Low stakes tournaments sure don't feel like real poker

gambit1983 · Oct 20, 2021

if you hate it that much i would consider playing another form of poker rather than texas holdem.

Kenzie 96 · Oct 20, 2021

I see this so often, someone bemoans the fact that he/she has put x amount of time into becoming the player he is because of #1 bla-bla-bla & #2 yada-yada-yada & why oh why can't other players see this & play the way he wants & for the reasons he wants, just like they do in real life. You just have to settle for the fact that they have contributed to the prize pool you are competing for & last I heard you pay for the cards you can play them however you want. One of the first things I learned playing as a kid, someone is willing to lose a pile just so he can stroke his ego by winning now & then, you smile say nice hand & use the money you took off him to buy some gas, take your girlfriend to the drive-in movie & hey maybe ......

okeedokalee · Oct 20, 2021

By logic you are saying higher buy-in tournaments have players you can beat because they play better. So enter at a higher level and win them.
If yo find $20 hard to win, I can assure you at higher entry levels they are no easier. Because these players bluff more you never know where you are, and if you bluff they can read your motives.

Dandadandan · Oct 21, 2021

Doesn't really make sense what you're complaining about. Bad players are the best source of poker profit! Sure you might take a bad beat here and there but "that's poker"

WJMKAM · Oct 21, 2021

Just had AK, flop A 4 K. Opponent raised big. I called. Turn 2. Another Large bet. 90% of my stack. I go All In and get called. River 3. He has A5 for a straight.

You come to expect this on the first hand of a 1000 player tournament. It can give you a big head start if you win, or you are out early. If I can win a bunch of these, I can go far.

Low pairs tend to be strong early in tournaments. AA is not strong early.

jason2626 · Oct 21, 2021

Bigjay wants to know

I like smaller tournaments if you have a issue with those tournaments don't play them.... but that's my opinion :icon_bigs

hecendorfer · Oct 21, 2021

deeznutzz said:
I've been studying and playing NLHE for the past 3 or 4 years. Although the ultimate goal is to make money that isn't what drives me to play. The reason I invest so much time and energy is because I enjoy the competitiveness and the complexity of the game. I like challenging myself to improve not only my play but my understanding of the game. If I had to guess I would say that I've spent several hundred hours learning and studying the game.
For a multitude of reasons I don't play in the high stakes cash games or mtts preferring instead to play mainly in tournaments with $20 or less buy ins. The issue that I find is that over time the quality of play in those games has deuterated to the point where I feel like I'm no longer playing poker and instead I'm merely gambling. The pandemic has brought with it a massive influx of new players. Many of these players have learned the game primarily from playing in either free money poker apps or from playing freerolls and now these player types seem to make of the majority of players in the low stake tournaments.
My main problem with this isn't that I'm adverse to playing against players who aren't very good it's that most of these players have no interest in actually playing poker they're there simply to gamble. They play any two cards in any and everyway possible. You can forget about trying to put a player on any sort of range. You'll see guys limp pocket aces and then a couple of hands later they'll shove a 100bb stack with J4o. Theres no such thing as isolating players. You 3bet or 4bet preflop and hands like pocket 2s or 93o will jam and before it gets back to you 3 or 4 players are likely to have called. Postflop players either check or min raise that is unless they hit top pair or better. When that happens the snap shove all in. This type of play goes on hand after hand after hand. Sure its easy to exploit these kind of players but to me its mindless poker. Forget position, hand ranges, pot odds, bet sizing, bluffing. Just wait for a monster hand and get it in while folding everything else. You want to make a final table? Start folding your top pairs to big bets and get it in with sets, straights and flushes. Thats pretty the only strategy needed. Like I mentioned earlier, to me thats not poker

Im sorry if i appear disrespectful but i have to ask what have you been studying for 3-4 years?
I opened a small micro stakes book yesterday literally after two minutes of reading quoting your words what players complaining about when they can not beat this level, due to lack of studying willingness to improve adapting their strategy, and also when they try to deny the fact poker is a gambling game.
Your skills can be profitable on long run. But mate if you learn 3-4 years and still don’t understand the very basics like this im not sure you don’t need to improve your skills as well…
Yes it is frustrating when they are calling you with any two cards and they got lucky and win but this is keeping the game alive. You can adapt to it and make profit of it or you are going to loose possibly on any level.
If you are playing only for enjoyment and this kind of game doesn’t suits for you might you can try yourself in an only skill game like chess.

