Cash Game Poker Strategy Tips – How To Beat Your Opponents Online

There are many different formats of Texas Hold’em such as MTTs, sit & goes or cash games, so you always have an option to choose what to play. However, today we will concentrate on one topic – cash game poker strategy. This format has many advantages and is widely popular in the world both live and online. Thus, we will cover the most important Texas Holdem tips so that you could learn poker cash game strategy in the most efficient way.

Cash Games Strategy – learning in the right way

It is not enough to learn poker hand rankings, understand positions, or blindly apply aggression to become a winner in today’s games. Learning efficient cash game poker strategy can take time, but it is totally worth it.

However, many players simply consume random content by watching videos, reading books, or jumping from one forum to another without having a clear plan on how to improve. This alone force them to fail because random content pieces that do not fit into one strategy cannot help you much. Of course, you will learn one or two things, but as a rule of thumb, you will waste a lot of time and money trying to improve in this way.

From what I have seen, the only bulletproof way to ensure success at the tables is to have a clear system on how to learn and systematically improve your game. It is not as hard as it looks when you know what to do and concentrate on fixing one leak at a time instead of trying to cover everything at once.

Over the years, I was lucky to work and learn from the best players in the world and saw that most successful poker players follow the same path. This helped me to develop an extremely successful coaching program, which teaches advanced cash game poker strategy.

If you want to reach long-term success without wasting your time and money, watch my FREE poker training webinar. I will show you how hundreds of my students and I already did it and will lead you every step of the way.

Online poker cash game strategy

It is not a surprise that online cash games are the hardest form of poker. It provides many advantages over other formats, so players choose to learn and stick with this game. Therefore, to stay ahead of your competition, you should utilize every possible edge at the table and learn how to take advantage of weaker players.

Obviously, these Texas Holdem tips will not be enough to crush your games, but it will help to avoid costly mistakes and make better decisions at the tables.

• Get the necessary tools

Getting the best poker tools and software can turn breaking even player into a winner. Every one of your opponents online are using tracking software to have the HUD and stats when playing. Thus, if you are leaving this information aside, you will quickly fall back.

You have the opportunity not only improve your cash game poker strategy using various tools but to notice mistakes of your opponents and identify different type of players at the table. Take your time, research and invest in necessary software, it will pay for itself in no time.

• Learn to balance your ranges

Online cash games are quite tough, and the only way to combat strong players is to learn how to balance your ranges. Obviously, the GTO poker strategy should not be your main approach all the time, but you will not find a better starting point than that.

Moreover, if you know how game theory optimal ranges looks, you can easily notice mistakes in your opponents play and attack them to maximizing your results.

• Attack weak players

Most recreational players in online poker cash games are passive, so after identifying weaker ones, you have to adjust your strategy to exploit them. Obviously, you will be facing different players all the time, so you should observe how they play and use poker stats to identify the best strategy against each of them.

However, some of the principals are universal and can be applied against most. First of all, isolating and raising a wide range versus the limpers goes without saying. Then you can get more chips by value betting thin and even manipulate their play with different bet sizing.

To put it simply, just attack weaker players and force them to pay when you have a hand by betting yourself instead of trapping and using fancy moves. Make sure to remember these Texas Holdem tips when playing, but be aware of tendencies of each different player.

• Do not be afraid to bluff

Just like in poker tournaments, in cash games players bluff way less than they should – do not be one of them. People are not bluff catching even close to enough so you should be taking advantage of this by betting your weak hands way more often with the intention to fold out a better holding.

Obviously, it is not enough to c-bet and give up. Most successful bluffs will be in the form of barreling multiple streets, using blockers or identifying situations when your opponent does not have many strong hands in his range.

If you find yourself in any of these situations, do not be shy to bluff. If you choose ½ pot size bet on the river, you only need that your opponent fold 33% of the time to make a profit and you will see way more folds in most cases.

Bluffing and bluff catching is essential but quite complex topic. If you want to learn more about it, you should take a look at the poker coaching programs where you can learn more.

• Learn when to quit

Learning when and how to quit your poker session is an essential part of any successful online poker cash games strategy. Moreover, this an advantage that only cash game players have because you cannot quit or make a break in the middle of MTT so use this option when needed.

Two biggest indications that you should quit is your emotions and level of distraction. If you find yourself angry, sad or even tilting, taking a break is the best decision you can make. Same can be said about the distractions, as soon as you start thinking about something else than making right decisions you should quit playing.

