Top Cash Game Mistakes to Avoid

Cash game poker is a very complex variation, with countless different elements, constantly changing stack sizes, and various lines you can take in different scenarios.

Becoming a truly great Texas Hold’em cash game player can take many years, and even the best players out there still make many mistakes in every session they play.

Yet, you want to play as close to perfect as possible, and eliminating mistakes from your game one by one is the only way to slowly get to where you want to be.

These are the top 10 mistakes you should avoid making in cash games if you want to maximize your win rate and make yourself into a truly winning poker player.

Mistake #1 – Playing Too Many Hands

Professional poker players learn fairly early in their career which hands can be played from different positions at the table, and they stick to this plan without exceptions.

Recreational players and those aspiring to become pros, however, often underestimate the importance of playing correct ranges in different scenarios and play way too many hands across the board.

This includes opening hands like KTo from under the gun, calling raises with hands like 85s, and limping hands like T8o to “see a flop.”

All of these plays are downright bad and should not be a part of your arsenal in full-ring cash games, as no amount of skill can turn a fundamentally bad preflop strategy into a winning one.

Disregard what the “live pros” tell you, and make sure to stick more or less to the GTO preflop ranges for raising, calling, and 3-betting, and you will set yourself up for success in the long run.

Mistake #2 – Playing Too Big

As a cash game poker player, it can be very tempting to sit in bigger games where a single winning session can quickly take your bankroll up to new heights.

However, playing above your bankroll is actually one of the biggest mistakes you can make for quite a few reasons.

For starters, if you are playing very high and can’t afford the buyins, you will only get to play a few hands before you run out of money and have to leave the game.

Regardless of how good you are and how bad your opponents may be, there is no telling how the cards will come and when you will lose a coin flip or a 70/30 in a given hand.

Furthermore, there is no way to play optimally if you have a large chunk of your bankroll on the table.

You will be forced to fold draws that could have been profitable calls or play your hands overly aggressively in spots where trapping would have been the right play.

As a general rule of thumb, you should make sure to stick to proper bankroll management and never play for stakes you can’t actually afford.

Mistake #3 – Chasing Draws Against the Odds

Bad cash game players will often tell you how they prefer 87s over pocket Aces because they can win a big hand with 87s but only lose a big one with AA.

Of course, this is completely flawed logic that stems from selective memory and has nothing to do with how cash game poker actually works.

One mistake cash game poker players often make because of this is that they chase their draws way too far and think straights and flushes are very easy to come by.

In live cash games, it is not rare to see players chasing an open-ended straight draw after a large turn bet simply because they think the odds are in their favor when they actually aren’t.

If you want to be a profitable cash game player, learn how to calculate pot odds and count outs, and only continue with your draws when it’s actually profitable.

What’s even more, remember that draws make for amazing bluffing candidates and should not always be played passively with the hopes of getting there and making a big hand on the river.

Mistake #4 – Playing Face Up

One of the most important things in poker, whether you are playing cash games or tournaments, is balance and deception.

In order to be unpredictable and make things hard for your opponents, you have to balance out your range by playing some of your bluffs the same way you play your value hands.

Most players don’t actually do this in real-life scenarios and will be more likely to make big bets with made hands than with their bluffs.

In order to play cash games successfully, you will need to learn how to balance your range in different situations and which bluffing hands to add to your betting and raising ranges to keep your opponents on their toes.

Only by playing a balanced strategy will you be able to win against good players. Even against bad players, a well-balanced strategy will work very well in most scenarios.

Mistake #5 – Not Being Aware of Stack Sizes

In cash game poker, stacks at a single table can vary from as few as 20 bbs to as many as 1,000 bbs, and this is especially the case in live cash games.

If you want to be able to make good decisions, you need to be aware of every stack size at the table and learn how to adapt to different stack depths.

The truth is that playing very deep-stacked poker is quite different from playing with 100 bbs, and this is one of the areas where many cash game players have a big problem.

To start with, you should make sure to always keep an eye out on everyone’s stack, and have your chips lined up in stacks and easy to count.

Away from the tables, you should make sure to study how to play at different stack sizes and what types of hands you can start to open and 3-bet as you get deeper, as these types of studies will make you a better cash game player in the long run.

Mistake #6 – Not Paying Attention

Cash games can get a bit boring at times, as you will have to fold a great many hands if you want to play a proper poker strategy.

In such cases, it can be very easy to not pay attention to anything that’s happening in the game, and many players even resort to listening to music or watching videos on their mobile phones.

While this can definitely kill some time, it will not help your game a bit. In fact, not paying attention to the game will seriously hurt you.

Watching others play pots and figuring out why they did the things they did helps you identify their mistakes and ways to exploit them.

If you are not paying attention, you won’t know which players are over-bluffing with draws, which players only bet with the nuts or any of the other super-useful information you could otherwise gather.

If you are playing poker, focus on the game and make sure to track every player’s play in every hand, as this is the only way to really optimize your results.

Mistake #7 – Staying In the Games for Too Long

Another common mistake cash game players often make is they stay in the games for far too long for no good reason.

While there are definitely times to stay in the game and play with a player who is splashing around, there are also times to get up and collect your profits.

This is especially true in live cash games where the bad players might get felted, and you might be left playing against other regulars.

What’s even more, live cash games can exponentially increase in size over time, and you might find yourself playing stakes five times higher than you started a few hours into the night.

If you are not comfortable with every hand at your $1/2 table being straddled up to $10, get up and walk away, whether you are winning or not.

There will always be another game to sit in, but playing in a game that puts you out of your comfort zone is not a winning strategy.

Mistake #8 – Not Bluffing Enough

One major mistake made by cash game players across the board is not bluffing enough, and this is the case for nearly all players in cash games around the world.

If you take a look at some GTO poker simulations, you will notice that the solvers like to incorporate bluffs on nearly every street in nearly every hand, and that’s not something most people do.

For a random poker player, it can seem like they are bluffing too much if they bluff with the frequency solvers suggest, but that’s just something you need to learn and incorporate into your game.

In fact, since most players in cash games will fold way more than they should, bluffing even more than solvers suggest is often the right way to go, while most players bluff significantly less.

If you want to take your cash game strategy to a new level, learn how to expand your bluffing ranges and find new hands to bluff in various spots that come up.

Mistake #9 – Not Exploiting Players

I talked quite a bit about learning GTO baselines, balancing your ranges, and playing in an unexploitable way in this article.

However, there is definitely a time to play GTO poker and a time to exploit, and making exploitative plays in cash games at the right time can be extremely profitable.

This is especially true when you are playing against amateurs and recreational players who don’t know anything about balancing ranges and don’t really care about the strength of your hand.

You can size up your bets when you have the nuts, bluff when they seem weak, and give up with reasonably strong hands when it’s obvious they have it.

These kinds of plays take a lot of experience to pull off profitably, but once you know how to make them, your cash game win rates will skyrocket, and poker will start to look a whole lot easier.

Mistake #10 – Not Studying the Game

While this is not one of the mistakes cash game players make at the table, it is one that costs them the most money in the long run.

Thinking you are good enough to win and that you don’t need to study poker anymore is the biggest mistake you can make, period.

The game is always evolving, players are adapting to population tendencies, and you need to stay current on what’s going on if you want to have a chance at being a winner.

Spend at least a few hours every week studying poker, whether it’s by reviewing hand histories, watching coaching videos, live stream cash games, or any of the other numerous materials out there.

Poker studying tools have never been more available than they are nowadays, so make sure to take full advantage of them and don’t let the game pass you by.

Read more about the best cash game strategy tips!