR? This is too loose for FR, definitely, and it's nearly too loose for 6max.

If you were at my 6max table with this HUD read popping up, I would pretty much try to run over you preflop with raises and 3bets. No offense intended, but these stats would not inspire respect. A villain who plays 16/14/3 or even 19/15/4 would worry me.

Why? Agro stats around 2 just mean that you bet your good hands postflop and fold your bad ones. You play reasonable poker, with cbets every now and again, but generally honest postflop poker. When I see aggression factors at 3+, I know you're firing cbets tons along with 3betting and 2 barreling light, in short, taking pots away from me when I have weak or medium-strength hands. The problem is picking the right spot to exploit that knowledge against someone who plays generally tight preflop.

So knowing that as an opponent you wouldn't be likely to outplay me postflop, I would just run over you preflop, raising your limps very liberally and ducking any raises you made unless I had a premium holding. Again, I mean no offense. I'm just telling you based on the read you provided how I would attack that type of opponent at 10nl or 25nl.

Originally Posted by jterry

Now on to my question. Under what conditions should we be calling at the micro stakes limits? If I think I can out play the entire table after the flop, I'll call in position with hands like KTo, and raise if I hit any piece of the flop.

If I think I can out play the entire table, I'm raising and 3betting preflop to get more chips in the pot, especially in position, and I'm doing it with 16 - 18% of my hands (stats like 18/17/3).

Originally Posted by jterry

If I'm in position with any premium hand, I'm raising / reraisng preflop / on the flop regardless, and seeiing what happens on the turn before I commit any more chips.

I assume you're generalizing a bit here, and not rr'ing AKo on a 987 monochrome flop against 3 opponents who flatted your open raise preflop. Or something similarly crazy. But in position, this line works with almost any reasonable holding, including KTo, when you pick your spots and your opponents correctly.

I play micro stakes too
I call to the hyper agressive maniacs that frequent these tables, a lot of times they overbet or go all-in and when I got a hand that I think can beat them (whether it be good or bad), I call

I raise nearly everytime I got a preflop hand which I like and I almost always get a call, maybe they fold because of your nit image and your raise is significantly more than standard 3xblinds

Originally Posted by Robb

6max or FR?

If he's playing at Party there's only FR at 5 & 10NL. 6max tables start at 25NL for some reason.

I'm currently playing $5NL FR on Party Poker. March 23, 2008 Party Poker sent me a $25 bonus. I started playing $5NL just to see what I could make of it. My bankroll was exactly $25 since I had cashed out before Party sent me this bonus.

Since receiving this bonus I've played 2,870 hands (268 @ $10 NL FR and 2,2602 & $5 NL FR), running 19.06 / 7.49 / 2.28, BB / 100 = 24.65.

This sample size is way too low to draw any information from, so I'll include my overall stats. 17,540 hands ($5, $10, $25 NL FR on Party), 19.53 / 7.0 / 2.01, BB / 100 = 9.48

Am I playing too loose at these levels, specifically $5NL FR?

My roll is now @ $83.77 (peanuts I know, but this is more of an experiment to see what I can make out of $25 without reloading).

You can make plenty out of $25 without reloading. Just play smart. Mainly conforming to strict bankroll management. You are at $83.77, so the general rule would be to stay at 2NL until about $100 then bump up to 5NL. However, if you are comfortable at 5NL and consistently beating it you probably have nothing to worry about.

I really don't have tons of experience at poker, especially not cash, and definately not a wiz at reading stats, but your VP$IP and PFR is too far apart I believe. Since you are running 19.06/7.49, seems you are limping/calling too many hands preflop. At the microstakes you probably want to tighten up a bit, and work on raising your big hands preflop more often.