Beat cash games 2

	You should make a bigger raise when you want to build a big pot and vice versa

Welcome to the second in my series of cash game articles. Cut out and keep all six and trade them in for a beverage at your local cardroom – just say Nick sent you.

Last month I gave you an introduction to the wonderful world of cash games – the real test of a poker player. I looked at the key differences to tournaments and the main characteristics of a good cash player as well as the main strategic concerns a cash player has. In this instalment I’m going to get into the play of a cash game.

Game selection

In poker you always want to be playing with an edge. That edge is usually described as maximising your wins and minimising your losses. But there’s a more fundamental way you can gain an edge in a poker game and that’s being better than your opponents. Understand that your ability is relative – the notion of a good or bad poker player only makes sense in terms of who’s playing.

For example, if a novice poker player, who makes big mistakes and only has a basic grasp of hand values, sits down in most games he’s a big favourite to go broke. However, if he hosts a home game with six mates who have never played before suddenly he’s a big favourite to win (this may be a tip for some of you).

Game selection can be difficult, as it requires an accurate assessment of your own ability. Also if you sit down in a game and lose it can be difficult to assess whether you’re being outplayed or whether you’re having a run of bad cards and situations.

The key with game selection is not to have an ego about which game you’re playing in. For example, if you’re in a no-limit cash game and one player is dominating the table with a big stack – he’s sitting on your left and constantly coming over the top of you – it may be right to leave the game.

If you’re honest about your abilities and those you’re playing against it shouldn’t take too long to find the games you can win in – either online or in bricks-and-mortar cardrooms. You’ll probably find that games at a certain limit in one place (i.e. in the same cardroom or on the same site) are of a similar level most sessions. Just remember, never play at a limit that’s outside your bankroll, even if it looks juicy, and always play in games where you have the best of it.

Assessing the game and players

Your first mission is to assess the game you’re putting your money at stake in. You need to know what type of table it is, how the individuals are playing and – critically – where the profit is coming from.

You need this information as quickly as possible. If you’re waiting to sit down or for the big blind to come round to play – observe the game closely. You should be switched on and observant, even if you’ve played with the players before. You can’t afford to make assumptions as they might be playing differently than normal and be the big winner or big loser that day.

There are a number of ways to assess the game you’re in. The best piece of information is the cards revealed at showdown. Replay the hand in your head and see if it tells you anything about the players. Are they playing too many hands? Are they missing bets or calling too easily? Are they bluffing and playing very tricky?

A good way to assess how well you’re reading players is to try to ‘call’ their hands to yourself before they’re turned up. If you think he has A-A and he shows 8-3 you may have a problem reading that player!

You should also quickly get a flavour for how many players are seeing the flop and how much pre-flop raising there is in the game – i.e. how loose and aggressive your opponents are. Take a careful mental note of how much money the players have in front of them. Stack size is a fundamental consideration in most cash game decisions and you must know what you stand to win or lose from each player.

I recommend after 20 minutes in any poker game you take a look round the table and sum up what you know about each player. What hands have you seen them play? What are their stack sizes? Are they tight or loose, passive or aggressive? Do they bluff, and how are you going to get their chips?

Playing pre-flop

Like every other part of a poker game, pre-flop play in a cash game is a situational concept. The correct play will change according to your table, the players in the pot, stack sizes, your table image and so on. With that in mind, when I recommend playing a particular hand bear in mind this is a ‘standard’ play to give you a starting point in cash games. The most important thing is to grasp the factors that affect whether and how you enter a pot.

Position

Your position is vital in deciding whether to enter a pot. It’s hard to quantify the amount of advantage acting behind an opponent gives you but to put some perspective on it poker legend Doyle Brunson says, ‘If you give me the button every hand I can beat almost any game blind.’

Normally you should only enter the pot in early position with premium hands – which is essentially big pairs and A-K. Mucking A-Q up front is usually right. In a deep-stacked game, which is relatively passive before the flop, limping with smaller pocket pairs can also be profitable. Get used to mucking a huge amount of hands in the first three spots.

