What? I'm not crazy!

Although I play tournaments, I still prefer to spend most of my time playing the cash games. If I only played tournaments, I wouldn’t get to use all of my skills. When you play a cash games, odds are you will be playing with the same players so you have to use a lot of different skills.

In Texas Holdem poker tournaments, you're constantly moving, they have to balance tables, or your table may break. Unless you make it to the final couple of tables, you can play a cash game short handed and that’s an entirely different game as well. So, even if you've been attentive to your opponents' tendencies (as you always should be) you usually don’t get to take advantage of that information for the long run. In a cash game, however, you have far more time with a set of players. When I play a cash game in a casino, I might spend eight -10, hours with the same players. This affords me time to study them and pick my spot to go in for the kill. If I'm going to be playing with the same people for hours, I can create a table image that will benefit me over the time. Believe me, your skilled opponents are doing the same.

When I first enter a game, I like everyone else try to size up my opponents. I will try to watch the table to see if they players are really loose or some of cast off stones from the Rock of Gibraltar . To begin, I might make a series of losing or even unprofitable plays, stupid or strange bets and of course the ever popular bluff. I may lose some money at first, but it does affect how the players think of me, hopefully for rest of that playing session. Even after I change my game back to my so-called smart/solid mode, some players will think I'm a easy for the pickens. But the problem with doing that in a tournament is, you can spend an time getting everyone to believe you're a nut case only to be switched to a different table. You now pissed away your stack and have nothing to show for it.

In cash games, you also have the chance to watch your opponents' over time and notice any mood shifts or tells. Over time a players get tired, frustrated or just hopefully go on tilt. If you are paying attention like you ALWAYS should be, you will notice this and that is when you can move in for the kill. That is just hard to do in a tournament. Usually, the hand that gets a player steaming either get em’s knocked out or leaves them with very little left to go after.

While tournaments can provide for some good pay offs for limited exposure, its just not the same over a long period of time. When playing cash games you'll develop a completely different set of skills that are needed to be a successful player.

Paul of Poker
19 chips per stack.