In the Money

Getting Started

From In The Money: Strategies for Winning Texas Hold'em Cash Games
by Antonio "the Magician" Esfandiari

I am sure many of you who are reading this are very experienced players looking for an edge. However, for those players who are just getting started or who have played many hours online or in home games but never in a casino, let me put your mind at ease. So long as you pick a game that is right for you, you have absolutely nothing to be nervous about. Employ the principles you learn here and just play your game. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. You will typically find that dealers, floor managers, and even the other players are all very helpful. There is no such thing as a bad question—especially when you are putting money at risk.

Most casinos have a sign-in desk at the front of the poker room. The games and limits being offered are usually listed, but again, if you have any questions, just ask. Sign up for your game of choice and you will be placed on the list. If the cardroom is not crowded, you could be seated right away, but in today’s environment there is usually a wait—especially during peak hours. You are allowed to sign up for as many different games as you like, upping your odds of being seated faster. A standard Hold ’Em cash game has either 9 or 10 seats at the table—depending on the casino. The tables will usually be filled to capacity. This game is also sometimes called a ring game because there is a full ring of people around the table. However, at offpeak times, you may find some empty seats at the table. Games with less than 7 players are referred to as shorthanded games. Shorthanded games are more common at off-peak hours. Also, many online poker sites now offer cash games with a maximum of 6 players. You will have to adjust your play for shorthanded games, which we will discuss in a subsequent chapter. Finally, a heads-up game is played between two people. You will rarely find a headsup cash game in a casino because it is not cost-effective to use up a table and a dealer on just two players. However, heads-up games are becoming increasingly popular online, and I have included a chapter later on discussing specific strategies. Once you sign up for a game, stay close by so you can hear your name called when your seat opens. Then put your game face on and get ready to play. So now you are ready to sit down and play a cash game of Texas Hold ’Em. There are a number of general concepts to consider before you sit down, and some others to keep in mind throughout the game.

The first thing to consider is game selection. What level game should you play? You want to choose a game in which you will have equity. That is, you want to enter a game in which you have a positive expected return on your investment. Learn to look at poker objectively, just like you would any investment. Do this even if you are purely a recreational player. After all, whether you are a seasoned professional or a Monday-night home-game player, the object is to win money. So pick a game in which you are likely to be successful. The quality of competition typically increases significantly at each higher level.

In addition to finding a level of competition that you can beat, choose a game that is suitable to your bankroll. Even if you perceive the competition to be weak at a $15–$30 limit game, you should not sit down to this game if you only have $300.You will not be able to play to the best of your ability with such a small bankroll. One bad beat and your bankroll will be severely crippled. With a small bankroll, you are likely to play too cautiously or, worse, play scared. As I mentioned before, if you play with fear, you’re done. You will be the hunted, not the hunter.

So what is the correct amount you should buy in for? Personally, in limit games, I like to buy in for about 50 times the amount of the big blind. I find that there is an advantage in sitting down with a large stack. It helps project a stronger table image to your opponents. There is no magic in this number, however. Everyone has his or her own comfort level. If you are more comfortable buying in for 20 or 30 times the big blind in order to minimize potential losses, then by all means do this. However, if you find yourself buying in for 10 times the big blind, you should probably find a lower-limit game. At 10 times the big blind, you are going to smell of scared money, and the sharks at the table will be salivating.

The analysis is a little different when buying in for a no-limit game. The lower no-limit games (such as $1–$2 and $2–$5 blinds) will typically have a maximum buy-in since you can go all-in at any time. Personally, I like to buy in for the maximum. I find this gives me not only a psychological advantage, but also allows me to maximize my equity in the game. I would not sit down to a game if I did not have an advantage. So I want to have enough chips to be able to maximize the profit I can expect from that advantage.

However, if you are moving up a level or want to take a shot at a new game, you have to be careful. At the bigger games, there is no maximum limit to your buy-in. Any game with $5–$10 blinds and above falls into this category. When I sit down to these games, I want to have the deepest stack at the table. That’s me, though. In no-limit play ,your entire stack could be in jeopardy in any one hand. So buy in for an amount that you would be comfortable losing. You can always buy in for more if you lose your initial amount. It does not do you any good to buy in for a high amount if it is going to cause you to play scared. If you are worried about losing this larger amount, you cannot win. So buy in for the amount that will allow you to play aggressively and not scared.

Again, if you buy in for too small an amount, however, you are giving up too much. At a buy-in for 20 times the big blind, any equity you would otherwise have in the game is greatly diminished. You will not get enough value for a good hand. For example, if you flop the nut flush and an inexperienced opponent has a smaller flush, you are both likely to end up with all of your chips in the pot. By having bought in for a small amount, you will not get maximum value for this hand. Now, let’s look at the flip side of this hand. What if we have the smaller flush? If you are going to sit down with a big stack, you have to be able to lay these hands down. That means you have to develop the skill to recognize when your opponent can beat your strong hand and the discipline to let go. If you are not there yet, then do not buy in for a deep stack.

