Five Tips To Improve Your Cash Game Win Rate

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Success in cash games isn’t just about knowing when to bluff or reading your opponent’s tells, it’s about mastering the less obvious skills that often go unnoticed. These underrated abilities can give you a significant edge over the competition and help you consistently build your bankroll.

Here are five overlooked skills that every serious cash game player should work on.

Folding With Two Pair, Sets, And Straights

Most of your opponents don’t beat the rake. If you want to lose, you should play like them. If you want to win, you’ll have to do plays they’re afraid to do. That includes folds they would never make.

One of the biggest mistakes people make in cash games is they play them like the tournament poker they see on TV. They overvalue one pair top hands like they’re playing 30- or 40-big blind stacks.

Once they get a little bit better, they start realizing that deep stacked multiway pots usually feature someone winning with two pair, sets, straights, and flushes. However, that doesn’t mean once you get those hands that you automatically have the lock. This is especially true when you have a mediocre two pair or the ass end of the straight. A set can also be equally worthless when it runs into an obvious straight or flush.

Many people can’t handle how slow live poker is. They feel like they never get dealt anything, because they expect to get to play every hand. When they finally get dealt a two pair, set, or straight and it isn’t good, they get indignant. They feel it isn’t fair. They’ve waited for so long! This hand should be good!

But gravity doesn’t care how you feel about it. It just is. The same holds true for poker. You know when your hand is a turd. Save some buy-ins and start folding.

You don’t have to see the hand. When a boring reg or nit raises you on the turn or river, they have the goods almost always. Look down at the board. You’ll know what hand they have based on what is the nuts or close to the nuts. Don’t pay them off.

Overbetting Versus Loose Players With A Clue

One of my favorite situations in no-limit cash is when a player who buys in for 100 big blinds suddenly finds themselves with 150 or 200 big blinds. They’re usually not experienced in playing this stack. This opens up opportunities for you.

The board comes 742. He checks to you. You put a small continuation bet out there. He calls quickly. The turn is the K. He checks to you. What do you want to do here?

Think about what he likely has here. We know he calls too much preflop. He likely would have reraised preflop with his best overpairs. He likely would have check-raised with some sets to defend versus the wheel draws and flush draws. He likely called you on the flop with one decent pair or an ace-high. That king is a much better card for you than it is for him, considering his range.

However, you also have a problem. You know this guy is a bit loose. He hates folding unless he has a good reason to do so. So, what should you do?

Give him a good reason to fold. Overbet the pot. Bet something like 150% of the pot. The bet as a complete bluff will only need to work 60% of the time, but the chips going into the pot will look massive!

Even if he calls you, you have a backup plan for the river. You’re likely to get a lot of value if you get to the river and make your flush.

What’s most likely going to happen, however, is you’ll get most of his mediocre pairs and high cards to fold. You will have introduced some unpredictability to your game, which will help you get your value bets called later.

Trapping Maniacs

If you have a maniac at your table, don’t run. You’re going to have to deal with these players your entire life. You’re going to need to learn how to beat them.

Most maniacs have one trick. If they sense weakness, they fire. That’s it. They use some basic rules of thumb to make these bets.

What are they? Two checks equal weakness. A quick check on a scare card equals weakness. A call or a check back on a board with a flush draw means someone doesn’t have sets, two pairs, or overpairs, because they likely would fast play those hands. This is literally all most maniacs have going on with them.

They see these signs and they charge through. They don’t actually think about their range, blockers, frequencies, or any of that.

What does that mean for you? Stop telling them you have a huge hand by raising with sets when there’s a flush draw on the board. You can’t get this guy to fold a flush draw anyway. Let him bluff all his chips off with 10-8 high. Don’t stop him!

Raising Larger Preflop

Everyone is afraid of not getting action with their premiums. So, they raise to small amounts preflop with their aces and kings, half the table calls them, and then they piss and moan about how no one ever folds to them.

Why don’t you look into the pot and count all the chips in there? Double that amount. THAT’S what you should be raising to.

It might get everyone to fold once or twice, but not three times. Gamblers hate folding and not getting to see flops. Play on that emotion. You likely won’t even get two fold-arounds.

Playing In The Right Game

Finally, 90% of your job is table selection. Never forget that.

You don’t need to play the biggest game in the room to make the most money. You need to play poker with the worst players who have the most money in front of them.

Sometimes that’s the big game. Other times it’s not. You have to keep your eyes peeled and look for limpers, talking, laughing, big senseless hero calls, straddles, raises in the dark, and more bloodshed.

Don’t sit in quiet games with three-betting and triple barrels. Get in there with people who came to gamble.

Conclusion

Mastering cash games isn’t about flashy moves or endless aggression, it’s about developing these underrated skills that help you exploit common mistakes, manage tricky opponents, and make smarter decisions.

By folding when necessary, adapting your strategies to loose or aggressive players, and always prioritizing game selection, you’ll position yourself to maximize profits while minimizing risk. Remember, the smallest adjustments can lead to the biggest wins over time.

Learn how to play A-K when it misses the flop!

Alexander Fitzgerald is a professional poker player and bestselling author who currently lives in Denver, Colorado. He is a WPT and EPT final tablist, and has WCOOP and SCOOP wins online. His most recent win was the $250,000 Guaranteed on ACR Poker. He currently enjoys blasting bums away in Ignition tournaments while he listens to death metal. Free training packages of his are provided to new newsletter subscribers who sign up at PokerHeadRush.com