As we wrote in our last article, online micro stakes can be tough to beat due to the very high rake (see the previous article by clicking here) and the limited skill of players trying to beat the stake.
Edges can be there, but are significantly reduced due to rake, and beating these limits requires a precise approach, meaning you have to know exactly what to do, as you don’t want to be paying rake and guessing the right moves. If you are missing the right moves, you could end up stuck at micros and find out why they are called the rake trap.
In this article, we will compare two of the limits where at most online sites rake is high, but players start to understand what they are doing compared to lower limits. Let’s dive in!
Fast Poker is a format where, when you fold a hand, you are instantly thrown to another table and dealt a new hand. (Blitz Poker, Rush & Cash, Zoom, Speed Poker..)
Beating Fast NL10 Online
As expected, NL10 will still have more recreational players than NL25, but there will also be some regulars who are stuck at the limit and are not winning or losing significant amounts of money, but are mostly grinding for the rakeback or leaderboards.
You will face less aggression (fewer 3-bets, fewer 4-bets, fewer overbets, and generally fewer double and triple barrels postflop) compared to NL25. Regulars will still be quite passive and will mostly call and play tight while trying to avoid high variance spots and look to play hands as safely as possible. NL10 is also one of the online limits with the most action and the biggest player pools on various sites.
The adjustments you need to make to beat this limit are to know which spots are underbluffed, which spots are overbluffed, exploit on the mistakes of bad blind defense, play aggressively in sponts where you have range and nuts advantage, play your percived range and not your hand, and all in all do a lot of exploiting as your opponents will be heavily inbalanced in many ways.
It is possible for the best regulars to crush this stake for 10-15bb/100, which is going to be less than 1% of the pool. Most of the average regulars have low win rates or will break even, while only a total of 7.5% of the player pool will avoid losing money in the long term.
You have to consider that these win rates are after you already paid rake, which is around -9.1 bb/100, meaning that the best regulars will have a win rate of 19-24bb/100 before rake. It is also essential for players to focus on beating the other players at the table, rather than just playing ABC poker and chasing rakeback.
Beating Fast NL25 Online
The recipe is the same for beating NL25 as it is for beating NL10. Still, the difference is that you will face more aggression (more 3-bets, more 4-bets, more overbets, and generally more double and triple barrels postflop). However, it will still not be enough aggression, and the pool will still play far from the optimal, giving us an open door to exploit where we can.
There will still be opportunities to exploit, but they will be less obvious, and we will have to focus more on each spot. There will still be the same underbluffed and overbluffed spots where we should adjust properly, but we will face slightly fewer recreationals and slightly more decent regulars.
On the good side, rake will be slightly lower, dropping from -9.1bb/100 to -7.4bb/100 compared to NL10. The number of winners in the pool will increase from 7.5% to 8.6%, while there will be fewer breakeven players and more big losers or slight winners.
I would call the NL25 gatekeeper stake to professional poker, as if you can beat NL25, you are one step away from becoming a professional poker player, as beating fast NL50 online will give you enough earning power to live from just playing poker in most countries. This will also put you in the top 1% best poker players on the planet without any doubt.
Differences Between Regular Tables, Live Poker, and Fast Online Poker
When we compare these three formats, we have to say that fast online poker is the hardest one to beat, and beating NL10 in fast poker would almost guarantee you could beat $1/$2 in live poker if you make a few adjustments.
The online regular tables are softer as there are more recreational players, and you can sit with them for many hands and wait for the great spot to win their stack, while in fast poker, you are thrown to a different table every hand.
Live poker seems like the softest format as you will have all the benefits of the regular table, plus you will face even more recreational players and people who just like to gamble, cause guess what, you are in the casino.
The problem with live poker is that there are additional expenses, such as flights, accommodation, and food. Access to the best games is limited at higher stakes, and the rake is almost always higher than in online poker. Additionally, you play significantly fewer hands per hour.
We will talk more about live poker in future articles, so stay tuned!
If you missed our article where we explain how micros are harder to beat than high stakes, you can check it here!