In a no-limit game, there should be a direct correlation to your level of experience and the amount of your buy-in. The more experienced you are, the greater the stack with which you should start. The very experienced players are looking to maximize their profit. They want to have a deep stack in order to get full value out of a favorable hand or to have enough chips to force an opponent out when the situation presents itself. In fact, in the bigger no-limit games, there often is no limit on the maximum buy-in. If you are less experienced, you should consider buying in for a smaller stack. When you buy in for a smaller stack, there are fewer decisions to be made. Most of your decisions will be made preflop based on starting hands and position. With a short stack, you are less likely to get involved in a lot of postflop action unless you hit a very favorable flop. In no-limit play, the toughest decisions come when you have a deep stack and your opponents have deep stacks as well. In these situations, the better and more experienced players have the advantage. So if you are less experienced or are testing a new level, try it with a smaller stack. You can gain some valuable experience without risking your bankroll or giving more experienced players opportunities to outplay you. Just make sure you have enough to be aggressive. If you do not, then find a less-expensive table. You do not want to sit down to a $10–$20 no-limit game with $300 when the average stack is over $2,000. Remember that in order to be aggressive, you have to be wagering an amount that is material to your opponent, not you.

The next thing that you should always remember is that cash games are measured over a long period of time. You are going to have winning and losing sessions. Every player does—even the best in the world have their fair share of losing sessions. Success in poker is measured over the long term. Winning players recognize this. Once you recognize this, it will make it much easier to avoid the short-term emotional setbacks. It is human nature to want instant gratification. Poker can often provide that. On the other hand, poker can just as easily hand you a bad beat. If you let the emotions of these moments affect your play, you will lose focus. One simple way to avoid this is to never tell a bad-beat story. This is such an important point that I am going to repeat it for emphasis: Never ever tell a bad-beat story. All that does is reinforce losing—and nobody wants to hear it, anyway. Learn to view poker in the long term. Losing should not affect how you play. There are some people who just cannot quit when they are losing. They insist on trying to get their money back. What they fail to realize is that oftentimes when they are losing, there is a reason for their losing. They may be playing poorly, or they could be overly tired. In any event, because they are losing, they are likely to have a poor table image. If that is the case, then their opponents have an advantage. When these factors are at hand, then it is probably best to take a break or call it a day.

A game will still be there later, or even the next day. On the other hand, there will be times when you are losing when you should not quit. If you are playing well and believe you are better than the other players at the table, then keep playing, even if you are losing, as long as you feel well and are up to the task. Every player will have his share of ups and downs. Anybody can play well while he is winning. The test of a true poker player is how he does when he is losing. So how can you tell if you should stay in a game when you are losing? If you are tired and making mistakes, then certainly it is time to go. What is more difficult to recognize, though, are those situations in which your opponents have a good read on you and are attacking you. Always keep in mind how others perceive you. Their perception of you may be a lot different than the image you think you are projecting. If your table image is wrecked, then get out. Go home and play another day.

I am a professional poker player. That means I have to look at poker as my business. Even if you don’t play for a living, learn to treat it like a business. As with any business, the main objective is to make money. Also, as with any business, you will have expenses. Antes, blinds, playing pot odds, and suffering bad beats are all part of your expenses. So the next time an opponent hits that two-outer on the river to beat you, keep your emotions in check.

Forget about it and move on. And don’t tell that bad-beat story!

Now that we know your poker game is your own personal enterprise, we want to maximize your profits. When you are winning, some of your opponents have to be losing. By definition, you have a favorable table image. You have equity in the game. You must take advantage of that table image and maximize your profit in the game. If you fail to do this, then even if you win 7 out of 10 sessions, you still may be a loser overall. If you tend to stay in losing sessions hoping to get your money back and leave your winning sessions early while you are up, you will surely lose a lot more money in your losing sessions than you win in your winning sessions.

How do you take advantage of a favorable table image? Be more aggressive. Never let up on the losing players. Attack them while they are feeling beaten. So long as you are winning, do not leave the table unless you are feeling tired or losing focus. When the game is juicy, satisfy your appetite. Most players do the opposite. They do not want to leave the table when losing because they want to win their money back. Yet when they are winning, oftentimes they will get up in the middle of the game in order to leave a winner. Your equity in the game is always greater when you are winning. Your table image has to be more favorable because you are winning and others have to be losing. If you do not maximize your profit during these sessions, then you jeopardize your ability to make money in the long run. So long as you are feeling well and are able to maintain your focus, stay with the game. The only time you should consider leaving is if you are the type of player who still needs confidence builders and want to make sure you leave on a winning note. With experience, you will no longer need those confidence builders.

