Cash games are popular and convenient because you control when and where you want to play poker. You also get to control the length of time you’re at the table. This applies to both in person and online poker.
Tournaments begin at a specific time and could run all night long, with some events held over multiple days. Cash games fit into your schedule so you can play for 20 minutes or 20 hours if you want.
My ultimate goal at a no-limit hold’em (NLHE) table is to win three times my initial buy-in. When I reach that amount, then I’ll call it a night.
I try to cap my losses per cash game session at two buy-ins. If I dust off my stack twice, then I’ll concede that it’s not my day and I’ll leave. If the game is really juicy and has bad players with deep stacks, then I’ll dig into my pocket for a third rebuy. But, that’s only under those special circumstances.
Exploiting Distracted Players
In a live setting, you must choose your game wisely. When I lived in Las Vegas, I played a lot of poker on Monday evenings during football season. Poker rooms on the Strip were often packed with sports bettors, while some off-the-Strip rooms at locals’ casinos often ran Monday Night Football promos.
It’s easy to spot a distracted gambler who’s biding their time at the poker table while sweating a sports bet. Their eyes are glued to the TV instead of paying close attention to the action on the felt. The NFL added Thursday Night Football to their weekly schedule, so there are three nights a week with a prime-time game including Sunday.
The Strip is flooded with tourists on the weekends. Late-night poker on Friday and Saturday nights are fun because you had a chance to play cards against inebriated tourists.
The Mandalay Bay was a popular spot for me because the casino attracted gamblers from Southern California who were itching to gamble, so they stopped at one of the first casinos on the Strip after a long drive through the desert.
Hit and Run Tactics
It took a couple of years living in Las Vegas before I perfected the art of a hit and run cash-game session. These quick sessions are easier to do if you live near a casino, and you don’t have to drive or travel a long distance to play poker. They also work very well in an online setting.
As I stated earlier, my goal is to win three buy-ins per session, but sometimes winning two buy-ins could suffice depending on the game, or time of day.
A hit and run guarantees a winning session. It also prevents you from slowly bleeding off your stack. It’s tempting to keep playing and trying to book a huge win, but more often than not you will donate your early winnings back to the table.
Rake to the casino and tips to dealers also add up over a longer session, which cuts into your overall profit.
One of the keys to grinding in cash games is to know when to leave. It takes discipline to walk away from the tables when you reach your predetermined number. Nothing is worse than stating your intention to play one more orbit, and then you lose a big pot which eradicated most of your winnings.
My quickest session lasted five minutes at the Bellagio. I tripled up in the first orbit when I flopped a set of Queens and cracked Aces and Kings in one heck of a cooler.
Big Stack Bully
The opposite tactic of a hit-and-run assassin is a big-stacked bully. When I first moved to Las Vegas, I played low-stakes poker at the Bellagio and the Mirage for the sole purpose of amassing a big stack to bully tourists. When you’re deep stacked, you can exploit smaller stacks. Again, this works equally well online.
If anyone buys in for the table minimum, then they become an easy target for a big-stacked bully. For example, if they opened for a raise, then you could push them around with a ridiculous over bet and re-raise. If they fold, then you can add to your monster stack by picking up stray pots.
Those opportunities do not happen very often, but it’s fun to sit behind a mountain of chips. You can force opponents to make difficult decisions like putting their entire stack on the line when you’re only risking a small percentage of your massive stack.
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