Capture the Flag -- Joe Cada

Joe Cada is a 21-year-old professional poker player who has his eyes set on beating Peter Eastgate’s record as the youngest World Series of Poker main-event winner, as he currently sits in fifth chip position going to the final table. But before Cada gained fame as a tournament player, he was making a living in cash games.

Kristy Arnett: How old were you when you got your start playing cash games?

Joe Cada: I started when I was 15; we played a little before the “Moneymaker boom,” but that’s when it started getting really popular around my school. We started playing at different friends’ houses. We’d play 25¢-50¢ and buy in for $25 or $50. I realized pretty quickly that there is a lot to the game, and I also had a bunch of friends who were older and played professionally at the time, so I’d ask them for advice.

KA: Were you successful immediately?

JC: I actually won a lot in the home game, and that’s why, during my senior year, I tried playing online. I deposited $50 online, and at the time, I didn’t have very good bankroll management. I’d play 25¢-50¢ with two $25 buy-ins and try to run it up. I’d either cash out or go broke. After a while, I just left the money online and moved up to $2-$4, which I played for about a year, when they [online sites] came out with bigger stakes. I eventually moved up to $10-$20.

When PartyPoker shut out U.S. players, I decided to put some money on UltimateBet. I deposited just $600 to try it out, and I ran that all the way up to $300,000, playing heads up, in only a couple of months. I went on a big downswing and cashed out a bunch. I had big swings back then. I lost like $100,000, and I was 19 at the time, so that was huge.

KA: What do you think your edge is in heads-up play?

JC: It’s easy to get really rattled heads up, especially on UB [UltimateBet], because the software was really quick. You could lose a few buy-ins and start going on tilt really bad. I noticed that a lot of people couldn’t control themselves. That’s when I made most of my money — when people were on tilt. I think that is the strongest aspect of my game. I don’t tilt, really, at all. I can remain calm, and if I lose a couple of buy-ins, I’ll just get up, whereas other people would lose a lot of money at one time.

KA: Before the main event this year, what games and stakes were you playing on an everyday basis?

JC: Well, I was on a big downswing before the main event. I made $150,000 between tournaments in the month of October, and then over the next few months, I lost $150,000 playing $25-$50 PLO [pot-limit Omaha], heads up, six-max, and tournaments. I went to the Bahamas and played in that tournament. I played in Costa Rica, and played $5,000 tournaments in FTOPS Full Tilt Online Poker Series. The variance in tournaments is pretty high, so that all added up pretty quickly. I moved down to $5-$10 before I made the final table of the WSOP.

KA: Have you stepped up in stakes since winning at least $1.2 million so far by making the final table?

JC: There was a point where I beat the $25-$50 games on a regular basis. I could never really beat the $50-$100 games, and they are much tougher now, so I play just $25-$50 now. It’s been going back and forth. I haven’t really had much movement either way, win or lose. So, I’ve been playing that and $10-$20, and I don’t feel the need to move any higher than that, because the swings are pretty ridiculous.

KA: Which do you prefer, tournaments or cash games?

JC: I think I enjoy tournaments more, at least the bigger buy-ins. I’ve been playing the $25-$50 game, and the games are really tough. There isn’t much dead money, but in tournaments, you find a lot of dead money. Tournaments are a lot more relaxing. You can lose only what you bought in for. In cash games, there have been days when I’ve lost $60,000 or $70,000.

KA: What adjustments do tournament players often fail to make when moving to cash games?

JC: I think a lot of tournament players have difficulty playing cash games because they’re much more deep-stacked. There’s more post-flop play. In tournaments, a lot of the game is played preflop, because you are playing with 20, 30, or 40 big blinds. Your hand selection in tournaments is a lot smaller, too. When you are playing in shorthanded and deep-stacked cash games, you have to widen the range of your hands, and you’re put in a lot of different situations in which you wouldn’t normally find yourself in tournaments. The thing about poker is that it’s all about experience and being able to adjust.

KA: What kinds of adjustments do you make when playing in a cash game that’s particularly aggressive preflop, and how do you know when to combat aggression with more aggression or a tighter approach?

JC: There are lots of ways you can adjust. If someone is three-betting you frequently over a certain number of hands, you’re going to have to four-bet more. It also depends on how often a person plays back to a four-bet. Once you have played a lot of hands with a particular person, it’s a lot easier to know exactly how to adjust. You’ll know whether he’s going to five-bet shove some of his hands or fold to a four-bet. Or, if someone is three-betting a ton, you can open less frequently. And you can open-fold hands that don’t play well post-flop, like K-J and K-10.

If someone is calling your three-bets a lot, do it with hands that have good value, like A-Q, K-Q, and 9-8 suited. A lot of people just four-bet or fold to a three-bet; in that case, it doesn’t really matter what kind of hands you are three-betting, so you really have to be three-betting with A-J or A-Q, because if you are not planning to call a four-bet or to five-bet shove on them, there is no point in three-betting those hands, because you should play them for value.

KA: What do you think of a player limping with a strong hand like aces or kings from under the gun, with the intent of back-raising?

JC: I don’t like limp-raising too often. If you’re going to limp in with a strong hand, you’re also going to have to balance your range. If you’re limping only with your big hands, it’s going to be obvious, and you’re not going to get much action. That means that you’re going to have to limp with other hands, too, so now you’re limping from under the gun and people are going to raise you a lot. I prefer just opening. I can see it being a good play if you are at a table where a lot of people are calling raises, and if you limp, there is a really good chance that someone else will raise. That way, you can collect a lot of bets.

KA: Along those same lines, how do you balance your opening range from early position?

JC: I like to open a lot of hands, but of course it depends on the table. I like to open suited connectors — like 7-6, 9-8, 10-9 — and my big hands — aces, A-K, kings, queens. But I’m folding A-J and A-10 when under the gun, because if I raise with those hands, I’m not going to get a worse ace to call me preflop. A lot of hands like K-J and Q-J, I’ll just fold, but I’ll open hands like the smaller suited connectors, which aren’t necessarily dominated by players who are calling an under-the-gun raise. I’ll play hands that play well post-flop, to mix up my range.

KA: What advice would you give to other young players who want to play cash games for a living?

JC: The first thing I would say is, have good bankroll management. That way, when you lose, it won’t affect you at all, because you are rolled [bankrolled] for the game. That gives you a huge advantage.

KA: In the future, are you going to continue to play cash games, or begin to play more tournaments?

JC: I think it will depend a lot on how I do at the main-event final table [laughing].