Microstakes Mistakes

A lot of people make a lot of mistakes in micro stakes. It might be because the stakes are too low. Maybe they dont know better. Maybe they are not aware of their mistakes. You need to profit from their mistakes by taking advantage to improve your game and become a more profitable player.

Here is a list of mistakes that I think are very common. Small, but they add up.

1) Calling raises out of position
There is only two things that you should do preflop. Fold or Raise. You should fold more often. You often end up check-folding flops that you have not hit and lose them to the in position raiser. This costs you money and you do not learn a thing. Great. Just come in raising and fire a continuation bet. Maybe your opponent will fold and you get to pick up the pot with AQ on a 274 kind of flop. Get the point? You win by being aggressive. Do know when to shut it down, but mix it up so people will not start using position against you to call flops and then you check the turn. People will pick it up, I know I do.

2) Value betting the river
This is not exactly a losing mistake, but you are missing out on making the maximum in hands like AK vs AQ. You have to develop the guts to value bet. You will see often people will fold because their hand is not going to be good. When they call you down, you will often have the best hand and make that sweet little extra. Nice, you have found a fish too. When they have you they will raise and you have the option of folding. Calling would be the mistake, because you end up paying them off. Basically wasting money. You hand is no good, why do you want to put more money in? To see. Stop that. You are playing bad, get used to folding. Stopping the losing is almost like winning.

3) Advantage of position
At the micro stakes position is important in winning the small pots. They add up. So go out there and dare to fire when you have position. Just watch out for the number of players that went to the flop. Its useless when you have nothing and there is five people in the pot. Save that money.
You will see the better players raise often preflop. That is what good players do. They bet. They intimidate. They have stacks. Continuation bets are standard for those players. Reraise them sometimes, they will not have a hand every time and you pick up pots and keep them guessing. This is what you want. Deception.
It gets good when you recognize that your opponent gives up. You pick up the pot by betting. Sometimes people will slow play. Develop a feel for when this happens. You will see that, because they tend to call bets fast or check raising. You have to fold.

4) Trusting your gut
Is my hand good? When you feel that you hesitate calling a bet, usually you are beat. Sometimes when you rewind the action, you will notice that at a certain point you opponent had weakness. This could be indicting a bluff, giving you an opportunity to call and maybe win or step up you game and dare to raise it up. I am not exactly on that kind of level, but I dare to keep on firing when I believe I can get my opponent to fold and push them off.
Listen to you guts. Make folding a habit. A winning habit. You will see it can do wonders to your bankroll. You fold and the hand is over. Next hand starts and no need to worry about that nut flush you just folded, your opponent had the full house. This is a mojor improvement that a lot of player can make in their game. I see it happen everyday at the table. I make the mistakes too, just that I have learned to lose less by folding in some spots.