I've been wondering recently, how good do you need to be to make a profit playing small stakes poker ?
There are some truely awful players out there, and while things may change in the medium to long term, it is possible to make it pay at the moment with very little skill.
Anybody who can read a decent poker strategy book, and who is patient enough to follow the basics can make a profit in my opinion.
It is also true that trying to use any advanced stratgies may well backfire on the small stakes tables as people simply dont realise what you are trying to represent, are not paying attention or merely dont care what you do.
You only have to read some of the poker blogs out there to see the number of good players who are driven to despair by being continually outdrawn by fish who dont have a clue.
Some players will call to the showdown with nothing, some are unable to lay down big pocket pairs when it is obvious they are beaten (I admit I occaisionaly fall into this category myself), and some appear to have no knowledge of how to play the game whatsoever.
I assume that this phenomenum is less apparent as the stakes increase, but I'm sure that to some degree it is present in most online poker games.
This does also lead to the question, If you are a profitable player, are you ny good, or are you simply grinding out a profit on the basis that most other players are even worse than you ?
and should you care ?
A profit is a profit after all, and if it comes because you are good, or because others are spectacularly bad, what does it matter ?
Well it matters if you want to move up in stakes, because as previously stated this phenomenum must reduce as the stakes increase.
Is it possible to make a consistent profit at £5/£10 NL playing basic strategy with no fancy moves, or in £200 sit & goes ?
Maybe any higher stakes players reading this could comment.
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4 comments:
ive mused on this a lot redcar.
i tend to agree, low stakes and a simple strategy u cant lose.
i only play common sense and its pretty obvious half the time.
i reckon the higher stakes and players would play a wider variety of hands in different ways and conceal them better.
im happy to be winning but in the stt's i find i win the $20+ ones easier than the £5 ones
Not sure to be honest, it's quite easy to find muppets at high levels as well as low ones!
Any chance we could exchange links?
http://call-of-the-wildcat.blogspot.com/
I think about this all the time. It's obvious that playing a very basic strategy will net a profit at low stakes as there are so many fish. And I think it's true that a lot of more advanced strategy doesn't work at low stakes. Take semi-bluffing for the sake of folding equity for example. It's a nonsense to put in a big raise or push on the flop with a flush draw if you're up against very loose players, but I see it done all the time. However, even at very low stakes, the best players who can categorise player types and play them accordingly will make a lot more than your average grinder who is just counting their outs.
I don't think I could win anywhere at the moment!
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