5 Mistakes Tournament Players Make Transitioning to Cash

Overvaluing Big Cards

When you play tournaments, everyone gets short-stacked at some point. That means high cards go up in value. With 20 or 30 big blinds, you want to make top pair and not let go.

This same attitude will get you destroyed in cash games when stacks are much deeper. Additionally, many pots are multi-way in cash games, which means multiple hands are competing to make the nuts.

If a pot gets big multi-way, frequently the best hand will be two pair, a set, a straight, or a flush. One pair will not hold up that often. Big cards do not make any of those combinations that often. That’s why they must be treated with caution.

Undervaluing Suited Gappers

Suited gappers actually go up in value when you play cash games, especially deep-stacked games.

Suited gappers make disguised straights, which are hard for most cash game players to read. If you make a sneaky straight and your opponent has an over-pair, two pair, or a set, you’re about to make a ton of money.

Suited-gappers flop two-pair or better around 5.2% of the time, but you don’t want to hold onto the two pair too tightly. In cash games, it will get run down often by the river.

If you’re getting 35-to-1 implied odds pre-flop, consider flatting with some of the better suited-gappers.

Calling Everything On Rivers

In tournaments, you can’t get in the habit of hero folding too many rivers, especially with top pairs. If you’re short-stacked and keep giving medium-sized pots away to aggressive players, you’ll be busting quickly.

However, in cash games, one bad river call can erase an entire night’s work. The bet sizes are that much larger. Most people cannot bluff well with cash money. If they’re raising you on the river or triple barreling, they likely have the hand they’re representing. You’re going to need a good reason to call them with a top pair or two pair.

Getting Impatient

In tournaments, it can almost pay to be impatient. You have a limited amount of time to get to work when the blinds and antes are going up so often. You need to pick some hands and start pressuring.

Cash games are much different. If you’re playing $1/$3, for example, you are paying $4.00 to see nine hands. That means you’re paying roughly 45 cents to see a hand. If you could double your $300 stack at any time that means you have 667-to-1 implied odds.

Due to the ratio of your potential earnings versus the minuscule pre-flop investment, you can wait as long as you’d like for a solid hand. Some poker pros have no other talent but this kind of practiced patience. However, if someone is likely to have a better hand, and you always find some creative reason to draw versus them, you’re going to have issues quickly.

Not Looking For Live Tells

In a tournament, you only have a limited number of hands with someone. They will have live tells, but you won’t have as many showdowns to confirm your reads. In cash games, you might play against the same people constantly. If you can figure out their tells, they will become your cash machines.

Pick up some of the old tells books and get to work watching regulars when they play. Your wallet will thank you.