Practicing bluffs in microstakes

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Practicing bluffs in microstakes

Just joined - one of the biggest things I've wanted to work on is my bluffs. I have trouble maintaining aggression in microstakes (5NL to 25NL, zoom or regular cash) as I find it difficult to get fold equity. However, I am sure that the general population's distaste towards folding reduces at higher stakes, so I'm not sure if I'm just trying to practice this in vain at stakes where the population tends to get far stickier. I have been following videos here, but again - they are playing at far higher stakes than I and I'm not sure if following their lines is profitable at stakes my bankroll can handle right now.

I'm not sure if this is a common problem - I'd like to be able to play Zoom profitably but when everyone is an unknown who tends to overcall, I'm not sure if I am really going to improve for the next stakes adjusting too much to the current population.

Curious to see if this has been an issue for anyone else, or if I'm just over thinking it - perhaps the adjustments I need aren't that significant.

3 Comments

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Jeff_ 6 years, 3 months ago

unknown who tends to overcall

If thats a statement you are 90% sure and confident about it, then doesn't make sense to be bluffing a lot. Just valuebet more(start to put big sizes too) and bluff less, that's a good exploit vs players with those tendencies.

Wallmonger 6 years, 3 months ago

Probably, the best skill you can learn, is to value bet very well against selected opponents. If villains don't fold much, there's no point in finding marginal spots to bluff. It's way better to focus on value bet relentlessly.

burek2000 6 years, 3 months ago

My advice would be to learn to play tighter and for value on those stakes. When your ranges are correct, you will have tons of value to bet with(you have tons of thin value against calling stations) and showdown value to utilize and you won't need many bluffs in the first place. You have to be vary that playing too loose aggressive at those stakes can be a losing style due to rake impact.

So, first, make sure your base value game is very solid. After that, you will start to learn what spots, what boards and which players tend to fold in a given situation. Then, you can start exploiting certain spots, but know that you have to careful with choosing them as it can easily lead to you spewing unnecessary chips.

And lastly, don't try to learn from high stakes videos because players there will use principles that you can't yet understand(a lot of moves there come from lots of background knowledge and meta game that you will misuse if you try to apply) and they also quite likely wouldn't work on your stakes. Make your base game strong and build on that step after step and don't rush to crazy bluffing techniques.

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