Capture the Flag: Where Top Cash-Game Pros Talk Strategy

Phil Galfond, revered in the online poker community as "OMGClayAiken," can be found in the highest-stakes cash games that run online. The 23-year-old professional only recently made his first trip to Las Vegas because of the ease with which he makes a living on his laptop from his home in Madison, Wisconsin. Galfond routinely weathered six-figure swings before he was old enough to buy a beer, and his trip to Vegas was worthwhile, as he won a World Series of Poker bracelet in the $5,000 pot-limit Omaha rebuy event, good for more than $800,000.

Lizzy Harrison: What factors make for a good cash game?

Phil Galfond: You want to look for people who are too loose and too passive. What is really important is picking your seat. You want the deeper stacks and the more aggressive players to your right, and the shorter stacks and less aggressive players to your left. That way, you get to play more pots in position. If there is a really nitty player to your left, you effectively have the button twice in a row, since he folds basically every hand when you're in the cutoff.

LH: What is your preferred game, and why?

PG: My favorite game is six-handed no-limit hold'em.

LH: Is it also your best game? I know that favorite game does not always mean best game.

PG: I think it is also my best game. However, I think that I can make more money playing shorthanded pot-limit Omaha, because other people are worse at it. I've also had a lot of success playing heads-up no-limit, but I don't like it that much, especially online. It takes a lot of focus and you can play only two or three tables at once. If you're playing six-handed, you can play very well on six to eight tables at once.

LH: When you play shorthanded games, what skills do you utilize the most?

PG: Aggression is key. If you are playing against weak players, blind aggression works really well. If you are playing strong players, you have to be smarter about picking your spots. Reading hands is also huge.

LH: How do you put your opponents on a range of hands?

PG: If you are playing a full game and someone opens from under the gun, he has one of five hands. It is all logical deduction with a little bit of probability. For instance, he took this action preflop, so I give him this range of hands. If he raised from the button, for example, that range includes every hand. If the flop comes Q-9-5 and he calls a check-raise, he obviously doesn't have a hand like 4-3, so hands like that can be taken out of the range. Also, if you think he would three-bet two pair on the flop, you can take that out of the range. If you think he might slow-play a set, you keep that in the range. If the turn is a blank, and you check and he bets, you can figure that he would not do that with a hand like A-9. So, A-9 comes out of the range. He might check the turn with a set or a gutshot that he floats, so keep those hands in the range. It goes on like that; as the hand goes on, you narrow it down. It is pretty inexact, but if it were easy to do, poker would be easy.

LH: When you first started playing cash games, what games and stakes did you play?

PG: I was about 20 when I started playing cash games, but I had been playing sit-and-goes exclusively for a year and a half. I started with $5-$10 no-limit, which sounds high, but I was already beating the biggest sit-and-goes online. I was bankrolled for $5-$10 but probably wasn't good enough to play $5-$10. I was a break-even player, but I learned pretty fast. I learned how to mix up my game and get tricky, which I didn't have to do in sit-and-goes.

LH: What stakes do you play on a day-to-day basis?

PG: Right now, I am bankrolled for the biggest games online because I have been running well. I can still beat them, for the most part, and I will continue to play them for as long as the games are good.

LH: What about live games? Have you ventured into Bobby's Room?

PG: I've played there twice. The games were pretty good, but I kind of hate playing live, especially nine-handed, because I get bored. One of the times I played, it was shorthanded, so that was good; Tom Dwan, Kenny Tran, Kido Pham, and I were in the game, but the table filled up eventually. It was no-limit with $100-$200 blinds and a $1,000 button ante. When I came out in April for the World Poker Tour Championship, I played in the $300-$600 half-and-half game and got killed.

LH: What is the biggest game you have played?

PG: Last night I was playing PLO [pot-limit Omaha] online and I was stuck about $300,000, but the games were amazing. I ended up playing all night and I saw that a good $2,000-$4,000 H.O.R.S.E. game was going. I'm not very good at H.O.R.S.E.; the first time I played was in the $50,000 event at the Series. Anyway, I played the game last night; I played well and I ran well, and I got it all back. I think that is the biggest game I have played, although I have played $500-$1,000 no-limit, and that is comparable.

LH: What is the most money you have won in a single session?

PG: I've had a bunch of times when I have won $400,000 or $500,000, but not much more than that.

LH: Why do you think so many players from our generation have achieved such huge, and immediate, success in online cash games?

PG: Anyone who works hard and has discipline, and a little bit of intelligence, can beat $1-$2 and $2-$4 no-limit games. I think that the people who can do it at the highest stakes need to have natural ability. We use logic, math, psychology, and emotional control to succeed. Poker became huge a few years ago and everybody tried it; the ones who were good at it are still here.

LH: In the biggest games online, all of the players have the technical knowledge, and most of them have the experience, so what determines who wins and who loses?

PG: The one thing that most people underestimate is game selection and seat selection, which we discussed earlier. I think that some great players put no thought into it at all, and it ends up costing them money. Let's say you're at a four-handed PLO table with two short-stackers who have about $8,000 in front of them and a good player with $40,000. Some good players will sit down to the right of the good player with their own $40,000 stack, and that is not a good idea. You can't win in that spot unless you are 10 times better than the other good player. All you have is position on two short stacks, while the big stack will have position on you every hand. It doesn't matter how good you are, you can't win in a game like that.

LH: PLO seems to be the game du jour for high-stakes cash-game players. Why do you think that is?

PG: It is because most people are not very good at it; PLO is harder to figure out than hold'em. You have to understand your equity against other players' ranges, and you have to push your equity when you have it.

LH: How should a player determine when he is ready to move up in stakes?

PG: All players think they are better than they are, so it is tough to give advice. You have to use your best judgment; look at the games and figure out which players are making mistakes. The way that I judge whether or not a game is too tough for me is that I sit in it for about an hour. If I can't look at every other player and say to myself, "This is a mistake that this player makes, and this is how I can beat him," it is a tough game. If you're playing $1-$2 no-limit and you move up to $2-$4 no-limit, and you think you're playing well but you can't look at all of the other players and know what they are doing wrong, it is because you don't understand what they are doing wrong or you're doing more things wrong yourself.

LH: What is the most common mistake you see inexperienced cash-game players making?

PG: They don't think about what they are representing. Some players think they've found a good place to bluff, when it actually makes no sense, and good players pick up on that. People understand the fundamentals of no-limit, but they don't think through hands enough.