Image courtesy of World Poker Tour
The game of poker has been growing in popularity in recent years, drawing more and more players, primarily to tournaments. However, with the influx of new tournament players, the number of those giving low stakes cash games a try is growing as well.
At many poker rooms, especially in places like Las Vegas, waiting lists are long and filled with names like never before. The action is good, and this is the time to make money at the tables.
To do this, you need to level up, improve your skills, and start crushing those $1/$2 and $2/$5 games. You can significantly improve your win rate by implementing some simple adjustments, the likes of which I’ll discuss in this article.
Coming up are three mistakes or blunders you need to stop making when playing low stakes cash games, and if you do, you’ll see significant improvements to your results. So, let’s dive in!
Mistake #1: 3-Betting Only When You Have the Nuts
If you’re the type of player to 3-bet before the flop only when you have a super-strong hand like AK or JJ+, you’ll be easy to play against, even at low stakes.
One reason for this is that many players simply overestimate their edge after the flop. This leads to them calling with a lot of medium-strength hands, believing they’ll be able to outplay their opponents postflop. The reality is, many of these hands actually play much better as 3-bets.
On top of this, you want to have a loose-aggressive image, as it will help you get paid when you actually have a monster.
Let’s look at some examples from the image below:
If you look at the first graph, which is playing as a button vs. a cutoff open, what does our correct 3-betting range look like? Of course, we are re-raising with all of our strongest hands, which makes perfect sense, but you’ll notice that we’re also 3-betting with some hands that are just okay.
Hands like 98s, 78s, and 68s are mixing between calling and 3-betting in this spot. And then, there is a bunch of medium-strength holdings that always fold here. When you are playing in a cash game where there are no antes and there is rake (which is pretty much always the case), you have to be disciplined.
The second graph shows big blind vs. the button. Facing a button raise, you should be folding a bulk of your weaker hands, such as A2o, K8o, etc. These hands are easy folds in cash games as you are deep-stacked and out of position.
When it comes to 3-bets, our strategy is much more linear, meaning we are 3-betting with a lot of our stronger hands first. We want to stick to hands that have good playability after the flop, so we are not re-raising nearly as much with marginal holdings when playing out of position.
Mistake #2: Not Check/Raising Enough
A majority of players at lower stakes don’t check-raise nearly enough, and this is actually the first thing on my list of small stakes cash game exploits.
Players tend to continuation bet way too much. In the GTO world, however, you don’t get to c-bet 100% of flops – far from it. So, if your opponent’s continuation bet too much, this means they have a lot of weak hands in their range, and you can punish them by check-raising, especially on board textures that are good for your perceived range.
Here’s an example of this.
We have 9♠8♠ in the big blind. Lojack raises, we call, and the flop comes Q♠7♥5♥. After we check, the opponent fires a small continuation bet of one-third the pot.
This is a board texture that the lojack player won’t connect too good with, as he’ll have many Ax, Kx, and middling pair type of holdings, and all of these hands will hate getting check-raised. So, when we have a hand like a gutshot with a backdoor flush draw, we can go for a check-raise in this spot.
So, we raise their 4BB bet to 15BB, putting them in a really tough spot. They will have to fold a lot of their over-cards and small pocket pairs. They will likely continue with bigger pairs, but the board will likely get progressively worse for them, allowing you to continue putting pressure.
Simply put, you want to check-raise a lot against the players who continuation bet too often. Their range will be too weak to fight against this strategy, allowing you to significantly boost your win rate.
Mistake 3: Hero Calling Too Much on the River
Your number one goal when playing poker, regardless of the stakes, is to make as much money as possible – it’s really that simple. You don’t need to focus on “being right” or letting your opponents know how unlucky you got. Your ego is your enemy at a poker table.
One simple fact is that, in small stakes cash games, your opponents won’t be bluffing nearly often enough on the river. The right way to adjust to this reality is by never hero-calling in these spots!
If you find yourself on the river, facing a bet and holding a hand that can only beat bluffs and none of your opponent’s value hands, you should drastically over-fold.
Here’s an example. We raise from the hijack holding A♣K♥, playing 100 big blinds deep. We make it standard 3x and the big blind calls.
The flop comes K♠10♦5♠. They check, we continuation bet for about two-thirds, and they make the call.
The turn comes the 10♥, and we bet yet again, making it a pot-sized bet. Now, the opponent raises. While we have a relatively strong hand, I think that folding in this spot against a lot of low stakes opponents is perfectly fine. In the GTO world, we are never folding, but these are specific situations in which we can deviate from the GTO strategy.
In this particular case, we call and see the 9♦ river, and the opponent goes all-in. At this point, you are getting pretty good pot odds and you’re beating all bluffs. The problem is, when your opponent takes this line, and the river even completes some draws, this is actually a fold, even from the GTO perspective.
If you’re supposed to fold against an opponent who is playing a perfect strategy, you should certainly fold against a player who’ll have a tendency to under-bluff on the river.
Summary
By minimizing and avoiding the three blunders described in this article, you’ll significantly increase your win rate in low stakes cash games. As you can see, these aren’t particularly difficult adjustments to make, so you should start implementing them in your strategy immediately. Your bankroll will be grateful to you!
