I've been doing NL tourneys and sit and gos for about a year now and I'd like to give NL ring game a try. I've read HOH 1 and 2 so im not totally stupid.

I'd like it if some experienced players could tell me what are the main differences between tourney and cash games and maybe tell me about their overall strategy. I might be wrong, but it looks so differant.

I'm curious too....I just play my tourey game at a cash table and know I am playing it wrong....just not sure what to change.

You can't play passive poker in a cash game. You have to be aggressive. In a tourney you can't reload after you get outdrawn by a bad player, but in a cash game chances are that player is gonna pay you off after you reload. Also to sit in a tourney you need the buyin...thats it. In a cash game say 1/2 $200 max buy in you better not have less than $1000 in your pocket, because you have to be able to survive the swings. I've reloaded 3 or 4 times in one night, but after the session is done been up 500-600. Another thing is stamina, staying power. You have to be able to play quality poker for a long period of time if you hit a bad run of cards. There are still lots of differences, and you really won't understand them all until you really play in enough cash games.

I tried that...its no fun. I like being creative. I guess playing super tight makes you a winner, but you don't win as much as when you play creative.

one of the things I was wondering is if a overpair or TPTK is good enough to bet your whole stack. I know it depends, but at the stakes i'll be playing (very small) people will be tough to read.

exemple:

the pot is very small, the flop is Q27 with no flush draw, you have AQ.
no one has shown strenght preflop. If someone bet is whole stack, do u call?

if this was tourney I'd probably do a harrington like calculation, but in ring games, you wont ever get the pot odds needed to call.

Originally Posted by tdq

one of the things I was wondering is if a overpair or TPTK is good enough to bet your whole stack. I know it depends, but at the stakes i'll be playing (very small) people will be tough to read.

exemple:

the pot is very small, the flop is Q27 with no flush draw, you have AQ.
no one has shown strenght preflop. If someone bet is whole stack, do u call?

if this was tourney I'd probably do a harrington like calculation, but in ring games, you wont ever get the pot odds needed to call.

It's very hard to respond with a general answer that is often correct. An awful lot depends on the player making the bet and your view of his skills and betting patterns after observing him play for a while.

However, if I were to make a generalization without knowing much about the bettor, I would say that bets that seem out of the ordinary for the board more often than not reflect a strong hand. In low-stakes, online play, players seem bet hands like sets, two-pair, and high pairs very strongly. So in the hand you described, I'd be worried about having run into hands like AA or KK, a set, or some two pair combination like Q7s. Bottom line: be careful and be observant about your opponents.