Low stakes Pacific

Okay, my blogging last month wasn't really up to scratch, was it? Despite playing almost every day for the first two weeks of July i failed to tell you all/both about it. It turned out to be quite a fun couple of weeks.

Here's a brief summary of the bits i can remember:

Well, as you know i started off by plugging $30 onto my old stomping ground, Pacific. I was really quite looking forward to playing again after at least a year away from internet poker. Had some good memories playing online in the past, but plenty of bad ones as well. I wanted to forget about all of that, how i used to play, however much i'd won/lost, it didn't matter.

I just wanted to start again as a new player, a new person. (For the full effect was going to change my username, but really couldn't be arsed in the end. Typical, i haven't changed at all!) Good start... I guess veryskin is with me for good.

Pacific is notoriously poor for tourns of any kind (big rake, small starting stacks, simply shit) so i was quite keen to build my bankroll playing almost purely cash with maybe the odd small multi and SnG thrown in for a bit of fun. But the last time i was on Pacific the smallest NL and PL cash tables were NL $10 and with only a $30 BR i would be VERY LUCKY not to go broke. I was determined not to go broke and relying on luck to build a bankroll is simply not an option, so these tables would have to be ruled out for the time being.

So, logging on for the first time, i was fully expecting to crawl my way through the low stakes SnGs. It would be a hard, slow process and i was just hoping my newly found enthusiasm would drive me through. I have to say, i wasn't 100% confident my temperement would handle it. I wasn't even 70% confident.

So when i logged on... RESULT! 1c/2c tables! $2 buy in cash, never thought that would excite me so much. For the first time in my life i was happy with something Pacific had done! And the new software was looking pretty good as well. Things were looking good.

So an instant change of plan: play $2NL until i feel comfortable enough with my bankroll to move up. Didn't set myself any strict rules about what games to play, short handed/ full circle, just 'whatever you fancy' i told myself. And i didn't completely ban SnGs either. As long as they were small buy in things they were fine but i was pretty sure that most of my time would be spent on the cash tables. Multis would be kept to a minimum for the time being.

That was the plan anyway...

The first few days were great fun, really enjoyed playing what were quite easily the smallest stakes i've ever played. The banter around the table was always good fun and i found it quite easy to make money as well.

I hear a lot of people complain about low stakes poker and how hard it is to make money. Two complaints are particularly common:

1) "The outdraws are ridiculous"
2) "It's impossible to bluff them. They never fold"

To tackle the first one, okay, some of the outdraws may be shocking and can be very annoying but you've got to expect that. It's not uncommon to have six or seven players per flop so your AK and AA is going to be outdrawn a lot of the time and you're going to lose a stack if you start getting excited about just one pair on the flop. You'll still make money, i guess, with hands like this because there'll always be someone in there with a weaker ace or just top pair but waiting around for these hands is a frustrating way of making a small profit from what are essentially very very weak tables.

'How can he call there with just middle pair on the flop?' If they can't be bluffed, don't bluff them. And most of the time you bet into them you'll have the better hand so willing them to fold middle pair is a mistake. There are times to bluff them, not many players will call on the river with ace high, you've just got to pick the right player and put him on the right hand. It's not hard to put some of these low stakes players on two overs and i find the turn is the best time to take them off hands. But you have to be sure, so until you can read them perfectly i guess keeping bluffing to a minimum is advisable. Most of the money made at these stakes is from made hands anyway but knowing which pots you can take with nothing will obviously add to the overall profit.

For the first couple of days i one-tabled for probably about three or four hours a day. I decided just to play the one table (9 or 10 handed where i could find it) for now so i could fully concentrate and determine the quickest way to win. It was very strange to start with, seeing five players MINIMUM to a flop was very odd. I started off very tight, playing only decent hands, big cards, pairs, big draws but soon realised that the money making was too slow.

I noticed that the average pot was huge compared to the blinds, usually 2c to see a flop with the final pot averaging over $1. So i just decided to see almost every flop as see what happened, calling with anything and hoping to catch a monster. Flopping one pair i decided was almost never any good and only called flop bets if they were cheap enough and i thought two pair on the turn would be good enough. If i missed the flop, oh well, i top up that 2c.

I also noticed that the bigger the pot was pre flop the more willing some of the players were to overbet the flop in a desperate attempt to take it down often with just one pair. And because of the size of the pot, more people were willing to call that down light.

So as a result of this i started played almost every pot minraising most hands i wanted to play (minraise as not to scare anyone away, and so rarely minreraising). This, strangely enough, often restricted agressive players behind me to just a call with better hands (common to see them raise to 10c with JT, KQ, etc after lots of limpers). Sometimes they pushed over with monsters, which is easy to fold to when you've just minraised to 4c with 56hh, but the same six players would usually see a flop but this time with over $0.20 in there already. Often a lot of the players at the table are sitting on less than $1 and needless to say, with so much in the pot, they find it very difficult to fold any pair. Even though they've only committed 4c to that pot they're willing to get their money in sometimes drawing dead.

So you can see that you don't have to flop a monster very often to take stack after stack at these tables for just 4c pre flop. Add to that the money you make from your big pairs, which you of course play properly pre flop, and you're raking it in!

Once i'd worked this out i started two and three tabling and by the end of the first week i'd built up from my $30 to $350. It was all very easy and the reason i've put this up is to help others trying to build up from a small bankroll... I hope the above advice makes sense and more importantly helps you make more money from low stakes. Ignore the fact that i played drunk a couple of times and went to NL $25, which crippled my bankroll, i'm sure you won't do that. I really wish i wouldn't!

Anyway, got to go, my bankroll didn't stay at $350 very long (classic veryskin) but i'll tell you about that some other time.

Bye for now and good luck!