Cash game poker is better than ever.
I just finished traveling all over the United States playing poker. I played on the West Coast, the East Coast, in the Midwest, in the Rockies, and a little bit in the South.
And let me tell you guys something.
This is the best time ever to play cash game poker.
Yes, I said it.
The best time ever.
Let me explain why I think this is an incredible time to make money at the cash game tables.
1. Your cash game is not as tight as you think
When I went to Central New York, I had a lot of people telling me that the cash games were tight.
And I will admit, the games were tighter than some of the games I had been playing elsewhere.
But it was pretty easy to get people to start playing big pots with me.
So what did I do?
I started with a little playful trash talk.
And because everybody is so damn sensitive these days, that got under some people’s skin.
I also started raising to around two times the size of the pot preflop repeatedly.
At one point, I did it with seven-four suited.
Then I showed everybody my hand and said, “Hey, this is my favorite hand!”
That got a lot of people annoyed with me.
Eventually, my huge preflop raises started getting called by mediocre hands.
Now think about what that means.
If you start with a really strong hand in a really big pot, preferably in position, and people are calling you down with much worse hands, it becomes much easier to make money.
Once more people started calling me, I increased my raises to around three times the amount in the middle.
That got a lot of my pots heads-up or three-way.
Now people had invested a significant amount of money before the flop.
And when they made a mediocre pair, they had a really hard time folding.
They would regularly stack off against me and lose.
I was walking out of $1/$2 games with $1,500 after walking in with $300.
The lesson here is that just because a game starts out tight does not mean you cannot do anything about it.
Sometimes you need to change the dynamics of the table.
Get people involved.
Get them frustrated.
Get them playing bigger pots than they are accustomed to playing.
Then punish them when they start making mistakes.
2. Your implied odds are greater than they have ever been
This is another huge adjustment I have noticed.
In the past, I had to be very careful when telling people which hands they could call with preflop.
Why?
Because during the 2010s, people were often much more reluctant to pay you off with mediocre hands.
They were trying to play solid poker.
They were trying to make disciplined folds.
But now?
A lot of people seem to have given up on that.
They are mad.
They are frustrated.
And they want to get their money in.
That means your implied odds can be enormous in the right games.
Let’s go through a few examples.
If you have a pocket pair, you are going to flop a set or better roughly 12% of the time.
But I generally want around 15-to-1 implied odds before calling with a small pocket pair.
If you have a suited connector, you are going to flop two pair or better roughly 5.6% of the time.
For those hands, I generally want around 25-to-1 implied odds.
If you have a suited gapper, you are going to flop two pair or better roughly 5.2% of the time.
For those hands, I generally want around 35-to-1 implied odds.
Now, those are guidelines, not guarantees. You still need to consider position, the strength of your opponents’ ranges, and whether you can realistically get paid when you hit.
But here is what makes today’s games so interesting.
There are a lot of multiway pots.
There are a lot of limped pots.
And there are a lot of players who simply refuse to fold when they make a pair.
Look at how much money you are calling preflop and compare that with how much you could realistically win from the effective stacks after the flop.
In some of these games, the potential payoff is much larger than it used to be.
And when you hit something strong, keep betting.
You might be surprised by how much money people are willing to put in with one pair.
They are done trying to play perfectly.
They tried to play perfectly when they were younger, and it did not work.
Now they are just mad.
And that can create some tremendous opportunities for you.
3. When a flush draw misses, nobody wants to fold
I have lost count of the number of times I have made a huge value bet with a mediocre two pair after a flush draw failed to complete.
Sometimes I will overbet two times the pot.
And what happens?
Somebody with second pair practically beats me into the pot with their call.
Then, when I table my hand, they start screaming at me like I did something wrong.
Apparently, there is some civil way to play poker that I was never taught.
But this is something you need to recognize.
When there is an obvious missed flush draw on the board, a lot of players immediately start looking for reasons to call.
They think, “Well, the flush missed.”
Then they think, “He could have been drawing.”
And finally, they decide, “I’m not folding.”
It does not matter that your line makes perfect sense for a big hand.
It does not matter that you have been betting for value the entire time.
They can see the missed draw, and that is enough justification for them.
This creates massive value-betting opportunities.
If you have a strong hand and your opponent is the type of player who cannot fold whenever a draw misses, stop worrying about getting called.
Start thinking about how much you can bet.
In a lot of these situations, you are leaving money on the table by betting small.
4. People are running more terrible bluffs
Another thing I have noticed is that people are making some really dumb bluffs much more often.
Especially when they are tilted.
