Beating the smallstakes no-limit Texas Hold em poker games is rather different from the bigger ring games for several reasons. Firstly you will get called down more with mediocre hands even for a 100BB stack simply because the players are weaker. So you need to eliminate big bluffing from your repertoire of moves. I am not saying that you should never do this but it simply isnt necessary to make money at these levels. What makes poker players bad? Well numerous different things really but the main factors are a poor technical game or parts of your game that are poor, poor discipline and poor money management.
These are the big three killers for novice and even intermediate players. So this means that emotional control will become one of your biggest weapons at this level. If you have a decent poker game, good bankroll management and good discipline then you will beat low-stakes no-limit cash games. The key is not to get drawn into crazy bluffs and multi-barrel stack demolishing power plays. Your opponents will make some wacky calls and there is nothing worse than deciding to run a bluff and getting caught bluffing for your entire stack when someone calls with top pair.
The feeling of unjust when you see their hand and how they could have possibly called three barrels with one pair astounds you but it can also tilt you as well. You feel tilted because you run a bluff that you didnt have to make and you feel tilted that you got caught and lost the hand but you also feel tilted that your opponent shouldnt have called and that your play should have been successful. When you are multi-tabling then this can be disastrous in two ways. If you continue to play poker when you are tilting then many of your decisions will be poor ones and thus EV.
If you do the right thing and stop then this is not good either although it is clearly the lesser of the two evils. But you are supposed to be a poker player and not someone who sits out and tries to cool off. If youre hourly rate is $20/hr and you have to sit out to cool off and you lose four hours of play then your tilt has cost you $80. You may pride yourself on your discipline to sit out the game but how about working on that tilt and saving yourself some money?
So the moral here is that big bluffs are not needed but low-stakes no-limit games can be boring as hell and especially full ring because nothing seems to happen for long periods of time. But this is a normal part of the process and you are essentially circling around probing and making the odd little tiny bluff when you are getting a good risk reward ratio. Like if you bet $2 into a $4 pot heads up. If you win with this play 50% of the time then you make money. In fact you would still break even if you only managed a 33% success rate here. Contrast this with wild and wacky bluffs that are simply not needed at this level to make money where you lose far more than you ever stood to win in the first place.
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