The first time I sat down in a live cash game in Las Vegas I was expecting a good-to-high standard of play. After all, I was in the home of poker! Okay, it was a $1/$2 game and not Bobby’s Room with the Iveys and Brunsons of the world, but I still expected the action to be reminiscent of online play – just maybe a little tighter. The table was mainly populated by, ahem, ‘older’ gentlemen, who looked like they were grinding rather than holidaying or enjoying downtime from a sales convention. However, when someone open-raised to $15 from middle position, some seven-and-a-half big blinds, and no one blinked an eyelid, I realised how wrong my assumption was. The player promptly showed Jacks as if it to say, ‘See! That’s why I raised so much. What would I do if someone called and a Queen, King or Ace came down?!’ He almost seemed pleased that no one had called him and had a chance to outdraw him or maybe, you know, lose some money to him with one of the strongest starting hands in no-limit hold’em.
Soon after I open-raised in middle position to $7 with A-Q and caught a couple of ‘Is that it?’ glances and I soon realised why as I was called in five spots. I flopped top two pair on an A-Q-5 board and got stacks in against the small blind who tabled A-K and started spluttering about how lucky I was. With three people (me and two callers) already in the pot and the big blind likely to join in, he didn’t even consider reraising as he obviously wanted to see if he hit the flop… five-way.
Spotting the action
Any cash game is made up of individuals and what you need to do as quickly as possible is ascertain how each person is playing and how the table is playing overall. Without wishing to indulge stereotypes, if you’re at any table with a lot of old guys it’s more likely the table’s not playing an aggressive online form of hold’em, but this doesn’t mean you should follow suit. Pick your spots and you’ll be able to pay for your holiday in just a couple of sessions.