Capture The Flag: Ryan Hall

Ryan Hall is a semi-pro poker player, but over his nearly decade-long poker career he has amassed around $1 million in career tournament earnings. He honed the skills necessary for a huge side-income from tournaments thanks to cash games.

Starting with a free $2 on an Internet poker site in 2004, Hall has made his way to playing as high as $10-$25 no-limit hold’em. He is able to balance his cash game and tournament play with high school teaching and raising a family. He has two young boys.

The 36-year-old Hamilton, Canada native took the time to talk with Card Player about some cash game basics that could help low-stakes grinders move up in stakes.

Brian Pempus: Talk about learning how to play postflop thanks to cash games and why this is better, presumably, for your overall poker game.

Ryan Hall: In cash games, you’ll get different types of pots. You’ll get the types of pots that you’ll rarely see in high-stakes tournaments, like six-way, raised pots. This is good because the rare time it does happen in a tournament, and it will especially happen in live tournaments, you’re prepared. Spots like that are where a lot of online-only players struggle. So, for example, one benefit in a situation like that is that you learn how to control the pot with different and unusual sizes of bets. I’m talking, by the way, about live cash games. The six-way raised pots don’t happen a whole lot online. And the reason it’s like that is that the skill level live is just so different compared to the stakes. If you’re playing $5-$10 no-limit online and winning, you’re probably one of the better players in the world. At many casinos, you can play completely ABC/tight and win at $5-$10 no-limit.

BP: Do you think learning how to play ABC/tight is a good gear to always have in your poker arsenal?

RH: There are times when playing tight is certainly necessary. I don’t think playing ABC is ever really a good thing. If you’re on a table with a bunch of killers who are three and four-betting, switching to a tight mode is definitely recommended. You should always be doing the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing. There’s a difference between tight and ABC. If you’re playing tight, you can still be playing aggressive. If you’re playing ABC, you’re playing fit-or-fold poker and that’s not ever going to be optimal. If you’re playing in a bad cash game, ABC can still make money, but it’s never going to make the amount of money you could playing properly.

BP: It’s easy to be exploited when you are playing ABC with deep stacks?

RH: Sure, like for example, if you only continuation bet (c-bet) when you have a good hand, even a mediocre player is going to pick up on that and exploit you. And in that regard, you’re giving away too much information about your hand. Playing ABC also means that you’ll never bluff, and that’s not good either. You have to keep your opponent guessing; that’s why playing aggressive is always right. Let’s say you c-bet and a scary card comes off on the turn for your opponent. You then have the option to bet again, whereas if you’d checked the flop, your opponent would have often just taken the pot away right there. It sets you up to put pressure on later streets.

BP: Can you talk about some of the considerations you make when trying to “play for stacks” in a cash game?

RH: This is something that a lot of beginners don’t do well. In no-limit, you want to bloat the pot with your good hands and control the pot with your medium hands. If you bloat the pot properly, you can get a stack either by coolering someone or by having them make a mistake. You want to set up your bet sizing on all three streets so that your river shove is a nice all-in shove of around two-thirds of the pot, so you need to start doing the math on the flop if you make a big hand or potential big hand, so that your bet sizing is right for later. If you’re playing with deep stacks, slow playing big hands is usually not recommended. You need to start getting money in the pot immediately so that you can get a stack. Same goes for preflop. If you’re especially deep, you need to be careful out of position, because even a hand like A-A can be tough to play in a reraised pot out of position if you’re 200 or 300 big blinds deep.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t reraise it, but you need to make your reraise strong to make them pay the correct price and to narrow their hand range.

BP: You would recommend making bigger preflop raises too? Not only to make sure the pot isn’t six-way with your premium hands but also to start building the pot so you can jam later without it being a weird overbet?

RH: Sure, but you need to get a feel for the table. Ideally, when you’re raising preflop, you want to narrow it down to two or three players. How much you need to raise totally depends on the table. So you need to figure that out as quickly as possible and then make that your standard sizing, because you don’t want to raise different amounts with different hands. You don’t really need to setup your preflop raise sizing to get a stack later, as you don’t know who you will be playing the pot with and different people have different stacks, so you can start figuring that out on the flop.

In a live cash game, you definitely need to have bigger sizing, though, than in a tournament, because people just call so loose.

BP: Do you always want to narrow it down to two or three players? Let’s say, for example, you have K-K on the button and there were four limpers in front of you, could you envision a situation where you would want all four of them to see the flop? Could you see there being table dynamics that would justify making a small preflop raise, hoping to get them all to call, with the knowledge that you could crush someone who would overvalue a hand like Q-J if they flop top pair?

RH: No, K-K in a five-way pot is a nightmare. Unless you flop a king, there’s just so much chance that someone could be ahead of you. K-K isn’t an easy hand to get away from for a beginner. Basically, with a premium hand, you want to get as much money in the pot preflop as possible, while still getting a customer or maybe two. You know you’re ahead at this point, so make them pay.

BP: So there are some situations in cash games that can have pretty solid rules to always follow? So, it’s not really all too nuanced when you are facing a situation like the one I just described? In other words, there some spots where it just doesn’t make sense to get tricky?

RH: Yeah, leave the trickiness for postflop for the most part. And while you don’t need to follow set rules, for example, I mentioned figuring out a bet size, if you play sensibly preflop you will make your life much easier on later streets.

BP: Can you talk about the danger of reverse implied odds in cash games?

RH: Well, let’s say for example, you call for a flush draw and the board pairs on the turn. You have to be careful calling another bet because you could make your draw but your opponent could already have an unbeatable hand. You have to be really careful in situations like this, and often folding is just best when this happens. It’s really the same for tournaments and cash games. When you’re dealing with huge stacks, hands that can make the nuts go way up in value. You don’t want to be calling big bets if you can make your hand and not even be good.

BP: What are some considerations for figuring out whether to set mine in a cash game?

RH: There’s a lot to consider. In general, I recommend trying to get 20-to-1 or better bet-to-effective stack ratio. However, if there’s not a lot of three-betting going on in the cash game, you can get away with less than that because there are almost always going to be other players in the pot, so 15-to-1 might even be doable. By 20-to-1 stack to effective, I mean that if the player has $1,000 in their stack, you could call $50 preflop, so at 15-to-1, you could call as much as $75. Of course, it’s rare that you should only call for set value, as sometimes you can win pots when you miss and it’s checked to you and you take a stab.

BP: And when you do hit your set in a set mining situation, can you talk about how you should generally play it?

RH: It depends on a lot of things. The first thing I look at is where the raiser is. If the raiser will be last to act, I’ll often lead out to trap people in between. It also depends on the texture of the board. If the board is very draw heavy, I’ll lead out to protect because it could be a disaster if it checks around. If the preflop raiser is to my left, I’ll often go for a check-raise because, again, the other players in the pot will get trapped. If my opponent is a mediocre or bad player, I’ll also be more likely to check-raise because they’ll be less likely to get away from the hand, and I can build a bigger pot. ♠