Zapahlohotrona · Oct 21, 2021

At micro stakes the easiest game to play. Believe me, at higher limits you will face much more serious problems than variance. Micro limits are played by ABC game.

lyki67 · Oct 21, 2021

I play only low and micro stakes. I'm not profi and I play for fun.

Luvepoker · Oct 21, 2021

No matter what level you play and both live and online you can run into these types of players. Yes the bigger buy ins they are much less frequent and even less seen in the live screens but they are out there. When I played my first WPT main event I has 2 od them show up at my table. Not what I expected but it happens.

Pripri1986 · Oct 22, 2021

Perfect for a beginner though!

jordanbillie · Oct 22, 2021

Obviously the OP was just venting, as they never returned to discuss any of the points.

My starting point would be to ask the OP, "What IS real poker?"

viacheslavtezikov · Oct 22, 2021

Low stakes tournaments sure don't feel like real poker - I can say this about freerolls. Personally, I enjoy playing low stakes tournaments.)

ghitocarcia · Oct 22, 2021

poker will always be poker, whether when they are low limits or high limits, what makes the difference is that at high levels the vast majority of players will be professionals,
and there will always be one or another who will play for fun, instead at low levels
there is not so much professional, and the players do not bother to study, but anyway
it will always be competitive and poker is poker.

fundiver199 · Oct 22, 2021

jordanbillie said:
Obviously the OP was just venting, as they never returned to discuss any of the points.

My starting point would be to ask the OP, "What IS real poker?"

After making this post more than a year ago, OP has had limited activity in the forum and most of it in threads about topics like "socialism" and "do you think god is real". So obviously he is not really all that interested in poker

7jules · Oct 22, 2021

Wow!? Really!

Phoenix Wright said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBg_aY0pJr0

Never thought I'd find myself disagreeing with @kidpoker, but he doesn't like being shoved on, and says that's not poker. Wonder what he would say if the rolls where reversed!?

:deal:

garibe · Oct 22, 2021

fundiver199 said:
Very much agree. There is a lot of this stuff, where people just post something to vent, and after that they never return to the thread, they started, or even the forum as such.

And being a "beginner" I found the statement dangerous to new players.

I heard it years ago, when I first started online playing (2008/09).

"Micros are based on luck only"

Still, at that time I was able to min cash some tournaments (PS .10 / .30 cents 180p mtts). At this time, I had read Harringtons on poker and that was it.

Due to my career I stopped playing for years.

Went back to it in 2016/17. Never got even close to min cash.

Absolutely wrecked, ashamed, ridiculed. I had no idea what I was doing, thinking "Harrington's on poker" still the bible to go with (At that time I did not even remember half of it I guess).

And my game, was not online poker game. So, I was thinking "ohh every one goes all in with n cards, this is ridiculous!" why am I not getting my cards on the board??? ohh pooor me, this game is rigged! (yeah, I once had that thinking too).

Stopped again.

This year, I started studying, reading, listening to the insights of the current state of the game.

I invested in information and I am being more active in the communities I participate (very good way to talk poker to ppl who are also serious about it) and after a couple months with just the basics of it BOOOM! I was able to run deep, run good, and even WIN!

So. NO. micro stakes are just a different strategy when thinking poker. To be honest, whenever I blamed another player of a bad play, when reviewing the hand I often found that I was the bad player.

So, if you are not winning on micros first think of the variance, then ask yourself if you are indeed putting in the work or just waiting for rungoods.

