Article
Differences in Cash Play
tagged: Bootcamp_Articles, Learn_to_Play_Articles
Educating players about cash games can sometimes be a very difficult task, especially if their ideas are locked into what they have observed in final table tournament play on television. They simply cannot differentiate between what are in reality quite different forms of Texas Hold ’Em.
So, to get the ball rolling, I’d like to identify three key characteristics of tournaments. Firstly, although there may be several prizes, tournaments culminate in one outright winner – the person who ends up with everyone else’s chips. Secondly, in order to reach that stage faster and in an acceptable time frame, the blinds increase periodically depending on the particular tournament. Lastly, the pay-offs are very heavily weighted towards the top three places, and lower finishes are considerably less rewarding.
This means that the top tournament players – whether they compete live or online – don’t care much about sneaking into the money places. They want to win that tournament, both for the substantial increase in prize money and because of the commercial spin-offs that are produced by winning a high-profile event.
Because most tournaments are compressed into very short time frames, the top players simply do not have enough time to prove their superiority in any one event, and this is why they can sometimes go for a long time without cashing big. Luck is a massive factor in any given tournament, and a small percentage of players will be taking big risks and accumulating big stacks through fortunate situations that have gone their way.
TOURNEY RISKS
They know that, sooner or later, the winner is going to have to acquire everybody else’s chips, and this cannot be achieved without risk. This is a major reason why you see players on television making plays that may at first sight appear dubious and even downright bad. Rapidly escalating blinds – and sometimes the introduction of antes on top of that – compound the problem.
So when you watch televised tournament poker, it’s important to appreciate that, while players are using markedly different styles of play, the best will almost certainly be playing very loose and aggressive. At certain stages of poker tournaments there is simply a need for speed, and this will seriously affect what hands players come in with.
While you may see Phil Ivey call a raise with 9-3 at a big tournament final table, this does not mean that you should replicate it in your next cash game, because you are not under any time pressure from escalating blinds and antes. Although there are blinds in all cash games, they remain fixed throughout the game, so there is not the same pressure to accumulate chips.
Tournament poker and cash game poker require very different skill sets if you are to be successful, and few players reach the top in both forms. There is a lot more discipline involved in playing cash games, and even very good tournament players can, if they lack discipline, become the fish in cash games with decent players. In fact, one of my biggest earners is players who drop into my cash games online while they are waiting for a tournament to begin.
Strange though it may seem, it can sometimes be the less successful tournament players who switch across to cash games the most successfully. People who rarely if ever change gears, and who do not have enough gamble in them to reach the final table with a big stack, rarely win big field tournaments. Many of them go through their poker lives little realizing that their style and discipline could stand them in very good stead in cash games.
This does not, of course, mean that there is nothing in common between No Limit cash games and tournaments. Because you are, when all said and done, playing No Limit Texas Hold ’Em whichever form of the game you choose, you will encounter many similarities between the two. For instance in big tournaments with big starting stacks, low initial blinds and slow level increases, the same strategies that work well in cash game can be very successful.
POSITIONAL PLAY
One important factor in all forms of No Limit play is deciding how much to bet. Limit poker is a wonderfully deceptive game, and a difficult one to master, but the betting is fixed in that form, and cannot alter. This is what causes problems for many Limit players when they attempt to make the transition to No Limit play. They end up making bets and raises that are insufficient, thereby pricing players in – and as we all know, it only takes one error in No Limit play to lose your entire stack in one go.
Position is important in all forms of poker, but it is absolutely crucial in No Limit Hold ’Em. The incomparable Doyle Brunson once said that he could beat any No Limit game in the world without even looking at his cards if he could have position all night long, and I for one do not doubt him. Position is one of the most important factors in deciding whether to play your hand or not, in tournaments and cash games alike.
Poker is all about gaining information and then acting on it in the correct manner. It stands to reason, then, that the more information you have, the better your decisions should be. When we talk about information that is available to you by having superior position, what we mean is that all or most of your opponents have to act before you.
ESCALATION
Position can do many things for you. It can assist you in taking down a pot without having the best hand – that is, bluffing. It can also help you to take a free card when everyone has checked to you. But when three opponents have checked to you, all of whom had to act before you, then this can indicate that none of them has a potentially playable hand. These concepts apply whether the format is tournament or cash game.
Another factor about No Limit Hold ’Em, irrespective of the form, is having the ability to bet the pot, or more than the pot, or even move all-in. Escalating the pot size in Pot Limit and No Limit can be a very dangerous thing to do, especially with a marginal hand. If you are going to get involved in a big pot with a deep stack in No Limit Hold ’Em, whether it is a tournament or a cash game, then you had better have a damn good hand.
Another vital and often overlooked factor to No Limit play is the human aspect of it. Because poker is played by people and not robots, things like emotions and psychology play a very important part, and it is a little understood fact that many people are just not cut out to be successful at poker, and go year after year banging their heads against the wall trying to succeed at it.
PERSONALITY
A player’s personality and characteristics will intervene and actually shape how that person plays poker. What this means is that certain aspects of a player’s personality can be serious flaws when attempting to be successful in the very demanding arena of poker. For instance, compulsion, impatience, irritability, curiosity, paranoia and many more besides can be very destructive traits to have when playing such an unforgiving form of poker as No Limit Hold ’Em.
Many top players have written about the need for a good No Limit player to have ‘plenty of heart and character’. I think that many people misunderstand just what is being said here, and imagine that what these authors are talking about is having the guts to bluff. In reality ‘having the character’ to play successful No Limit Hold ’Em means lots of things besides an aptitude for bluffing – in fact, character can be a bigger asset to have in this game than knowledge.
SKILLS GAP
Many people have all of the relevant theoretical knowledge to play very sound No Limit poker, yet lack the skills needed to be successful. Knowledge and skill are two totally different things, and while skill can succeed to some extent without knowledge, knowledge is not enough without the skill. If you cannot implement what you know about poker in actual combat, then you do not have the skill – it is as simple as that.
Comparing No Limit Hold ’Em in a tournament setting with a cash game setting is rather like comparing Rugby Union with Rugby League. They may look an awful lot like each other in many ways, but there are enough important differences for them to be quite separate games. It is these differences that I will be looking to show you over the coming months when we take a look at more detailed strategies for playing No Limit Hold ’Em cash games.
