Cash Game (Full Ring) Guide Part 1 – Introduction to Cash Game

This guide was developed for the beginning player who wants to play full-ring cash games. Its purpose is not to explain basic concepts, but rather to help develop your own range and expose some of the plays that are +EV at micro limits.

There are many truths in poker, and perhaps the greatest of them is that poker is not an exact science, and so it is common to not have just one answer to most questions.

“I have AKs, should I call or raise?” It depends!

And there are so many alternatives that some will be left out here, but basically the mental process to be carried out must go through some steps such as: what is my position? What did my opponents do in this hand? How many opponents will still speak? What is my image? What is the image of my opponents? What is the effective stack? And we would still have a dozen more relevant questions, knowing that the answer will not always be simple, or unique.

The game mode we will be discussing is fullring (FR), as it is the most suitable for beginners. Unlike 6-max, it allows for better hand selection. Playing with a tighter range will make post-flop decisions easier as the player develops his or her skills.

The guide is subdivided into six parts:

Introduction to Cash Game

Table Selection

Hand Chart

Pot odds and Draws

Isolating Limpers

Set Mining

Part 1 – Introduction to CASH GAME

The main differences between cash games and MTTs and SNGs are:

• There are no different stages of blinds;
• There is no award scale;
• You can sit down and stand up at any time;

In tournaments, we will usually only have 100bbs or more in the early stages, the most common game is the short stack between 10 and 40bbs. Pressured by the blinds, many hands are decided pre-flop or on the flop, as there is no stack to work on future streets. In cash games, the game is much more post-flop, as deep stacks allow you to bet on all streets, re-raise your opponents' bets and this opens up a wide range of possibilities.

Since the blinds do not increase and rebuying between hands is allowed, the strategy adopted for this guide will be the Big Stack Strategy (BSS), which means that the player will enter the table with 100 Big Blinds (bbs) and with the auto-rebuy to keep this stack at the table at least.

Another determining factor is that the prize is not related to reaching the final table.

The payout is instant, you can win a buy-in or lose your entire stack in just one hand. Good and bad decisions directly affect your bankroll, losing a pot means you will be losing part of your bankroll rather than part of the chips that the buy-in bought.

This guide suggests adopting a tight aggressive (TAG) style, playing for the opponent's stack. This means that the player should look for +EV spots to put the entire stack on the table. If the equity condition is 51% in favor, it will be +EV and therefore the player should be willing to put all the money on the table, as it will be profitable in the long run.

Since you can sit at a table at any time, you need to pay attention to the blinds. Never post the blinds out of position, because doing so will result in a loss of money in the long run. Because when paying the blinds, the player will be entitled to receive nine (or ten times) two cards to play with, and this will not happen if the blinds are posted in the middle of the table.

In micro-limits, it is best to avoid bluffing. In heads-up, if the flop is favorable, you can try a cbet. The best boards for this usually have one high card and two low cards and are rainbows (“K 6 2”, for example). Remember that different flops hit different types of players.

Against maniacs and fishes, it is best to bet for value because they often won’t let go of any pocket pair or even bottom pair on the table. Against other tags and nits, we will apply more cbets because they will often have a pair and play “hit or fold” post-flop. Pay attention to the range of tags and nits, they often won’t fold a pocketpair on a low board like “247”.

In this series, we present a practical guide for new cash game players. It was written by our forum member Sarsante.

Part 1 – Introduction | Part 2 – Choosing tables | Part 3 – Hand Chart | Part 4 – Pot Odds and Draws