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Online poker is as busy as ever and many of you are jumping into it for the first time. We recommend starting in micro stakes cash games and tournaments, you must learn to walk before you can run.

Micro stakes are the most popular stakes in the online poker world. Companies show you the glitz and glam of high stakes, but the majority of the action is at micro stakes tables. We consider micro stakes to be cash games with blinds of $0.01/$0.02 to $0.05/$0.10. Buy-ins of $0.01 to $4.40 are micro stakes tournaments.

With that out of the way, let’s get started on telling you how to beat micro stakes games online.

Tight Is Mostly Right in Micro Stakes Games

Games with small blinds and buy-ins tend to be quite loose. The main reason behind this is players don’t have a lot of money invested so tend not to care as much. Higher stakes players sometimes drop down to micro stakes to blow off some steam if they’re running bad. Also, sometimes but not always, players are grinding these stakes because they’re not skilled enough to play any higher.

You make most of your money in poker by adopting a style that is the opposite of your opponents. Play looser if they are all rocks, play tighter is they are loosey-goosey. You should, mostly, play tight-aggressive poker at the lowest stakes.

This means having a solid starting hand selection. All pairs are playable, as are Broadway hands, suited aces, big aces, and suited connectors. Remember that position is king in all forms of poker so play tighter in early position, looser in late. Learn more about that here.

Keep Matters Simple At Micro Stakes Level

The majority of players at this level lack the knowledge and skills to understand elaborate bluffs. They simply look at their hands and rarely give a second thought about anything else.

Running a bluff is an art form. It’s essentially telling a story that you have a better hand than your opponent. What’s the point in telling a story to someone who isn’t listening? There isn’t one. Your bluff may seem well thought out and plausible, but your micro stakes opponent looks at the board, sees they have second pair and is calling you all day long!

Keep things simple in these games. Value bet your strong hands and learn when to give up.

Micro Stakes Players Will Pay Your Off

Being able to extract value from hands separates winning from losing poker players. There’s no point in flopping a set if you don’t get paid off with it. Micro stakes players love to pay you off, thankfully.

The best way to extract value is to bet your hands. These players tend to be calling stations who call bets with any piece of the board or a draw. This means you should be prepared to bet the hell out of your strong hands, especially if you’ve had a bet called.

Don’t be afraid of slow playing hands either if your opponent is loose-aggressive. Well-disguised hands such as sets are perfect to slow play against an aggressive opponent. Check-call your way to the river before sticking in a raise on the end.

Overbetting is a good way to extract value from the strongest of hands, particularly preflop. Micro stakes players are prepared to dust off their entire stack preflop with a wide range of hands. This means if you raise with a hand such as kings or aces and are three-bet, a big four-bet is usually the correct play. Call their inevitable shove, obviously, and expect to see pocket tens, jacks, ace-queen and ace-king a lot of the time.

Listen To What Your Opponent is Telling You

The late Kenny Rogers famously sang, “you gotta know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em” and this is true in micro stakes games.

Your opponents will tend to play what is called ABC poker. They bet when they have a hand. They don’t bet when they don’t have a hand. Calling is a different matter entirely because they’ll call while on a draw, for example.

Not paying off your opponents and conserving chips is a great way to boost your winrate. That player who has check-called all the way to the river of a 3h-2d-Qc-Jd-6s board only to come out firing or raising on the river almost always has five-four or pocket sixes in that spot.

It can be frustrating to fold to these types of players, but it is vital to your success.

Follow Bankroll Management; Think In Terms of Big Blinds

Just because the stakes are low doesn’t mean you should disregard bankroll management. It is still important regardless of you playing micro stakes of the nosebleed stakes.

It can be demoralising to play for two or three hours only to win $3.28 at the $0.01/$0.02 tables because it seems like a waste of time. Don’t think like this. Realise that the time you’re investing is part of your poker education and journey.

Also, try to think in terms of big blinds instead of the monetary value. In the above example, you only won $3.28 but that is 164 big blinds. Thinking like this also stops you making silly calls because “it’s only $1.20” to call.

Above all, enjoy your time at the micro stakes games. They can be great fun and the players there are more relaxed than higher stakes. The fact you can win money from your new “friends” is an added bonus!

So, you're interested in online poker, but you don't want to risk too much money just yet. Where's the best place to play small stakes online poker for real money?

Below is a table of what I think are the best sites for low limit online poker.

Best small stakes poker rooms.

Note: The SNG column indicates the lowest stakes single-table (STT), non-turbo SNGs on offer.

How I've rated these sites.

These poker rooms have primarily been ranked based on players looking to play no limit Texas Hold'em poker online for small stakes, whether that be in cash games or tournaments (i.e. SNGs and MTTs).

