Playing Against Low Stakes Players

Okay so if you are going to play at the so called micro or low stake buy ins you have to adjust your way of thinking. It is not enough to think using advanced strategy will give you an edge, because the truth is the psychological edge of these plays will be lost on opponents who dont understand how to play their own hand, nevermind worry about what you are representing. Therefore you can waste chips raising on "calling stations"people who are going to call you regardless hoping to hit a two outer(and they usually do) when in reality you need to tighten up and ironically play much simpler and more basic poker yourself.

With that in mind here are some do's and don'ts when playing low stakes

Do:

Play tight. Premium hands only, unless you can see a cheap flop with suited connectors. When you do have a big pocket pair, bet aggressively to minimize callers to the flop; a 2.5xBB bet in early position could get five callers in a micro stakes tournament, not something you want to contend with.

Be wary of Aces. Your queens or kings could be dead if you see an ace on the flop, particualrly if you had two or more callers. Beginners love playing Ace Rag hands preflop.

Control pot sizes. Especially preflop, you want to use your skill to outplay these guys not coinflip with Ace King against a pocket pair. If at all possible see a flop with your hand before you are committing too many of your chips. If you hit a good flop, then bet aggresively to shake off all the floating donks.

ABC Poker: If you have a strong hand, bet. If you have a weak hand, fold. Keep it simple, most beginner players will let their curioisty get the better of them and pay you off when you hit a big hand, so you dont need to try and make any clever plays against them.

Dont:

Slowplay. If you are ahead in the hand I would strongly recommend betting out. You cannot outwit someone who doesnt understand what they are doing. If you check a good flop chances are they are going to check behind and try and catch their card on the turn, and if they dont they will probably fold anyway, so you are just losing value by not gettting them to pay to see it. They will probably call light anyway and you can be happy they are behind your hand. If they reraise you, then you probably need to fold, most beginners wont be sophisticated enough to try and throw you off a medium strength hand, they are just simply trying to get all their chips in when they hit big.

Try and see every flop: It is tempting against weaker players to try and play more hands and outplay people postflop. This is generally a dangerous thing to do, mostly because their own play and bet sizing will be so erratic it will be hard to know where u stand. If they dont know what they are trying to do it can be very hard for you to know! Similiarly they will ignore the texture of the flop and not be scared by you representing a flush and open ended straight draw that they havent even noticed. So dont try.Keep it nice , simple, ABC poker.

Tilt. You will get sucked out on. Your kings will get called and beaten by Ace Five Offsuit.  Try and remember this is why you are in the game, to take advantage of al the value these guys are offering in the long term. You're not trying to play pretty poker, you're trying to make money and get value over a length of time. So stay calm and pick your spots.

Worry about table image. the other players will probably have no idea what kind of image you are representing, they are too busy looking their cards. You could play all night like a rock then shove when you have pocket aces and you will probably still get called by two people curious to see what hand you're playing.

Hope this helps, and again can I remind you I do not take any of this information onboard, I just wish  I did once in a while. Good luck catching fish...