No Limit Holdem Cash Game Strategy

No limit holdem cash games constitute my bread and butter in poker. Tournaments are fun and all but cash games are where the best money’s at. There’s a lot to learn when it comes to no limit holdem cash game strategy but if you start with the basics, you’ll be able to outplay the average poker player.

Be Tight-Aggressive

The first concept you should learn in no limit strategy is being “tight-aggressive.” This term describes a style of poker where you only play your strongest hands and fold the rest. When you do play your strong hands, you play them like you mean business – with lots of bet and raises.

For example, you should fold about 80% of your starting hands right off the bat. Don’t even play them if it’s cheap. Just stay away from them. The top 20% of your hands you should play, and you should play them by coming in with a bet or a raise.

The purpose of this bet/fold strategy is to help you play as efficiently as possible. Playing those weak, marginal hands only makes it harder for you to play after the flop and it ends up costing you lots of money with hands that didn’t pan out.

When you play the top 20% of your hands only, you’ll win a lot more of the pots you play. You won’t win anything near 100% of the pots you play, but you’ll do a lot better than people who play every hand.

Starting Hands

No limit holdem is a very fluid game, where the psychology and flow of the game are as important as pot odds and drawing odds. Because of that, there’s no such thing as a perfect list of starting hands.

But as a beginner, you’ll do the best if you only play the top 20% of your hands. You can play things like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT and AK to get an easy profit. Smaller pocket pairs can be played for set-value – in other words to hit 3 of a Kind.

By keeping a tight reign over the hands you choose to play, you’ll fare a lot better over the long run. You won’t have as many difficult decisions to make after the flop and you’ll end up with 2nd best hands a much smaller amount of the time.

After the Flop

You have to be especially careful after the flop in no limit holdem because you can potentially lose a lot of money on any single hand. In no limit holdem, your hand can be as strong as anything but if someone else’s hand is just a little bit stronger, you can lose an entire buyin just like that.

That is a part of the reason you want to be tight in picking your starting hands. If you play a lot of starting hands, you’ll get into those 2nd best situations a lot more often and end up losing money hand over fist.

The good news is that in small stakes no limit games, it’s easy to win lots of money. All you have to do is sit back, wait for the nuts and then bet your hand. It’s not particularly complicated and at the higher stakes it won’t work. But for making a profit at the small stakes games, it’s incredibly easy.