It makes no sense saying that higher stakes are easier lol If they were, why aren't all the micro players going to high stakes?

fundiver199 · Oct 22, 2021

garibe said:
And being a "beginner" I found the statement dangerous to new players.

I heard it years ago, when I first started online playing (2008/09).

"Micros are based on luck only"

Still, at that time I was able to min cash some tournaments (PS .10 / .30 cents 180p mtts). At this time, I had read Harringtons on poker and that was it.

Due to my career I stopped playing for years.

Went back to it in 2016/17. Never got even close to min cash.

Absolutely wrecked, ashamed, ridiculed. I had no idea what I was doing, thinking "Harrington's on poker" still the bible to go with (At that time I did not even remember half of it I guess).

And my game, was not online poker game. So, I was thinking "ohh every one goes all in with n cards, this is ridiculous!" why am I not getting my cards on the board??? ohh pooor me, this game is rigged! (yeah, I once had that thinking too).

Stopped again.

This year, I started studying, reading, listening to the insights of the current state of the game.

I invested in information and I am being more active in the communities I participate (very good way to talk poker to ppl who are also serious about it) and after a couple months with just the basics of it BOOOM! I was able to run deep, run good, and even WIN!

So. NO. micro stakes are just a different strategy when thinking poker. To be honest, whenever I blamed another player of a bad play, when reviewing the hand I often found that I was the bad player.

So, if you are not winning on micros first think of the variance, then ask yourself if you are indeed putting in the work or just waiting for rungoods.

It makes no sense saying that higher stakes are easier lol If they were, why aren't all the micro players going to high stakes?

I deleted the post, you were replying to, but I very much agree with all of this. This post is basically a variation of the theme "I hate playing against bad players, maybe I should move up, where they respect my raises". And I guess this can basically be boiled down to two points:

1) Poker is much easier, if people fold to your aggression on the early streets, because then you dont need to make difficult decisions on the later streets.

2) When we are bluffing on the river, we obviously like our bluffs to get through.

But there are some pretty simple answers to both of that:

1) If you are betting a lot on the early streets like C-betting nearly every hand, then people are actually supposed to defend quite wide. So while your life would be easier, if they just always folded, this is not something, you can expect them to do. If you move up to higher stakes, then people will also not just always fold and let you have the pot easily. The only difference is, they might continue in a more aggressive way like check-raising you more, or floating and then betting turn when checked to.

2) If your river bluff got snapped off, then your opponent actually made a correct decision. So rather than blaming him for a "bad call", you should look at your own line creation. Did you pick the right situation and opponent to bluff, and did you tell a good story? Or was it more like "i dont think, I can win at showdown, so I will bet, and hopefully he fold".

Bennoda · Oct 22, 2021

I didn’t play real poker because we have it banned and you can play only in one city of our country, but I think online poker and poker in life are very different

manzanillo53 · Oct 22, 2021

Low stakes is just getting your feet wet in a wading pool. learn to swim in a reg pool then jump in the ocean and swim with the big fish.

hubcio96 · Oct 22, 2021

What is "real" poker - GTO? Low stakes poker is real poker - just a different strategy, and you have to adjust to it. Just like different phases of the tournament - beginning, middle, late, cash Bubble, deep run, final table - you have to adjust, or you will be exploitable. (same with opening ranges - different ranges for different spots on the felt) Static ranges will loose in the long run

terryk · Oct 22, 2021

all i hear is,,,,"waaaaa,why don't they let me win? :aetsch: lol

samuri · Oct 22, 2021

poker

I still plug away and win more than lose with all in players playing 23 o

fundiver199 · Oct 23, 2021

terryk said:
all i hear is,,,,"waaaaa,why don't they let me win? :aetsch: lol

Exactly. OP wrote:

deeznutzz said:
Sure its easy to exploit these kind of players

But why then did he not play and exploit them, until he had enough bankroll to move up and play some more expensive games? This just does not add up

daurensdo · Oct 23, 2021

This is real poker, there are a lot of fish here, and you can beat them on skill

Low stakes tournaments sure don't feel like real poker

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