The Trick to Win Big Money at Low Stakes in No Limit Hold’em

I’ve played micro stakes and low stakes online poker and there’s one easy strategy hack that can save you money and win you pots, allowing you to climb out of the low stakes trenches.

What Type of Player Are You Playing?  

I’ll come to the simple hack very soon, don’t worry. But to make the best use of it, you need to understand who you are up against. When it comes to low stakes players, they often fit into one of four categories, each of which define how they approach poker, play pots and their strengths and weaknesses.

These are:

1. Tight-Aggressive (TAG): These players are generally considered the best you’ll face at the felt and as such, you won’t see too many of them playing at low stakes – because they won money and moved up! ‘TAG’ players are selective about the the poker hands they play but when they do play them, they are aggressive with them, extracting maximum value and putting others under pressure.
2. Loose-Aggressive (LAG): LAG players also take an aggressive stance in the game but with a much wider range of hands than TAG players. Often nicknamed ‘LAGs’ or even ‘maniacs’, LAG players can be unpredictable in their nature but if there’s a hand you’re looking to win value with, these guys will pay out.
3. Tight-Passive (TP): Sometimes referred to as ‘nits’ or even ‘rocks’, tight-passive players don’t like to risk their chips at all! They are passive in their betting, often betting too infrequently to make enough value on their made hands. They also play a much tighter range of openings hands, preferring to rely on premium hands, often calling rather than raising and rarely bluffing.
4. Loose-Passive (LP): Loose-passive players often have a wide range of starting hands they like to play but are then passive in their betting. Playing hard on streets like the turn and especially the river can pay off well against these so-called ‘calling stations’, and aggressive players will almost always exploit these types of players without kickback.

To make the most use of these player types, you’ll need to match the type of player you’re against with the type of hands they like playing and this means finding out what their ‘range’ is.

What Is Range-Finding?

When you have ascertained what type of poker player you’re facing, you need to know what range of hands they like to play. For example, you could be facing a loose-aggressive player in a hand but if you’re unaware of what hands they love to play, you won’t know where you stand in the hand.

In this example, watch Daniel Negreanu take on Ed ‘EBJ’ Jordan in a raised pot between three players. In the hand, the Canadian Poker Hall of Famer has ace-king and we already know that another player has folded the same hand pre-flop. Jordan shoves the turn with just eight-high, but Negreanu is still faced with a tricky decision to call for a huge stack of chips.

Take a look at the hand here, commentated on by the late great Mike Sexton and his fellow WPT legend Vincent Van Patten.

Looking at the hand, that took place in Season 5 of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio, it’s hard to see why Negreanu makes the call without any context. However, with 2 million chips on the line, Negreanu’s range-finding is perfect. He doesn’t just believe himself to be ahead of his opponent and with outs if he’s wrong; Negreanu understands that EBJ likes to play certain hands. Suited connectors (two consecutive cards in the same suit) can be appealing to players and Negreanu’s knowledge of his opponent’s range is vital to him making the call after EBJ moves all-in.

Understanding range isn’t simply knowing a player type and adjusting it to a random selection of hands. Let’s say that after 10 minutes at your poker table, you’ve appraised each of your opponents and can categorize them as loose-aggressive, tight-aggressive, tight-passive or loose-passive types. That’s great, but their range of starting hands is still large.

Next time you play online poker, grab a notepad or open up the digital note-making facility attached to the player at the table. After each hand for 30 minutes, enter each hand that you see. For instance, if you watch a tight-aggressive player go to the river and get some thin value with king-ten against the pocket queens of a tight-passive player seeing a board of 8-4-3-K-5, you’ll be able to confirm your player type fairly easily.

Pocket queens being a favored hand of the tight-passive player isn’t big news either. But picking up the information that your supposed tight-aggressive opponent goes to the turn with king-ten that didn’t hit then calls on the river with connecting cards providing the risk of a straight is powerful… for you.

Note hands and you’ll quickly build up a picture of not only what type of player you’re dealing with, but which hands specifically appeal to them most from the range of hands you start off presuming they have.

The One Hack They Will Make You Money at Low Stakes

Let’s get right to it then – one neat hack that can start making you real money by exploiting weaker players around you. Let’s cut to the easy part by saying you want to be taking on loose-passive or loose-aggressive players for this play because tight-aggressive and even tight-passive players will be folding in this spot.

In the vast majority of low stakes online tournaments, including formats such as ‘fast-fold’ or short-handed variants like three-handed ‘Spin n Gos’, there comes a time where the blinds shorten to an average of between 10-15 big blinds. This is the sweet spot for this play and vital to its success; if you have put a player on this range and they make the move with 35 big blinds, your information can be way off, as a player moving all-in by risking 35 big blinds compared to a 10-big-blind hopeful looking to double back into contention are wildly different.

Loose players moving all-in or calling for their stacks of 10-15 big blinds may sound like a slim section of your poker opponent pool, but they’re really not. At low stakes, it’s practically everybody because as we’ve already stated, better players who exploit tight-aggressive plays will traditionally move up the ranking and hike their stakes – like you want to! Also, low stakes events frequently have faster structures because they don’t earn as much rake for the operator, so they need to be concluded quicker to be worthwhile to run more of them.

With all that told, the spot you’re looking for is going to come around again and again. The marginal position you’re going to be in is in holding a strong hand but not super-strong, such as ace-nine offsuit, or king-eight suited. Not power-play hands but also not super-weak. You will often come up against loose players who, when short, have a definable preference as to which hands they like to commit their chips with. This is often polarized between ace or king hands like ace-six to ace-nine, king-jack to king-eight or – and these are the pay-offs – attractive hands that play better post-flop but are often behind pre-flop like queen-jack suited or ten-nine suited.

If you can establish player types, then put players within the two loose types on commonly played hands such as queen-jack suited or ten-nine suited, then you can regularly call them off when they shove or – better yet – shove on them more with hands down to ace-nine or king-eight.

Moving all-in yourself is preferable because plenty of the time the passive half of the loose players we’ve discussed might fold and you’ll win the hand without even getting to showdown.

In Conclusion

Using this single hack to exploit weaker players at low stakes can not only vault you up the rankings within the tournament you’re playing but they can enable you to win more quickly and move up the stakes quicker than others.

Before you try the play, make sure that you establish player types with some success at the felt. Don’t be afraid to write things down while playing and when you know who you’re facing across the live or virtual felt, work out what you’re facing too. Make sure you practice range-finding and don’t be afraid to make mistakes at the low buy-ins you’ll start at.

Once you know player types and ranges, you’ll feel confident in executing the play with confidence, winning more often than you lose at a strong rate, improving your ability to read opponents along the way.

Want more low stakes poker tips? Trust Jonathan Little to add to your armory right here: