Playing Online Gambling Agent Assistance 7283
No limit cash games don't have increasing blinds like tournaments do so there is no rush to "make something happen" in cash games. You low stakes players have it the easiest because your opponents will not notice if you have to sit tight for a few orbits - they will still call when you start betting.
Even in high stakes games you will need to practice patience. You do not want to play like a rock but if there's nothing happening, you can't force it. The occasional late position blind steal is sufficient to keep people from thinking you are a complete rock. Whenever you finally do hit a hand, you are going to still have a great chance of getting some action.
Patience is a big problem for me in no limit cash games. If I go a few orbits without acquiring a strong hand, I start to get pretty antsy. I will attempt to stir up some action by raising too many hands, bluffing too much and generally pissing money away.
Ever heard the term "table selection"? Table selection is one of the key skills that big winners use to their advantage. The term gets thrown around all of the time which it seems like it has lost its meaning. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you practice good table selection.
Don't become complacent sitting at the same cash game tables all night. You have hundreds of tables to choose from when playing online poker so don't let great opportunities pass you by. Just a little table selection can certainly double the amount of money you acquire every month.
When I tell you to play aggressively, I don't mean you should play like a trigger happy maniac. In poker, aggression means raising with your strong hands and folding your weak hands. Sounds simple, right?
The problem is most poker players veer away from this strategy by simply calling with their weak hands, calling with their strong hands and only folding when their hands are hopelessly doomed.
An aggressive poker player will either raise or fold his hands. If it is not strong enough to raise, it's not sufficiently strong to call. Sure, you will find perfectly acceptable times to call in poker but for the most part you want to play a robust, aggressive game.
Aggression gets money in the pot whenever you have strong hands (which is how you earn money) and it charges your opponents to draw against you. Aggression wins money in poker.
Pay focus on your role and also the position of your opponents. Each and every poker hand you watch or take part in should be analyzed with position taken into consideration. Which hands you play and just how you play those hands will almost always be affected by your position at the poker table.
When in early position, you may need to be playing far fewer hands. When in late position, you can open your game a bit. If you use Holdem Manager or Poker Tracker, you can look up your stats and you will see that the vast majority of your money is won in late position. You'll also see that out of all of your losses, virtually all those occur in early position.
You must also pay focus on the position of your opponents. Take note of which opponents play differently within different positions. These opponents have probably read at least a little bit of basic strategy.
A preflop raise from an opponent in early position is much different than a raise from that same opponent in late position. Always note position and use it to learn around you may about your opponents' hands.
Going for a break might sound counterproductive but poker isn't the same as a regular job. If you don't take frequent breaks, you can simply cost yourself a lot of cash. I have sometimes had to take week long breaks during particularly brutal downswings.
You should never, ever play poker when in a bad state of mind. The times you feel like you may need to play poker the most tend to be the worst times to play excellent poker. If you play poker with a frustrated mindset, you are going to play horribly.
Among the worst times to play poker is when you were supposed to quit for the day but want to stick around for just a little bit longer to win back any money you could have lost. Set yourself a time frame and stick to it. Trust me.