- Holdem Cash Game Strategy
- Nl Hold'em Cash Game Strategy
- Texas Holdem Cash Games
- Texas Hold'em Cash Game Strategy
Measuring Success in Cash Games
Most of the cash game poker players nowadays tend to play at 6-max or shorthanded tables. Almost every poker players, however, will have started playing at full ring tables. Full ring means that there are 9 or 10 players at a table. This article will introduce you to the basics of playing a full ring no limit hold'em cash table.
- Jan 22, 2020 But game theory isn’t very useful for exploitive cash game poker. The time and effort to properly use it in a low-stakes cash game would be better applied to other aspects of poker.
- Jan 20, 2021 Our focus is on No Limit Texas Hold’em poker because it’s the most popular format, but we have articles on other poker variants too. Every improvement you make in your cash game strategy will reap rewards today and for the rest of your playing career, so don’t hesitate to improve your knowledge with the assistance of FTR.
In cash games, you cannot expect to win every all-in, but you can still play a profitable game by picking the right situations and trying to get your money in with the best hand. Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy. Cash Game Strategy (NL Holdem) Playing cash games is one of the purest forms of poker. Cash games let you make much quicker money at a faster rate than tournaments, and they allow you to use your post-flop skills including position to make more money off fish. Best Cash Games: Party Poker ($500 Bonus).
Before we discuss the strategy in cash games, it’s important to define what success means. Success in cash games is measured in what’s called a win rate. Your win rate is the difference in skill between you and your opponents, minus the rake. Win rates can be negative if your opponents are better than you or the rake is too high (this most commonly happens in private home games where the usurious rake renders the game unbeatable).
Win rates online are measured in big blinds per 100 hands whereas win rates live are measured in big blinds per hour.
Here’s a simple example. John is a regular at the $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em cash game at the Bellagio. Because he keeps good records (something we strongly recommend all players do—you can use the app, ‘Poker Income’ or ‘RunGood’ to easily track your records), John knows that he has won $2,000 in the last month/50 hours of play—including tips and rake.
To calculate his hourly rate is simple: $2,000/50 = $40 per hour. (Therefore his bb/hour is 4).
To measure his win rate (in big blinds per 100 hands or BB/100), we first have to know how many hands he plays per hour on average. While the true number of hands dealt may vary slightly from casino-to-casino (depending on the speed of the game and number of players seated at the table), I’ve calculated that on average John can expect to play 27 hands per hour:
John has therefore played 50 x 27 = 1,350 hands.
John has won $2,000/10 or 200 big blinds.
John’s win rate is 200/(1,350/100) or roughly 15bb/100.
John should be proud; that’s an incredible win rate: although statistically insignificant, since 1,350 hands is not a large enough sample size. (For more on how to calculate win rates and variance, in both tournaments and cash games, see my definitive guide to bankroll management).
The truth is that 90% of poker players will have a negative-win-rate; therefore, any positive-win-rate should be considered an accomplishment. Assuming that you have a positive-win-rate, you can begin to compare your win rate against other players with positive-win-rates.
Breaking down the 10% category of positive-win-rate players even further, we can calculate various levels of win rates for live poker. Keep in mind that these are just estimations and possible win rates, and that games vary incredibly from casino-to-casino and player-to-player.
Online win rates will be reduced dramatically. Anything above break-even online is considered
great, whereas typical win rates at mid stakes games are 2bb/100 (or 0.5bb/hour), a testament to how competitive the games have become.
For live poker, I’m basing my estimations on some diligent records I kept over the years playing live poker in Macau and talking to other winning players, clients and readers whose games I respect. In my own experience, I regularly won 15BB/hour in Macau for the several years at stakes as high as $10,000/$20,000 HKD, No Limit Hold’em (roughly $1,250/$2500 USD)
– Amateur: Losing win rate.
– Good Player: Anything above breaking even, or > 1BB/hour
– Very Good: > 3BB/hour
– Great /Pro: > 5BB/ hour
– Excellent: > 10BB/hour*
– World Class: > 15BB/hour
*If you are regularly winning at 10BB/hour, I would advise moving up to the next limit to test out the competition and sharpen your skills.
Holdem Cash Game Strategy
To get a statistically significant sample size, you must play thousands of hands to determine that your win rate is not the result of luck or variance, rather a true skill advantage.
Nl Hold'em Cash Game Strategy
For more information about variance in cash game poker check out this video:
Texas Holdem Cash Games
Playing in games with a lower rake is one way you can immediately improve your win rate in cash games. Casinos such as the Commerce in Los Angeles and the Bellagio, Aria or Wynn in Las Vegas offer safe, secure cash games with competitive rake. (They even give players rakeback in the form of food comps).
Texas Hold'em Cash Game Strategy
Online poker usually has the lowest rake, but since the level of competition is higher, it usually means that your overall win rate is still lower online than it is live. Most people will profit more in live poker games because the influx of recreational players makes the game much softer.