[Aaron W.]

I'm going to quote you all out of order...

This is something that strikes me as odd:

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Maybe I should just budget $50.00 a month as an expense, spend it (that is, lose it) at 2/4 & 3/6.

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There's nothing intrinsically wrong with calling poker an entertainment expense (so within your budget) and taking a shot at a slightly higher level than your actual bankroll. You might get lucky and have some extra cash hanging around, and it might even be enough to filter into you actual bankroll and move you up the ladder a little faster. The bankroll idea is if you don't have the cash to reload and busting out really means busting out. (Some use it to help monitor their poker playing, so that they don't get out of control, which is another fine use.)

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So how have some of you, when you were starting out, balanced your desire for more competitive and instructive poker with your economic and practical needs of living in the nono-limits?

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I started at $.50/1 because that's the lowest there was when I started (back in 2001). I took some disposable income and plopped $300 into a Firepay account, deposited into Paradise Poker, and started playing.

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But my basic question is, how good are the nanolimits for teaching you the game? The paradigm for bankroll building is, I know, winning many hundreds of BB's at .05/.10, .25/.50, etc., thus getting some experience under your belt before going against skilled players... So, is there a model for learning the game other than those offered by Greg J and Homer in their bankroll-building threads?

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You're talking about two completely different topics. Bankroll building is not learning. Bankroll building is a way to get up to maximum whoring in the shortest time possible. Learning can happen at all levels all the time.

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But dealing with the incessant calls by the poker zombies in the nano's can be, well, boring sometimes.

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The nanos tend to be much more instructive than players realize. As you move up, you'll still run into the same types of players. The only difference is that the distribution of them will slowly shift. You can learn to handle almost all types of micro players by the time you reach $.50/1. Of course, there are the stray solid TAGs who you will find, and that can make things especially interesting, but by and large you'll have seen everything... until you reach SH play (but that's probably for another post).

So can playing TAG poker at $1/2. You think they don't think at the nanos. They *DO* think. They just don't think like you think they should think.

For most of them, you should be able to put them on a (wide) range of hands when they limp. You can often narrow it down when they check-call on the flop. If they check-call the turn as well, you should be able to further narrow it down. By the time the river comes, you should be able to give a range of a dozen or so hands that villain could reasonably have. The exceptions are the uber-loose players who literally call everything to the river, but those are far more rare than you think they are. Most players will at least be discerning enough to call with an overcard, or two overcards, and sometimes only when it's an ace or king overcard, and sometimes it's any pair. These subtle distinctions can be drawn out through paying attention and careful thinking.

If you develop that skill at the nanos, where players play a huge number of hands, it will help you to read players when you move up to where they play fewer hands preflop, but play in roughly the same way postflop.