Poker Stars Steps: Guide

My journey up the steps.

In order to avoid over use of my bankroll I set aside a certain amount I was willing to invest in the steps. This is a good tip as the rake in these is higher than that of standard STTs so be warned. I set aside $75 which allowed for 10 entries to the $7.50 step 1.

I also devised a strategy before play began, I decided that I’d play out all my step 1s before proceeding to step 2, then all my step 2s and so on.

Step 2 entries are worth $27 therefore you need to be winning one in three step 1s to make it worth your while, otherwise you should be entering directly into step 2. With that said I was looking to win 3 or 4 step 2 tickets from my 10 step 1s.

The challenge got off to a good start and I managed to win 4 tickets to step 2. My general overview of the play in step 1 was that it was fairly weak. However these are turbo events and only top 2 move up so you need to apply a certain strategy to your game which will be explained later.

For me step 2 was my worst step, not because it was a tough step to beat, but simply because the poker gods decided to rain down some nice beats. I quickly flushed 3 tickets down the toilet when my Ks ran into As preflop and my AK wasn’t good enough to beat A4 after getting it in preflop. I refocused and proceeded to use my last $27 ticket, after all, if I made it through I’d have a nice $82 step 3 ticket which would justify my $75 investment. I eventually managed to take it down and moved onwards and upwards to step 3.

Step 3 is the best step in my opinion, it pays top 5 of the 9 players and pays them well. There’s no business of moving down a step or 2, the top 5 players are guaranteed another crack at step 3 with the top 2 moving up to the $215 step 4. The standard of play defiantly increases at this point and you also have the option of registering to a non-turbo version which is a plus for most.

I finished in 3rd, 4th, 3rd and 5th in my first 4 attempts at this step, I lost endless 60/40s and didn’t run well at all. With that said the beauty of these things is that despite the bad beats you can return over and over again off the back of one ticket. If I had my way I’d jump right into the system at step 3, the play is a lot higher than the previous steps and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say its a lot easier to play better players than weak unpredictable players who don’t have a clue. It also give you the freedom to tighten up slightly when playing the non-turbo. As this step pays top 5 you’ll often get a lot of players looking to creep into the top 5 before opening up their play, this is easily exploitable and allows you to be the table aggressor.

I won both step 4 and 5 at my first attempts. Again these are full of nitty players who turn the game into a folding fest. I started to think “I’m only going to gain chips here if we get two monsters allin preflop“. It got to the point where people were simply raising with premiums and AQ-AJ. I ended up mixing things up and calling people out of position with air with the intention of check raising raggy flops, this worked 75% of the time and was a profitable play of mine, in turn it allowed me to accumulate lots of chips.

When I finally got around to playing a step 6 I decided to opt for a UKIPT qualifier. The main reason being the main event was in Galway so I could just take 2 days off work if I won as appose to a whole week. The morning before I played my step 6 I actually looked at flights for Ireland during the dates of the UKIPT, they were only about £1 each so I ended up booking about 6 different flights there and back in anticipation that I’d win a seat. The reason I booked 6 was because I could get a decent cheap flight home depending on what day I busted.

So the step 6 began and once again it was a nice nitty table, 75% of the time the original raise would be taking down the blinds. I recognised one player “Spraggs” who is a young UK online pro. So 9 players with top 5 places being paid, 4th-5th got $2,100 and 1st-3rd got the $4.5k UKIPT package. To cut a long story short I picked up AA, KK, KK and KK all within the first hour which got my stack up to about 10k. With 27k in play this was more than enough to see me into a seat so I just used my stack to pressure those on the bubble which worked to good effect. That was that and I took down the package.

Not really to much enlightening information however I’ll now try and provide a few tips which my help…


Useful Tips.

Do’s...

...Keep your range very tight in the first 3 levels. Avoid playing A-rag, however set mining is always good if you can get in cheap. Once blinds hit 50/100 at least 30% of the table will be in the 10 BB range. Therefore you need to be picking up blinds as often as possible in position.

...Exploit the bubble. When I say bubble I mean each stage. For example in Step 4 there is almost a continuous bubble (6th - step 2; 4th-5th - step 3; 3rd - step 4; 1st-2nd - step 5). When the game is 9 handed some people (believe it or not) are thinking “right, I’ve gotten this far on $7.50 I want to go away with at least a step 2 ticket”, and so on. Therefore exploit this way of thinking.

...Keep notes at all times. There are a large number of Step grinders who seem to exclusively play these, keep an eye out for them, those are the players you should probably be looking to avoid.

...Use database tools during the higher steps. During Step 5 and 6 for example you can view the records of the 8 players your up against. Keep an eye on those who regularly play the big $500+ games and pressure those who are the micro grinders. The micro grinders will be the tightest and the easiest to bully around. The only reason I’m saying this is because they obviously grinded up (on a budget) from step 1 so they wont be looking to go out to early.

Don’t…

...Play the steps to make money. If you’re a solid STT player then its more worth your while playing in STTs that payout cash. The rake is higher in the steps and tickets are worthless. Unless you make it to step 4 where you can use your ticket to enter any $215 MTT, the tickets have no cash value and are non-exchangable.

...Play one table at a time (At step 1 and 2). If you really want to push your want up the steps you need to grind these. $7.50 a pop is very expensive in my opinion and bankrolls could diminish very quickly without you realising. You want to be jumping in with at least 10 buyins at the first step and just grind away. Just playing “one now and again” is money down the drain, play a normal STT if you feel like a one-off 9 man tourney.

...Make reckless, unnecessary, unjustified plays. Keep it ABC in the early stages and mix it up later on.

Hope some of the information here helps.

Tom