There is no substitute for experience at the poker table. With tons of playing hours logged into your subconscious, you will be well equipped to recognize situations and read your opponents. However, just putting in time does not give you experience. Maximize your experience by staying focused every minute you are playing. Study your opponents’ mannerisms and watch their betting patterns. There is always something going on at the poker table, whether you are involved in the pot or not. So stay focused and pay attention to everything.

You can learn something from every hand. Experience is what will help you make decisions as you go. For instance, say that I am in the big blind with A-8 offsuit in a limit game. Everyone folds to the player on the button, who raises. The small blind folds and I call. After the turn, the board is 4-5-7-8.With top pair and an overcard, I know I am going to call here. So if I know I am going to call, anyway, I want to be the aggressor. I may even force my opponent to lay down a better hand, such as pocket 10s or pocket jacks. My opponent has to be worried that I have a straight because the hands I could be holding in the big blind are quite varied. How I play specific situations depends greatly on my read of my opponent. Knowing your opponents helps you make correct decisions. Does this opponent always raise from the button whenever everyone folds to him? Or does he only play strong hands no matter what his position? Some opponents will always bet a scary board no matter what. Others will never bet it unless they have made their hand. Still others will mix it up.

Some players play blindly. They play their cards will little thought to their opponents. If you are this type of player, then focus on your opponents when you are not in a hand so you can dedicate all of your attention to studying them. Try to figure out what they are doing and what kinds of adjustments they are making, if any. Once you’ve done this for a while, then start thinking about how your opponents are eyeing you up. You must be aware of how your opponents perceive you. Poker is about constantly adjusting. If a player has just lost a hand, you must know how he will react and adjust to that and adjust to how he is adjusting to you. Now, multiply that equation by eight, as that is how many opponents you will have to adjust to as they are adjusting to you.

Finally, learn to think about how you can manipulate each player and the situation to your benefit and determine the outcome. When you no longer possess that ability, it is time to get up and leave. If I have doubts about my table image during any particular session, I will run a little test. I’ll choose a hand to play aggressively and see how many opponents react. If no one is backing off, then I know it is time to quit. If it does work, however, then it’s back to full throttle poker. By staying focused and paying attention to the subtleties in the game, I can manipulate my opponents to achieve the outcome that I want. Once you know your opponents and know what they think of you, the game will really open up for you.

That’s when taking advantage of position becomes easier. If I know my opponents, I don’t care if I have 7-3 or pocket kings: I can win if I have position. Let me offer an example from a recent cash-game hand.

I am on the button when one player limps in from early position. Three players after him limp in as well. Now the action is on me. Before I even look at my cards, I like my position here. I know the early position limper fairly well. As for the other guys, I am not even worried about them. The fact that none of them raised to try to push anyone out tells me all I need to know. They do not have strong hands here. I do still have to worry about the blinds, though. I look at my hand to see the 6-3 of hearts. I raise to isolate the early position limper. As expected, everyone folds but him. Now, I know he is the kind of guy who could be slowplaying a strong hand here. The flop comes A-7-7.My opponent bets. Now, I know if he had a seven, he would check for sure, because I know he likes to slow-play. I also know that if he had an ace, he would check as well. How do I know that? Because I know how he perceives me. If he checks, he knows I would bet anything. So in his mind, he would believe that he could get more value out of checking his ace than betting it. So what is he betting with?

Now, instead of raising, I just call. By smooth-calling, I show strength. There are no flush or straight draws out there. My opponent has to believe I have something here. Sure enough, the turn comes a blank. My opponent now checks. I bet out and he folds. I cannot tell you how often this scenario happens. That is the value of position and the value of just calling behind somebody to take it away on the next street. More important, that is the value of being active in taking advantage of position. Many a passive player would have mucked that hand preflop or gotten rid of it when he missed the flop. Then he would complain about how he’s not getting a hand. A proactive player, on the other hand, creates a winning opportunity by manipulating his opponent with favorable position.

Poker is about hard work and discipline. It is about staying focused at all times and paying attention to every small detail. Over time, by doing this consistently, your increased experience will enable you to see each hand as it is happening and react accordingly. You cannot be on cruise control when you are playing. The great players make money on the subtleties of the game. They make small adjustments that their opponents fail to see. By focusing and paying attention, you will pick up on those subtleties.

Learning the fundamentals is essential before you even sit down to the poker table. Once you begin to play, it is critical to work on your hand-reading skills. Once you gain an understanding of your opponent’s play, you can outfox him and defeat him at the table. There is no substitute for experience. Because poker is a game of imperfect information, so much is going to depend on what is commonly referred to as feel. What feel really means is relying on your collective experience to recognize situations and understand the type of player your opponent is. You might be able to get by in the lower-limit games by simply playing solid fundamental poker, but once you are up against some tough competition, relying on fundamentals alone will get you crushed. At the higher-limit and no-limit tables, you must be able to read your opponents and outwit them at the table. However, these tools alone will not bring you success.

