Ring/ cash game advice needed please

I wish I could stop playing cash games, but when there is nothing else on I always get dragged in.

Not sure if it makes a difference as to the kind of poker u play, but here s a quick overview of what happens to me...

I will start of by admitting, I have not left a cash game in profit for months, so some of my hard earned SNG & MTT money goes the journey in ring games. am playing a mix of NL/ PL/ FL and around $25 buy in. A mix of O8 & Holdem

There are in effect 2 ways it goes,

1. Play tight poker for about 1/2 hour or more. Don`t get anything, limp into a few pots, miss flop by a mile. Start to enter pots with less than premium holdings. Start to miss more flops. Chip count starts to dwindle. Get a good hand, say QQ. Raise. Get callers. Flop hits A K 4. Pot raised by the table maniac. Call out of frustration. And the rest u know - pot committed, all chips go in and the maniac turns K. I was right in as far as he did not have the ace. Out of chips
2. Play tight. Hit early. increase chip stack by about 50%. Then an hour later, see above

Interested to know if I simply do not have the mentality for cash games?

I do play real sensible in MTT & SNG`s but I feel that the nature of these games means there is a definate start and finish, unlike cash games (if u understand)

Comments appreciated

This is just liberating, but scary to know that there is more than one person suffering from cash games like I am. MTT's: pretty good. SNG: not great. CASH: I suck (online); Live (home games): Pretty good

What gives? Hopefully you guys can help.

Pokerstudent

It looks to me like you are using a SNG type strategy in cash games. The temptation to start playing loose when you are getting bad hands can be very strong.

Cash games tend to require a lot of patience, especially when you get 50 hands of crap in a row.

How many tables are you playing at? I find that playing more tables can reduce the monotony and make it less likely that you will be tempted to start playing rags.

Cash games are an exercise in discipline. It's so easy to wipe out hours of good play with a handful of bad decisions. Here are a few things that might help.

1. As wobble said, adding a few tables can help reduce the number of hands you play.

2. Drop down in stakes. Sure, it's not fun when you have to do this, but on more than one occasion it's saved my bankroll when I was playing badly. This will also make it easier for you to add a few tables without risking going broke.

3. Put some music on. Give yourself something else to concentrate on while you wait for those premium hands.

4. Make a point of adding a note to everyone you're playing against. This will keep you occupied, yet keep you focused on the other players as you try to determine their basic patterns.

5. Instead of looking for reasons to play a hand, look for reasons to NOT play a hand. Bad position is a big one. Marginal hands lose a lot of value when you're out-of-position on your opponent(s).

6. Try 6-max. If you're anxious to play some poker, why not play a short-handed table where that kind of style is an advantage.

No matter what, you've already done the hard work. You've pinpointed your bad habits. Just being aware of them gives you the advantage. Removing them and replacing them with good habits just takes time and patience.

I have this same problem with cash games, I just can't seem to beat them.

My problem seems to be that I sit there folding the continual crap I get until I find a good hand and raise with it, and everyone folds. It seems pretty obvious to me what is happening and I just give up and go back to MTTs.

Am I meant to wait until I get AA and someone else gets KK or what? I just can't figure it out.

So long as you do this enough to beat both the rake and the blinds, this is the key to profit. Open up your range in position and steal as much as possible

I have expierenced a similar sort of feeling about my Cash play compared to tournaments.

I either do really well in one and shit in the other. I think the key realization for me was that if your doing well in tournaments and making decent profit over a big sample then you must have a decent understanding of the game and how to play it in situations that arise in tournaments quite often for example restealling.

It is just a matter of disecting my tournament game a little bit, figuring out how to apply the same concepts to cash, then adjusting to my opponents play.

Basically i tried to focus on, doing the things i did well in a tournament, in the cash games. Then as i start to understand the dynamics of cash games and see the types of moves other players are making I would start adding those things to my arsenal.

Becoming a good cash game player is really like building a house, you lay the foundations, Hand selection etc. Then add a single brick at a time, which is building up your skill set. So you concentrate on the new skill, ie 3 betting and then once you feel like you have developed that you add in the next skill, ie restaeling, whilst still maintianing the use of your 3 betting and other skills.

Basically i guess what im trying to say here is; The key to developing your game is baby steps, not giant leaps. Remember it wont happen over night.

Thanks Stu.

I guess I'm just not being patient enough, next time I play I'll set aside a large amount of time to try and show a profit. To be honest I was only playing for about an hour then giving up.This obviously isn't long enough.

In relation to stealing, I'm used to playing tourneys and stealing the blinds when they are like 10% of my stack and leaving them alone when they are small, in cash games they just seem to small to bother about compared to my stack size.

Ronaldadio, the way you describe your play... you're a huge fish. No disrespect, just the way i would make note on a player like you if I was at your table.

