We have gone over many different tips on winning pots but mainly our content has been focusing on tournament Poker, however today we are going to focus on some tips for playing cash game Poker, which many players see as the holy grail of Poker, the biggest test with the most at stake.
In tournaments, you can just buy in and the most you will lose is that initial investment, players that enter cash games can rebuy as many times as they like sometimes losing 10-20 buy-ins in a session. We want to be on the positive side of this variance so we have constructed some quick tips to help focus your energy on the table and win more Big Blinds per hour.
Let’s dive right into the tips:
#1 Play Pot Control When Out Of Position
This is a huge mistake that people make in Hold’em, let’s say we are raising 20% of holdings from early position and we get called from Mid-Position, our opponent is going to have a tighter range in general for flatting our raise than our range will be for making an open raise.
So even when we hit boards we are going to want to be checking our hands a lot of the time right away. This is going to help us in a few ways:
- We will have a protected checking range, this means we won’t just be checking with hands we are not continuing with, we will be checking hands to call bets as well as to sometimes check to give up or check-raise.
- We will be able to get to showdown more often by keeping the pot small and navigate our way throughout of position play carefully
- We can induce bluffs! This is a big point that players miss in Poker, they raise, hit their hand and just Bet. But then their opponents can just play perfectly and fold when they miss, we want to confuse our opponents or let them catch up slightly when we have strong holdings to get value from hands that can’t call bets
#2 Bet Thin for Value Against the Fish
You are going to come up against certain fishy opponents where you are not going to need to be so balanced to win money versus them, you are just going to be better off betting thinner for value and charging them when they are overplaying a wide range of holdings.
Try not to make some elaborate plays against these types of opponents and keep bets just almost solely for value hands only as these types of players will make huge hero calls.
#3 Look to Deny Equity
Whereas we are mainly going to want to let our opponent’s keep bluffing if they are behind in hands or lose the minimum if we are behind in the hand, there are going to be spots in cash games where your opponent is going to be betting with a combo draw and now might be your only chance to get paid the maximum whilst also protecting your hand.
This can be a good way to switch up your style and work in some different moves to your game to keep your opponents guessing.
You are going to want to pick your victim for this type of move too, good candidates are going to be players that don’t fire the third barrel when they are bluffing, as this way we are not risking missing out on value from airballs on the river by check-raising all in on the turn for example.
Example:
Blinds $2.50/$5
Villian: Raise UTG +1 to $15 with J♥ T♥
Table folds to Villian in BB
HERO: Calls $10 with A♠ Q♠
Flop: A♥ 2♥ 6♠
HERO: Checks
Villian: Bets $15
HERO: Calls
Turn: Q♦
HERO: Checks
Villian: Bets $55
HERO: ?
This is a good spot for some equity denial, whilst we may sometimes be drawing slim or dead to certain hands in our opponents range like AA, QQ, 66 we have a solid holding and can get value from a wide part of our opponents range like two heart combinations AK, AJ, A6, A2 etc…. So this is a good spot against certain players that will not follow through on bluffs if they miss with their equity to put in a sizeable raise and charge their draws to the max and deny some equity against flush draws or hands like AK, A6, A2 that have outs against us.
#4 Protect your equity with borderline holdings with C-Bets
In cash game poker we always want to try and realise our hands’ equity, so sometimes we are going to want to think of the best route possible to do that.
In some cases checking back the flop so we are not check-raised and face a tough spot is one way, however if we are against opponents that are not check raising a good percentage then betting small as a C-bet will often allow us to win the pot there or allow us to see all five cards for a cheap price.
Let’s look at an Example:
Blinds $2.50/$5
HERO: Raise MP1 to $15 with 5♦ 5♥
Table folds to Villian in BB
Villian: Calls $10
Flop: 9♠ 4♠ 2♥
Villian: Checks
HERO: Bets $7.50
If we get called here then nearly always our opponent will play in flow and check the turn, then we can choose to see a free river card and realise our equity with our pair on this board.
We also benefit from betting hands like this because there aren’t many good turn cards for our hand other than us hitting a set, so other hands that have more equity on certain turn cards may warrant checking back to continue in this manner however this is a holding where we can bet to find out where we are at in the hand, get to see all five cards or possibly just win the pot on the flop for a cheap C-bet.
Grind out the numbers
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