Low Stakes Online Poker

Here are the 4 main factors I took in to account when ranking these sites:

1. The lowest stakes games on offer.
2. The number of players frequently active at these limits.
3. How bad the players at these stakes are.
4. The general overall quality of the poker room based on software, traffic and support.

Clearly the level of the absolute lowest stakes cash games and SNGs on offer at a poker room is one of the biggest factors. It's not much use signing up to a poker room that doesn't offer SNG games under $5, or cash games under $10NL if you have a $30 bankroll. Even if you intend on playing at slightly higher limits anyway, it's always good to have the flexibility there to move down if needs be.

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I've also taken in to account the quality of the competition. The softer the competition, the more money you will win – it's as simple as that. Therefore, I've included my rating of the 'softness' of the poker sites in the table to help you make the best choice.

Lastly, player traffic and my rating of the poker room overall has been considered. I'm sure I don't need to explain why on those two counts.

Summary of the smallest stakes games on offer.

Here's a quick summary of the most common limits of micro stakes games available at the majority of online poker sites.

• 1c/2c (this is the absolutely lowest level available online)
• 2c/5c
• 5c/10c
• 10c/25c (you can occasionally find 10c/20c games at places like the iPoker network)
• 25c/50c

• $1 + 20c
• $2 + 25c
• $5 + 50c
• $10 + $1

Playing micro limit online poker for the first time?

We've all played low stakes online poker; even the best players had to start somewhere. It all starts with grinding it out in the micro stakes cash games or low level tournaments, building a bankroll and moving up to higher limits when you get the chance.

There are two key things to remember:

1. Take your time and play within your limits.
2. Keep playing and learning.

1) Take your time and play within your limits.

Good bankroll management is essential. And no, I don't mean that in the 'flossing is essential' or 'remembering your relatives' birthdays is essential' way. I mean it as in 'not turning the gas cooker off before you go to sleep is essential' and 'not starting fights with bears is essential'.

Best Poker Sites For Micro Stakes 2019

Seriously, treat your bankroll with ultimate respect. Without it, you can't play poker and you can't win money. Don't get careless and fritter your earnings away because you're on tilt.

Here are the basic rules of bankroll management that you should always stick to:

• Cash games - always have at least 20 buy-ins for the stakes you're playing at.
• SNGs - always have at least 40 buy-ins (including fees) for the level you want to play at.

If Chris ferguson can do it, so can you.

2) Keep playing and learning.

Best Poker Sites For Micro Stakes Poker

The more you play and the more you learn, the better you will get. The better you get, the more money you'll win. It's the cycle that every successful poker player has taken and continues to take.

Read strategy articles, read books, watch strategy videos, join a training site.

Best Poker Sites For Micro Stakes Odds

The information on how to win money from poker is out there, it's just up to you whether or not you take advantage of it.

How the stakes of online poker are categorized.

Technically, $50NL cash games and lower are referred to as the 'micro stakes' and not 'small stakes'. Seems quite strange considering that I'd hardly call $50 (or even $10 for that matter) a micro amount of money. But that's just how it is.

I decided to go ahead and call this page a guide to the best 'small stakes sites' anyway as I know that's what most people are searching for when they use that phrase.

For the sake of education and being thorough, here's how the different levels/limits of NLHE cash games and SNGs are categorized:

Free Poker Training Sites

Note: I've used shorthand for the cash game levels in the table above. Stakes written like $50NL indicate the standard maximum 100bb buy-in for that level. So for example, $50NL is the same as writing 25c/50c, and $400NL is the same as writing $2/$4.
This is a common way of writing the varying limits in NLHE cash games. The cool thing about this notation is that it saves you having to try and type that pesky forward slash.

You may also notice that the term 'low limit' or 'low stakes' poker hasn't been used here. That term is more commonly used when referring to playing live poker in casinos, with anything up to $3/$5 being considered low limit (crazy I know). It's just another one of those things in poker.

A few extra tips.

• Use good bankroll management. I've told you about this before, but it's so important it's worth mentioning at least one more time.
• Don't get too fancy against micro stakes players. You only need to think one level above a poker player to beat them, and small stakes Texas Hold'em players are thinking on a low level for the most part.
• Avoid paying more than 10% in tournament fees. Paying 20% in fees for SNGs is just going to kill your winrate. 10% fees are standard at most levels, but in the micro levels at some rooms the fees are bumped up. Either avoid these rooms, or play at a slightly higher level where the fees are more friendly.
• Take your time. It's not about doubling your bankroll in each session. Poker is a marathon, not a sprint. If you want quick and easy winnings, play roulette.

After that, it's all about time, effort and persistence. Just make sure you give me a shout out when you win your first WSOP main event.

Useful links.

Go back to the Texas Hold'em rooms.