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Bowlboy · #1 05-13-2007, 12:58 AM

In the last month or so I've seen a few posters who have had trouble with the 2cent tables on Stars. I've seen some good solid advice from the uNL community for different situations. The general consensus is to play standard ABC poker and you'll get the money.

I've played just under 50k hands at 2cent. For the most part I played pretty standard ABC poker. I'm sure I've made thousands of costly mistakes over this sample as 2cent was where I started in NL last september, though that has'nt stopped me from sustaining 21.5PTBB/100. Started out 2 tabling and by the last 10k hands I was 9 tabling.

2cent is no place to learn to be a good player. The play is absolutely horrible there. It is a good place for people with small starting bankrolls to build up and move up. The reason I played so much there was because of money problems and I ended up cashing out so much and didnt allow my bankroll to grow.

I think that there was one major factor in my game that allowed me to do this. Overbetting strong hands when your opponents show strength. Basically, anytime I sensed that somebody liked their hand I would make large enough raises to get the money in by the river. By overbetting each street the pot grows to the size you want it at an exponentially faster rate as opposed to making 'standard' value bets.

An example would be leading out for .60 in a .10 pot on the flop. You get called and the pot is $1.30 on the turn. Lead for $2.00 on the turn and if you get called here and you have less than a pot sized bet on the river. Sometimes they fold but rarely if they've shown strength.

The reasons overbetting works so well at 2cent are:

2cent on Stars plays 250BB deep.
When you make a large overbet when you're hand is best you dont need to get called very frequently to make it more profitable than betting a more standard amount which will get called very frequently. Usually when somebody calls that flop overbet they're letting you know they like their hand enough to see the river and you're not going to persuade them otherwise.
Skalnsky and Miller go into great detail about this concept in NLHTAP. That's where I got the idea to make huge overbets, I think I applied it in an extreme manner due to the...

Extreme Looseness

Everybody knows that their are lots of calling stations in the micros. At 2cent 'lots' is a massive understatement. The majority of players are huge calling stations from my experience. Take advantage of this. When you make a big hand bet it hard on everystreet. Dont be deceptive. Big hands warrant big overbets. Nobody's paying attention. They're busting out their last $5 in their bankroll and somebody new is depositing his first $25. Somebody else sits down a few minutes later with $3.50 from running super hot in a freeroll donkament. They cycle in and out so fast you dont need to take image into account. Nobody is ever going to notice that you're playing small pots with marginal hands and all-in pots with strong hands.

Aside from that I always just played a reasonably tight game because I was either short rolled and new to NL or I was playing too many tables to play very loose. Because a lot of pots are unraised preflop and multiway you can afford to see a lot of cheap flops and stack people's top pair with your bottom two or trips etc.

Preflop at 2cent you have to be willing to call your stack in with JJ+, AK, AQ in most situations. You may come across situations where folding JJ or AQ preflop to the occasional thinker who is 4betting you but it's rare.

I know this is going to be tl;dr for some so in summary 2+2ers who are starting out at 2cent who are'nt crushing it need to play ABC Tag and utilize overbets with strong hands in order to maximize value, increase winrate and move up asap before you learn too many stupid habits.

Here's my graph for 49k hands or whatever just to let you know it is possible and I think if you concentrate on maximizing full value from your big hands you'll have hardly any variance.

Here's a couple of example hands where I used big overbets to maximize my profit.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

MP ($2.98)
CO ($3)
Button ($2.92)
Hero ($4.96)
BB ($5.06)
UTG ($1.38)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. CO posts a blind of $0.02.
2 folds, CO (poster) checks, Button calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.1, BB raises to $0.3, CO folds, Button folds, Hero raises to $4.96, BB calls $4.66.

Flop: ($9.96) A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 players)

Turn: ($9.96) 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 players)

River: ($9.96) 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 players)

Final Pot: $9.96

Results in white below: 
Hero has Kh Ac (one pair, aces).
BB has 7c Kc (high card, ace).
Outcome: Hero wins $9.96. 

 This is a good example of where an opponent has shown strength. Even though he had a junk hand, most cant fold preflop after they've 3bet, no matter how massive the overbet is. I'm not sure why that is.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (4 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

Button ($5.66)
SB ($15.19)
Hero ($5.59)
UTG ($2.34)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
1 fold, Button raises to $0.08, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.06.

Flop: ($0.17) 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero bets $0.1, Button calls $0.10.

Turn: ($0.37) 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks.

River: ($0.37) A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (2 players)
Hero bets $5.41 (All-In), Button calls $5.41.

Final Pot: $11.19

Results in white below: 
Button has Ks Ac (one pair, aces).
Hero has 3d 3h (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: Hero wins $11.19. 

 I realize that I've played this hand in a rediculous manner. This opponent was quite aggressive and I was'nt sure why he wasnt betting. The board was so dry and then the ace on the river. I knew this guy would not fold an ace here regardless of kicker so I just shoved. He'll probably fold if he has no ace, but the times that he does I'm making maximum profit 

Well I hope this can help out at least one person at 2cent on Stars. Good luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]