Bit of background - I have been playing NL for about 6 months now, made a couple of $50 deposits and have worked my roll upto $400, but then I think I got a bit cocky, lossened up a bit too much, and then lost almost all of it. For the last month I have been kinda breakeven, up and down, getting nowhere fast.

I only play 1 table so that I can get a good read on my ops. But I was thinking that maybe I would be better off multi-tabling, and just playing ABC poker, waiting for the good hands, playing aggressively when they hit and laying down when I am clearly beat. I chuck out nice 2/3-pot size bets when I hit and don't give people cheap draws and steal a few pots with a nicely timed continuation bet. Sometimes though I try and get fancy every now and then, and bluff in signs of weakness, only to be called down by midpair who doesn't know how to make a lay down. This kind of action makes me feel that bluffing is a no-no at lowlimit and I should stop all this fancy play and just stick to basics instead of leaking my roll.

So a question to the $25 and $50NL players - should I stop bluffing and just play my cards??

Simple answer - Yes. It's more profitable to play straight ABC TAG poker at NL25 and NL50 simply due to the low quality of opponenets who will call you down. I had/have the same problem with getting fancy and now I play 4 tables of NL50 and only play 15% of hands and i'm making a much bigger profit.

Presumably if you play 4 tables, you're not playing your opponents as such, just playing your cards? I find it hard to get a good read if I play more than 1 table.

Do you have Poker Tracker? It's a program that'll help give you information about your opponenets so that when you multi table, you're not in the dark against unknown opponents.

Yes I do, but what I mean is that you can't possibly watch all hands and therefore you may not pick up a on a situation for example whereby a particular villain overbets river which you would perhaps normally fold too with maybe TP, but when this villain overbets you know 9/10 times he is bluffing thereby you call. I guess pots like this involving marginal calls you would lose out on?

Yeah things like that you might miss, but after a while you can get used to watching the action on a few tables and talking quick notes on certain opponents like "minbets the flop with a monster" or just something like that, so you can still pick up on those. It's a sacrafice and you might see your BB / 100 drop a little, but when you multiply that by 4 if you're playing 4 tables then your hourly rate should be a lot higher.

The most common bluffing situation is AK or QQ JJ with over cards in your raised pots. I "bluff" once against these types of poor opponents and give up on the next two streets. I figure QQ against two guys on a A95 board is worth firing once, or AK on a 368 board is also worth a bet. It makes position that much more important in a low stakes game as you will be able to check the turn and maybe get to the river for one price where you could improve.

I think "fancy" is when you keep hammering or attempt to run a play against an opponent that you frequently see going to the river. My win rate at a table where the game is over with on the flop or turn is much better than when playing showdown poker. If I find myself having to play showdown poker, I either move, or realize that TPTK and over pairs are going to have to be a maintained pot and hammer with sets, straights, nut flushes. Adjust to your current situation and people in the hand with your "superior" read.