You should not play tight, you should play tight AGGRESSIVE. The first thing you should do is limp exactly 0% of your hands. And that's valid for open-limping as well as for over-limping.

Preflop, your only options should be

1. fold
2. open-raise
3. iso-raise one or more limpers
4. flat call a raise from a player over whom you have position
5. 3bet a raiser

If you do stuff like put your stack in with QQ on AKx board, then that is leak in your game.
If you compare tournaments and cash game, you know that deeper in tourney you play, less and less blinds players play with. So there are less big decisions on turn, river and more important is to play good preflop. In ring game you will mostly always play for around 100bb and more and more important is to make good turn/river plays, bluffing and value betting. Players with 100bb efective stack can float more offten in low limit and agressive players can try to bluff more, knowing they can rebuy. In tourneys a lot of players that play for more then hour or two will never make a bluff or call, without some kind of hand, fearing they can be knocked out of the tournament. Learn more about cash game and think about this rule:

You should not play tight, you should play tight AGGRESSIVE. The first thing you should do is limp exactly 0% of your hands. And that's valid for open-limping as well as for over-limping.

Preflop, your only options should be

1. fold
2. open-raise
3. iso-raise one or more limpers
4. flat call a raise from a player over whom you have position
5. 3bet a raiser

And learn more about postflop game.

Just as there is a difference between a 10 person $10 sng and a 1000 person rebuy $50 tournament, there is also a huuuuge difference between cash and tourneys. Most of the time it is easier for a cash game player to adjust to tourneys than it is for a tourney player to adjust to cash games. Understand that first. Secondly, I would try to decide which route you really want to take: cash or tourney. It is best when trying to develop ones game to stick to what they want to do. Unless you can differentiate what you would do in a tourney vs in a ring game, you shouldnt be mixing the two. Learn your game first. Once it is developed, you can maybe try something else. My advice would be to a) decide one or the other. b)stick to it until you change your mind. If you get bored, read some hands in the hand analysis forum or watch some videos or something. Anything that isnt going to be detremental to the bankroll. Because if money wasnt an issue you wouldnt be posting.

POSITION, POSITION, POSITION. Don't over bet your draws pre-flop -AK, AQ, etc. Those are not made hands after all, consider them draws - never go all in with anything other than AA, KK or QQ preflop. Play just about any hand from the button if it has not been raised yet to you - and always C bet (2 - 3 bb) if you are the last to act if it has not yet been bet or raised in front of you after the flop - even if you completely missed the flop.

Cash games & sng play are quite a bit different (cash game & deepstack tournament play... not as much so).
A couple of your comments stood out for me from the get go, one being "chip count starts to dwindle". When you're playing cash game you want to re-load anytime your stack falls below 100bb's (I see alot of new cash game players who will buyin for a certain amount (quite often the worst amount, ie. 40-50bb's) and then will play it similiarly to a tournament/sng).
Another being, "what happens to me",... you make it happen... 'it' doesn't happen... so learn how to make it happen (take control).
"I always get dragged in".... umm.. how so.. does the software leep thru your screen and pull you onto the tables?


If you're going to play cash tables I'd suggest you put in a bit of time learning what it's about (I'm guessing you've done this for MTT & SNG play as you say you're doing okay there). I'd also suggest sticking to one format and starting out at low limits (not sure what your bankroll is... but even if you're rolled for 50NL I'd still start off at 5NL for 6-maxNL, & probably 10NL for FullRing). Only play one or two tables to begin with and 'observe' 'observe' 'observe'. In the lower limits you can play real ABC-style poker >>>> forget about bluffing and when you've got big hands try to build a big pot (value bet the flop,turn & river).
If you're seriously interested I could pm you a link to a 40min. training vid. about getting started & showing some play at 6max-10NL

They may seem small, but at higher levels a profit of around 8bb / 100 or around 6bb per hour is a decent winrate!!

So a well thoughout stealing startagy is key to the game.

Just open up in position against weak limpers. Weak usually means fit or fold post flop, so if they check to you (which they will a lot, then a c-bet will take down the pot enough to show an auto profit.)

Against tight limpers you can put them on a pocket pair, so their check means they didnt hit a set and action of course means they hit a set.

Loose limpers peel more and call down with weak hands, so you wnat to be betting boards that you hit or have a lot of equity on.

This means against weak tight limpers you can play any 2 cards, but against loose limpers you need a hand more likely to make some kind of TP (so something like JT would be the cutoff.)

Bet more against the tight limpers than the loose the tight limpers, you will take the pot down with a c-bet more often and if they play back then they have a big hand so preflop is the only time you get them to put money in the pot.

Loose limpers you can bet quite light, so if you hold TP or second pair on a non-ace board, you can bet all there streets for value so long as the bets are not pot sized. (these guys will call down with very week hands or with overcards)

Kasanova King.... You are my clone.