Poker is all about making correct decisions. No player will make the right decisions all of the time, but winning players will make them much more frequently than losing players. In order to make correct decisions, you need a firm understanding of the fundamentals. This will require you to learn various odds of making a hand. Once you know the odds, making the correct decision is easy. If you find yourself on a drawing hand, compare the odds of drawing out with the price the pot is offering you. To illustrate this point, let’s look at a sample hand. You are playing No Limit Hold ’Em with $5–$10 blinds. You are in late position, holding 7–8 of hearts, and you call a $10 raise. There’s five people in the pot, so that’s $100 (five players times $20) plus the $5 small blind (who folded), for a total of $105.Now the flop comes Kh-9c-2h, giving you a flush draw. The big blind bets $20, and two players fold and one player calls. That’s an extra $40 added to the pot, for a new total of $145. The price you are being offered to make your straight on the next card is 145 to 20, or 7.25 to 1. You know that the odds of hitting the flush on the next card are 47 to 9, or 5.22 to 1. (There are 47 remaining cards you have not seen, of which 9 are hearts.)

So, on the flop, you are getting 7.25 to 1 in a situation where the true odds are 5.22 to 1. Since the odds are in your favor, you call, bringing the total of the pot to $165. The turn brings the 3d, which is no help. The first player bets $20 again, and the other remaining player folds to you. Should you call or fold? Again, let’s do the math. There is now $185 in the pot ($105 preflop, $60 more on the flop, and now $20 bet at you on the turn). It will cost you $20 more to see if the river card is a heart, which would give you a flush and presumably the winning hand. If you know that of the 46 unseen cards remaining there are only 9 hearts, then you are a 46-to-9, or 5.11-to-1, underdog. Is it correct to call here? Yes. Your $20 investment will earn you $185, not including additional bets you may make on the river if we hit your hand. Your odds are 9.25 to 1 ($185 divided by 20), which is far greater than the 5.11 to 1 odds of making your hand. Now let’s look at this same example under different circumstances): instead of making a $20 bet on the turn, your opponent makes a $100 bet (as you are now playing a no-limit game).Now it will cost you $100 to earn $265.You are only getting paid 2.65 to 1 when the odds of making your hand are still 5.11 to 1.Now it does not make sense to call. (The only exception would be if you think you could make a lot of money by betting on the river if you do hit your hand. Keep in mind that in a no-limit game, you may be able to make a lot on the river if you hit your hand, since you are not limited in how much you can bet or raise. You would bet as much as you think your opponent would call. This is where knowing your opponent is so helpful.)

So here is where we get into a fundamental difference between Limit and No Limit Hold ’Em. In limit play, you are limited to how much you can bet in order to protect your hand. By betting more on the turn, your opponent can make it too expensive for you to try to draw to the flush. That is why it is extremely important to know pot odds. You want to calculate if it is worthwhile to call if you are on a drawing hand. Additionally, however, you want to make sure you bet enough to make it expensive for your opponent to try to draw out on you.

Winning poker is all about making correct decisions and forcing your opponent into making wrong decisions. When you bet enough so that it is not correct for your opponent to call you, you really do not care if he calls or not. If he folds, then you have won the pot. If he calls. then he is making a poor decision. Even if he happens to draw out on you, over the long run you will make money when opponents pay too much to draw out on you.

There is a simple trick known as the Rule of Four that can give you fairly accurate odds of making a hand after the flop. What you do is multiply the number of outs you have by four to arrive at your approximate percent chance of making your hand if you play it all the way to the river. For example, say you are playing Jd-10d and the flop brings two more diamonds. You know you have a flush draw, but what are the chances that you will actually make a flush if you play it all the way to the river?

First, count your outs. There are 13 diamonds, and you know that 4 of them are out (the 2 in your hand along with the 2 on the board). That leaves 9 remaining diamonds, giving you nine outs. Now, following the Rule of Four, multiply 9 by 4, and you get a 36 percent chance (the actual percentage is 35 percent, but the Rule of Four gets you close enough) that you will make your flush by the river.

Be careful with the Rule of Four, however. In limit play, it is much easier to predict how much money it will cost you if you play your hand all the way to the river. In no-limit play, you never know how much money an opponent will bet on the flop or the turn. A common mistake beginning players make in no limit is to get sucked into a hand for more and more money when they are trying to draw out. As you can start to see, there are a lot of differences between Limit and No Limit Hold ’Em. In the next chapter, we will examine more of those differences.