Dario Minieri’s take on playing poker at micro-limits

Those who make their baby steps in the world of poker, find everything related to the game extraordinary and they tend to talk a lot about it whenever they have the occasion. That’s why, when players explain how thrilled they are at playing at micro-limits, many of their more experienced peers tend to dismiss them as amateurs. The truth is that very few have made a successful transition from these limits to regular ones and there are not many success stories or guidelines out there.

Dario Minieri is a poker professional who competes at high-stakes and is well familiar with major tournaments, but very few know that he started from scratch. He knew that time was on his side but he didn’t have a lot of money, so he didn’t mind playing at micro limits until he finally honed his skills. One of the things he emphasizes is that these units provide you with the rare opportunity of learning while you earn and keeps you safe from catastrophic losses.

Sometimes, players need to sit down at $0.01/$0.02 tables and compete for what others regard as pocket money for the kids. Knowing that you need to gradually open additional tables until you finally accumulate enough money in your online account to move to the next limits can be disheartening. One of the mistakes that many amateurs commit is that they think about what the amounts won at the end of a lengthy session would buy them in the real world.

This is a winning mistake, because it devalues the entire notion of learning while you play at micro-limits and opens the door for tilt to insinuate. Dario Minieri explains how he took every single table seriously and focused mostly on growing organically, because he knew that this is the only sustainable way of building a poker career. Once he had enough money he moved to the next limits, but he didn’t jump from one to the other before his bankroll would allow it.

There are not many who have the results and experience of Dario to contradict him on this issue and beginners should heed his words. Time solves everything and those who take micro-limits seriously will eventually go all the way up to the top and the most successful ones will one day play at nosebleed limits. On the other hand, if you try to advance to soon, you risk jeopardizing everything and for many aspiring poker players a significant loss in the early stages of their career can prove insurmountable.