A Complete Beginner's Guide to Live Cash Poker in the UK?

[KarmaDope]

(I've put this in The Rail for visibility but it could theoretically go into PHA)

A couple of friends in work have been chatting about starting to play the pokerz but are the type of guys that wouldn't want to play comps - they prefer to play cash. They've played at home and know the basics(ie a full house beats a flush) and have played micros online but are complete fish, to be fair.

With all the live cash grinders on here I thought it would be worth sticking up a thread which could potentially help people transfer from MTT's to cash in casinos - as it plays very differently to most other games, especially at the live micros.

I don't really play cash either myself - but my first piece of advice would be not to raise to 3x/4x if you are trying to thin the field - everyone will call!

So...what would your advice be?

[Oxford_HRV]

my first piece of advice, don't sit down shorter than 100bbs whenever possible, you need/want room to play starting out and starting out; try less to create spots to get chips in, but to wait for the spots where you are going to have the best hand extremely frequently. Patience is the key to joy. 

[GreekStein]

play tight.

make hands, get paid.

[JK]

Think more importantly...

Either announce all bets clearly before placing chips in the pot, or place the entire amount over the line in 1 motion. "I'll call and I'll raise you xx" does not count as clearly announcing. As Anne Robinson said, I have to take your first answer.

Slow rolling "like James Bond does" is not cool. Its ridiculously bad etiquette and should be done under no circumstance. Just turn your hand over straight away.

Hitting and running is pretty tilting also. There's nothing people hate worse than a guy leaving as he's dragging in a pot. Go for a fag, go to the loo then leave after if you really must. Give them time to cool off.

Those off the top of my head, probably more

[tight4better]

Think more importantly...

Either announce all bets clearly before placing chips in the pot, or place the entire amount over the line in 1 motion. "I'll call and I'll raise you xx" does not count as clearly announcing. As Anne Robinson said, I have to take your first answer.

Slow rolling "like James Bond does" is not cool. Its ridiculously bad etiquette and should be done under no circumstance. Just turn your hand over straight away.

Hitting and running is pretty tilting also. There's nothing people hate worse than a guy leaving as he's dragging in a pot. Go for a fag, go to the loo then leave after if you really must. Give them time to cool off.

Those off the top of my head, probably more

All of this.

[gouty]

Study and concentrate on flop textures as you will be seeing a lot of them no matter what you raise.

Only bluff good regs.

Play big pockets and sets fast.

Make sure the weaker players have fun and never berate their play.

[vegaslover]

Position, position, position

After that just watch people. How often do they play hands, are their bets consistent each time etc.

[Poker_Monkey]

Think more importantly...

Either announce all bets clearly before placing chips in the pot, or place the entire amount over the line in 1 motion. "I'll call and I'll raise you xx" does not count as clearly announcing. As Anne Robinson said, I have to take your first answer.

Slow rolling "like James Bond does" is not cool. Its ridiculously bad etiquette and should be done under no circumstance. Just turn your hand over straight away.

Hitting and running is pretty tilting also. There's nothing people hate worse than a guy leaving as he's dragging in a pot. Go for a fag, go to the loo then leave after if you really must. Give them time to cool off.

Those off the top of my head, probably more

All of this.

Have to add one more to this

Do not DO NOT act out of turn if you really do fold out of turn by mistake that's ok just say sorry but you are not playing on line. If you don't want to play the hand waite till its on you before you fold don't just stand up and do one as soon as you look at your cards. This is one of the most tilting things in the world, up there with slow rolling if you ask me

[Rod]

Hi Adam

The stuff posted by JK is really important of course, maybe setup a few games between themselves to get use to it first? Just so they are not making the mistakes online players always make when they start playing (ie the ones I use to make when I first turned up at the live games in the APATs).

As far as beating it goes if they really are serious about it and really want to make money at live cash I can't think of a better way to do it than by downloading Pokerstar's (go with this) then fire up a $10nl table (along with tracking software etc) and learn to beat it. This should be doable for most people who are prepared to put in a bit of time and effort. You can play zoom or multi table but play lots of hands. Then review them, post hands here on the PHA board and listen to the better players, post on the PHA board and learn about the things mentioned here by actually playing and talking about hands. Start out playing a TAG game with clear starting hand ranges from each position and review how much easier it is to win money in position.

Begin to understand the maths and hand ranges and understand why that call is +EV or -EV and the different types of opponent. This initially seems like a waste of time as you are never going to be able to do all of this at the table. This is true but you will start to instinctively understand situations and the decisions you make will get better and better.

You can still play live poker whilst doing all of this of course but I would be pretty confident of saying that if somebody can beat the $10nl games on Pokerstars they should beat most 50p/£1 cash games in the UK. I am sure some better players than me will tell you if I am wrong.

[paulhouk03]

I play a pretty strange style live but pretty effective vs none Thinking recs

I never 6x pre

I always sit with max and always min raise till ppl adapt (rarely) and three bet big stacks quite wide in position as they never like play oop and play face up 95% of the time post flop.

I start to change when I get played back at

Always go with my guts

 if I'm in a marginal situation I mainly take the aggressive route then learn from it

Be chatty , make convo with ppl and loosen them up

[AlexMartin]

I play a pretty strange style live but pretty effective vs none Thinking recs

I never 6x pre

I always sit with max and always min raise till ppl adapt (rarely) and three bet big stacks quite wide in position as they never like play oop and play face up 95% of the time post flop.

I start to change when I get played back at

Always go with my guts

 if I'm in a marginal situation I mainly take the aggressive route then learn from it

Be chatty , make convo with ppl and loosen them up

gold

[SuuPRlim]

everything in the thread so far seems kinda pointless/irrelevant to me. These are guys who are non-pro poker players who want to take up the game for enjoyment amirite?

They've decided that they'd prefer cash games over tournaments which is fair enough. You defo need to make them aware they are inevitably going to lose money (at least at first) as there will be better, more experienced players about in the games they're going to play - there's abso nothing wrong with this, it's a game, its fun - its better than roulette - you have a punters chance on the poker table!

What they need to do is find a game that best suits them, if they like seeing a load of flops, then really aggressive games wont suit them, they'll prefer splashier, limpier type games, if they love to gamble and play big pots etc then they'll prefer an aggro game where people sit deeper and so on. Obviously they want to be where there is the least amount of horrible/rude/miserable people playing and where there is some decent banter.

I'd also advise to them that at first, whilst they get to uunderstand cash poker/the game they playing in that they sit Shallower at first (30-50bb maybe) this way they'll get a lot more play for there money, prolly wont get too over-involved striaght away and the severity of their post flop mistakes will be drastically decreased by the shallower stacks.

Nothing wrong with them hit-and-running whatsoever, obviously slow-rolling/string betting isn't on but if they in a nice game and are clearly inexperienced people will very likely help them out.