Let me be clear about something, playing in Coinpoker micro stake games can help you learn poker, but they can eventually become a poor use of your time. I will explain more about when it makes sense to eventually get away from them.
Winning at Micro Stakes Doesn’t Mean Time Well Spent
This took me a while to figure out when I was new to playing poker. I also thought if I was playing 10 or 15 tables at a time of .5 cent .10 cent I could make good money. Boy was I naive back then. Ha.
Playing more tables will increase your ROI for the time you put in but you need to usually cap the amount you’re playing as you move up in stakes. I generally don’t play more than 4 tables at a time on any site I use. But playing micro stakes eventually becomes a low financial return relative to the effort. I will explain this more in the next section.
The Biggest Problem: Your Actual Hourly Earnings
Let’s say for example you are killing .5 cent .10 cent and winning 8 big blinds per hour. On paper that sounds fantastic, but it equals $.80 cents per hour. Even if you multiply that by 4 tables that’s $3.20 per hour. You would still need to play many tables at a time to make minimum wage. Even if you were playing $.10 $.25 cent the numbers don’t change that much at all. If you are still dead set on playing micro stakes I put together some of the best options with more traffic than CoinPoker here.
Rake Makes Small Edges Harder to Turn Into Profit
The frustrating thing about micro stakes is that being better than the other players doesn’t guarantee you’ll make money worth caring about. You still must beat the rake.
Every time the room takes a cut from an eligible pot, there’s less money left for the players. That matters when your advantage is already small. You can spend hours making decent decisions, picking off bad bluffs, and getting paid with strong hands, only to finish with very little to show for it.
This is why looking around a CoinPoker table and spotting weak players isn’t enough. Those players might give you an edge, but the question is how much of that edge survives after the fees. Rewards can help, but you need to count what you receive. A promotion doesn’t automatically turn a marginal game into a good use of your evening.
Before you commit to grinding, check the current rake structure and track your results over a meaningful sample. Include any rewards in the calculation. All you’re barely winning after all that, adding more hours won’t fix the underlying problem. You need better decisions, better game selection, or a realistic reason to keep playing beyond the money you expect.
Playing More Tables Doesn’t Automatically Solve the Problem
I already mentioned this earlier but adding more players won’t solve the problem. Because each time you add a table the less effective you will be at making good decisions with each table you add.
What I’ve noticed happens with my own game is that I can keep adding tables and play good for a relatively short amount of time, but the mental workload burns me out a lot faster, and I eventually start making poor decisions. Even playing micro stake games you can lose when your decision making suffers, and that usually comes from trying to play too many tables at a time or playing long sessions when you are already burnt out.
When CoinPoker Microstakes Actually Make Sense
If you are new to online poker or just trying to get a feel for the software, I think it’s okay to do. You just don’t want to trap yourself into playing micro stakes for 6 months or longer without moving up. You could technically just say to yourself I’m playing for entertainment, but you shouldn’t forget that your time is valuable and you don’t want to waste it grinding out pennies at a time. I’m basically trying to say that you don’t want to spend too much time playing the micros.
What I Would Do Instead
I would play micro stakes for a couple of months max and then move up to at least 50nl or 100nl and try and 2 table that stake. This will force you to become a better player since you will naturally be playing against better opponents at these stakes. Micro stakes also has a lot of bad players who will give you bad habits if you stick around playing them too long. Plus, you also must factor in the rake is a lot worse when you are playing low-stake games.
Final Thoughts
Micro stakes poker has a place in the online poker, but you shouldn’t get too comfortable. Use it as a baseline to test out a sites software or get a feel for the game if you’re sort of new to poker. Just don’t get trapped there for more than 6 months. Even if you try and tell yourself that you don’t care because you are just playing for fun that’s not the attitude you should have.
Online poker is very competitive in nature and all of us want to prove that we’re the best or at least better than the people at the stake we are playing at. If you continually move up and push yourself, you will find that by slowly improving each week and getting better at decision making in certain situations you have what it takes to play much higher stakes. Looking back on my own poker journey I wish I had gotten away from them sooner because I probably got stuck playing micro stakes for a good 2 years before I moved up to 100nl and that’s when things really shifted for me as a poker player. Don’t be afraid to take shots when your bankroll allows it because you can always move back down. But if you never take a shot, you will never know how good you really are at this game.
Edward Pao is an online poker and casino affiliate marketer with over 10 years of experience in the industry. He has referred over 30,000 players to major poker platforms and specializes in reviewing the best online poker sites and casino bonuses.