If somebody raises preflop and they are already frustrated, you can sometimes expect some truly ridiculous triple barrels.
They are not necessarily thinking about board texture.
They are not necessarily thinking about your range.
They are not necessarily thinking about whether their bluff makes any mathematical sense.
They are just angry.
They want to win a pot.
And they think the solution is to keep betting until you finally fold.
This creates a fantastic opportunity for you.
You need to learn how to set a few traps.
You also need to be willing to call down with some top pairs against the right opponents.
Now, I am not telling you to become a calling station against everybody.
Most people still do not bluff enough in many of the biggest pots.
But when someone is clearly frustrated and starts firing bets that do not make much sense, you need to recognize what is happening.
Sometimes your opponent is simply trying to buy their way out of a bad mood.
And if you have a hand that can reasonably call them down, you can make a lot of money.
5. Everybody thinks they need to defend their big blind with anything
This is one of my favorite developments in live cash games.
Everybody has heard that they are supposed to defend their big blind more often.
But a lot of people have taken that advice way too far.
They think because they are getting a discount, they are supposed to call with practically anything.
And this gets especially ridiculous in multiway pots.
They call with all kinds of weak hands.
Then they flop second pair or third pair.
And because they have already decided they are supposed to defend, they start calling down.
They call the flop.
They call the turn.
Sometimes they even call the river.
They are putting more and more money into the pot with hands that should never be playing that big of a pot.
This is fantastic for you.
You do not have to make some elaborate bluff.
You do not have to run a complicated solver-approved line.
You just need to recognize that your opponent has a lot of mediocre hands in their range and does not want to fold them.
Then value bet accordingly.
A lot of players have learned that they are supposed to defend more hands preflop.
But they have not learned how to play those hands correctly after the flop.
And you can make a fortune from that difference.
6. People are stacking off with top pair in multiway pots
This is another enormous opportunity.
Let’s say you are playing a multiway pot.
You flop a set or two pair.
Then you make a huge raise.
That should be a pretty obvious sign that you have a strong hand.
You are raising into multiple players.
You are risking a significant amount of money.
And you are representing a hand that can beat top pair.
But you know what happens in today’s games?
People get frustrated.
They look down at their top pair and think, “I’m not folding this!”
They start convincing themselves that you could have a draw.
They start telling themselves that you are trying to push them around.
And suddenly, they are putting their entire stack in with one pair.
I have seen this happen repeatedly.
There are more players than ever who seem unwilling to fold top pair once they have invested money in a pot.
That is a wonderful situation when you have a monster.
You do not need to get tricky.
You do not need to slow-play everything.
Sometimes you just need to raise huge and let your opponent make a terrible call.
Now, you need to be willing to put up with some variance.
Sometimes they will hit their miracle card.
Sometimes your set will lose to a draw.
Sometimes your two pair will get counterfeited.
That is poker.
But if people are consistently putting their money in behind, you are going to do very well over time.
7. Match-the-stack games create incredible short-stack opportunities
My final huge edge right now is in match-the-stack cash games.
These games can create some fascinating situations.
A lot of times, players are buying in for 300 to 500 big blinds.
Some of them have enormous stacks.
They are straddling.
They are re-straddling.
They are raising.
And they are calling raises with all kinds of hands because they want to play big pots.
Now imagine you buy in for 100 big blinds.
You are sitting there with a much shorter stack than the other players.
You wait.
Somebody straddles.
Another person re-straddles.
Then somebody raises, and a couple of people call.
Suddenly, there is a huge amount of money in the middle before the flop.
And you only have 100 original big blinds in your stack.
In the right situations, that creates a tremendous opportunity to move all in with a strong range.
Hands like pocket tens or better and ace-queen suited or better can become attractive shoving candidates, depending on the action, the effective stacks, and the ranges involved.
Sometimes everybody folds, and you pick up a huge amount of dead money.
Other times, somebody calls you with a hand that is much worse than yours.
Of course, you still need to account for the strength of the original raiser’s range and how likely the other players are to call. The shove is not automatically profitable just because there is a lot of money in the pot.
But this is the opportunity I want you to recognize.
You do not necessarily have to buy in for 500 big blinds just because everybody else is doing it.
You can sometimes sit down with a shorter stack and take advantage of people who are making the game play much bigger than the posted blinds.
When you understand how to adjust to straddles and re-straddles, these games can become extremely profitable.
And right now, there are more opportunities to find these situations than I have seen in a long time.
That’s my time for today.
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I appreciate your continued support.
Wishing you the best of luck on the felt.
