Micro-Limit Cash games don't play the same as their Big Brothers

Lately, I have been playing a $1/$2 No Limit cash game. I am even after about a week. Honestly, it has been a bit of a grind and it is not nearly as fun as sitting in a live cash game conversing with the other poker players. Most importantly you cannot see your opponent online which removes a critical element of the game. That being said, the game is fairly straight forward online but there is profit to be made. I figured that the first week or so was going to be kind of slow and I decided that I was not going to be overly aggressive trying to make things happen. I believe that is the wrong approach in a cash game especially when you are new to a table and have not played with any of the players.



Anyhow, a friend of mine had decided to play at a .02/.05 cents table as he was chomping at the bit to play a little. I warned him that the play at that kind of limit was not the same as a $1/$2 table and that he should not expect any of his raises to be respected due to the fact that the limits were simply too low. Well, he decided to play anyway and promptly lost $25 dollars. Now that certainly is not anything we should be contacting the poker media about but for a two-cent five-cent table that is a HUGE amount of money.

Here is how the hand played out:

Hero has $50 [K][K]

Opponent has $30 [A][8]

Hero raises to .20 cents pre-flop from the button.

Opponent calls with [A][8]

The flop comes down [X][X][8]

Hero makes a $1 bet and his opponent flat calls.

The turn is an [A] with no flush draw on the board or straight possibilities

The hero shoves his chips not giving his opponent credit for anything and realizes that he is almost drawing dead on the river after making such a foolish move.

True, this table is an extreme case but the moral of the story is that if you want to see strong fundamental play and have your raises respected you will need to move up to at least .25/.50 micro-limits to do so. Everything else is a crap shoot and players a libel to call with any two cards.