This will help you play at your best more often and naturally increase your win rate over the long run, which is something everyone wants to achieve.

Live cash game poker strategy

Obviously, live games are a bit different, and you need to adjust your strategy to get better results. I already covered many Texas Hold’em tips and how to crush live poker home games in this article, but want to highlight the most important live cash game poker strategy adjustments as well.

• Play more hands from late positions

It is not a surprise that live cash games are way more passive than online. As a result, you will not be facing many 3-bets, and most players will only flat everything apart premium holdings from the blinds to see the flop.

The hands that are an easy flop online, become a very profitable open in live cash games. Thus, if you notice that players in the blinds are a bit weaker and passive, take advantage of that and start opening like crazy.

• Isolate limpers

If you play any reasonable stakes online, limping is basically non-existing. However, many players incorporate this move in their cash game poker strategy when playing live and you should take full advantage of their behavior.

When facing a limp, you should be raising aggressively with many holdings. This gives you more chances to take down the pot by either stealing it preflop, making everyone fold after c-bet or improving your hand and taking it all down.

• Adjust your strategy

Most of the time, you will find at least a few weak players at the table who are just having fun and do not care much about the money. Your job is to recognize these players as fast as possible and adjust your strategy accordingly. Playing GTO strategy against recreational players will not help you much, so identify their mistakes and try to exploit it.

For starters, you should be looking to play more hands versus these players. It means you should open more when they are in the blinds, isolate their limps and 3-bet more hands for value than usual. Moreover, they are likely to be passive and ready to call down your bets with relatively weak holdings so you should be looking to value bet big with your strong hands and reduce bluffs when you completely miss the board.

• Use different bet sizing

You should make some adjustments to bet sizing and choose healthier bets both preflop and postflop with your strong holdings. Most players do not care much about the sizing and will chase their draws no matter how much you bet, so make sure to punish them for it. Moreover, weaker players are not going to fold one pair hands even to big bets so you will be maximizing your winnings with this small adjustment.

• Take advantage of poker tells

Lastly, poker tells plays a huge role in live poker cash games. Obviously, it is much more valid when playing against recreational players, so do not try to read professionals because you will not get a lot of information from them.

• Avoid common mistakes

You have much more room to make errors when playing online, and even without knowing it, you can make some of the mistakes.

For example, angle shooting is a common problem in poker, so if you are not experienced in live games, it is worth researching the topic. Also, you should avoid making a string bet to be sure that your bet will count.

Another thing that is worth mentioning is slow rolling. Even though it is not strictly against the rules, you do not want to be the player that no one wants at their table, so it is wise to avoid it as well.

However, all of these tips can help you maximize your edge versus weaker players and significantly improve your cash game poker strategy in live games!

Online poker cash games advantages

Cash games have pros and cons like every other format. However, it can give you much more freedom and balance in life than playing tournaments, and that is the reason I stick with this format as my main game.

• You can control your time

One of the core online cash games advantages over tournaments is that you can control when you play and how long you stay at the tables.

It is by far the most important reason why I decided to move to this format and never looked back. Having the opportunity to make a break when I want, or quit a session if I feel bad is crucial for me. This way I can play my ”A game” much more often compared to grinding 12-hour sessions in MTTs, and it helps to live a much healthier life in general.

• You have more options to improve

In online poker cash games, you can quickly gather many hands in different spots and use that information to analyze your play using Holdem Manager 2 or Poker Tracker 4.

On top of that, the same is true for your opponents. You will quickly have many hands-on most regulars in your cash games, while it can take years to gather similar database for tournaments players. Moreover, in MTTs your opponents will be playing different strategies with different stack depth so you will need millions of hands in your database to draw any conclusions.

Therefore, if you are ready to put in some work in learning online poker cash games, you will be able to improve and move up the stakes much faster because you will have way more information at your fingertips.

• You need a smaller bankroll

Cash games have much less variance compared to MTTs thus you can get away with smaller poker bankroll. Obviously, if you are a professional player that is not a big issue for you, but if you are just starting out, it is very important because you will need less money at the beginning.

However, the biggest benefit comes from smaller swings. It helps you ensure stable income without long losing stretches, which will make whole online poker experience more pleasant and boost your motivation to play.

Summing it up

These Texas Holdem tips are just a guideline helping you identify advantages of learning live or online poker cash game strategy and sticking with this format.

However, other formats have their benefits as well, and you should choose based on your goals. No matter which game you will play, make sure to learn it in a structured way to ensure long-term success.