As you move around the table you can open up far more. The later your position the greater your chance of having the best hand and of being able to play the hand in last position on future streets.

Action before you

If someone else has entered the pot before you with a raise you need to play far, far tighter. Remember they’re stating they have a good hand and you want to head to the flop with an edge, so you need to have a serious hand to play. But to balance this slightly you do have position over the opening raiser.

You should look to re-raise with big pairs most of the time. With hands like A-K, A-Qs, J-J, 10-10, 9-9, you should usually just call, but an occasional re-raise is good to mix up your play.

Which players are in the pot?

It’s not simply a matter of what action there’s been but also who has made that action. For example, if a better player than you with a bigger stack than you has entered the pot, that should make you much less likely to play. Conversely if a weak player who calls far too much has opened the action, you should loosen your starting hand requirements considerably. Remember you should be playing the man not the cards.

Implied odds

Playing no-limit Hold’em for cash is a game of implied odds. Often the blinds are tiny compared to players’ stacks. This means you can play a lot of hands pre-flop that stand to win a big pot from other players’ large stacks. You’re investing a little now to make a lot later.

Specifically this means suited connecting hands (such as 8-7s or A-Xs) and small pairs often have a lot of value in cash games. (Gus Hansen recently won a pot worth over half-a-million dollars after Daniel Negreanu hit a full house on the flop with pocket Sixes, while Hansen made quads on the turn with pocket Fives.) In an un-raised pot you should clearly be playing these hands – although don’t get too carried away with this idea when you’re out of position.

It’s also possible to play these hands in a raised pot. Proceed with caution though – to get the implied odds you must both have plenty of money (committing no more than five percent of your stack pre-flop is a good rule of thumb) and it’s best if your opponents are tight, predictable players who open pots for raises with particular holdings.

Why raise?

If you’re going to raise pre-flop be clear why you’re doing it. Often you’ll be raising for value – you’re simply investing money when you think you have the best hand. But that’s not the only reason to do it. Raising to steal the blinds has very little value in a cash game compared to a tournament, as the blinds are only a tiny fraction of the stacks. In fact limping in late position or on the button is a legitimate play if you’re better than the blinds and want to play a hand with them in position.

Raising as a bluff or semi-bluff is also a useful play in cash games. For example, if there are just limpers round to you and you’re on the button or in the blinds, you may make a large raise with a marginal hand (like 9-7s) to try and take the pot there and then. If you’re called you can still hit your hand on the flop. You may also find opportunities to re-raise as a bluff or semi-bluff if you’re playing against players who will fold some of their raising hands when pressured.

You should also occasionally raise to vary your play. If you’ve been in the same cash game for a while and played solidly you should sometimes raise with a hand like 7-6s to confuse your opponents. It’s worth bearing in mind that in a lot of low-stakes online games your opponents are not observant enough to worry about this.

Putting these pre-flop concepts together has some interesting ramifications. For example, if you’re on the button in an un-raised pot with a few limpers you can consider entering the pot with any two cards except complete trash as the implied odds in the game and the pots you will pick up by being in position easily compensate for your poorer cards.

A word on the size of pre-flop raises in cash games. There are two schools of thought here. One is to raise the same amount, no matter what your hand is, to prevent giving away any information; the second is that you should vary your raise. So you should make a bigger raise when you want to build a big pot and vice versa. I would recommend that until you reach a good level of understanding with how all of the factors affect your pre-flop decisions you make a standard raise of three or four times the big blind giving minimal information on your hand. The exceptions to this are when there are limpers in the pot already when you should raise it up slightly more. Also, if your table needs a bigger raise to thin the field – as is sometimes the case when playing for lower stakes – you should take this into account.

All that I’ve said here should serve you as a good introduction to playing pre-flop. In tournaments a good strategy implemented well for this part of the game is more than half the battle. In a cash game it’s only a small percentage of the knowledge you’ll need. Next month I’ll look at cash game play on the flop and beyond. Good luck if you play in a cash game this month – let’s get the money together.