For many traditional poker players, the essence of the game doesn’t come in eliminating opponents from competitions, but rather the slow, patient and enduring process of separating a player from their chips over an undefined period of time.
If you enjoy this form of the game, then the cash tables are where you need to head. In this article, we will focus specifically on how to make the most of your time spent at Sky Poker’s cash tables.
How the cash tables on Sky Poker are organised
Sky Poker offer a wide range of cash tables aimed at high, medium, low and micro stakes players, as well as a number of Free Play tables, where you can hone your skills using play chips.
On Sky Poker, the corresponding levels of play are:
- Micro Stakes – from £0.02/£0.04 to £0.05/£0.10 blinds
- Low Stakes – from £0.10/$0.10 to £0.25/£0.50 blinds
- Medium Stakes – from £0.50/£0.50 to £2/£4 blinds
- High Stakes – from £2.50/£5 to £10/£20 blinds
Each level of play has a number of different tables available, which includes Action Tables (where both blinds are the same price), Master Cash tables (which can be featured on the Sky Poker TV Channel), Capped tables (where the amount of money a player can sit down with is capped at a certain amount).
The other tables have no such limits and these are easy to spot as they are generally named after towns and cities, predominantly in the UK but also from other parts of the world.
Once you have found which type of cash game you want to play (and assuming there is a free space at the table), simply click on the table to join it, state how much of your available cash balance you want to take with you to the table to convert into chips and then take your seat at the table.
You are now ready to see if you can grind your way to profit! Maybe we forgot a step in there – of course, first you must sign up to Sky Poker. If you aren’t yet a customer, there is no time like the present to become one and in doing so take advantage of a Sky Poker bonus referrer code that will put money in your bankroll with no deposit required.
The rudiments of excellent cash table play on Sky Poker
So what skills do you need, or general rules of thumb do you need to follow, in order to be a successful and profitable cash table player on Sky Poker?
Here are some of the strategies I have used and followed with success.
How much you buy in for is critical
The worst thing you can do in a cash game is buy in very short-stacked and feel like you are under pressure immediately to start winning hands. As a rule of thumb, I always try to buy in to cash games for at least one hundred times the amount of the big blind.
Therefore, as I play most of my games on the low and micro stakes cash tables, if I was playing on a micro stakes game for stakes of £0.05/£0.10, then I would buy in for 100 times 10p, which is £10.
The reason for this is that it gives me two key strengths:
- I buy myself time, so that if I don’t hit decent pocket cards straight away I am not forced to playing below strength hands because I am close to losing all my cash.
- It gives me relative strength at the table by buying in at a higher level.
I genuinely believe this has an impact.
I’ve noticed that players who may only have £2 to £4 available, are a lot less prone to going all-in against you, if they know that calling will not make too huge a dent in your stack. It may only be a small psychological advantage but I do believe it is an advantage nonetheless.
Patience is a virtue
In a cash game, the blinds are not increasing and you are not out to eliminate opponents. Therefore, those pressures do not exist, do you can instead focus on waiting for the right hand to come to you.
This is where you need to be patient and even if you have lost a few big blinds, wait for a strong hand to come to you.
This can be a real issue for some players who are desperate to see action and you’ll see them make speculative bets and call or even raise, when they don’t have a hand strong enough to warrant that kind of decision.
Instead, play it tight and wait for the cards to come to you and when you get a strong hand, play it aggressively. You’ll find that if you do, you’ll minimise your losses and win a greater percentage of pots you contest.
Slow playing can kill you or cure you
On tight cash tables, as many on Sky Poker are, you’ll find that at even the first sign of aggression, most players will fold. This can be a real pain if you hit a strong pocket hand after waiting patiently, make a relatively small raise, only to see everyone fold and your best chance of winning chips evaporate with you just taking a small pot.
What I have noticed is that many better cash table players on Sky Poker will opt to slow play when they hit a strong hand. Even if they hit pocket aces, players keep checking and calling to keep players in the game (and thus risk an opponent hitting a strong hand) to keep chips coming into the pot.
Of course, this is a risky strategy, but it does work. Most of my biggest losses have come when I have hit a hand on the turn or river, raised only to be re-raised by somebody slow playing.
The flip side is, when you do this yourself, you can pick up some additional chips from those players who remain in the hand, until such a time as you reveal the strength of your hand with a big time bet.
It may not be the most popular way of playing, but slow playing on Sky Poker certainly works when played well, however it can be a risky way to play as you allow players a far greater chance of hitting a hand that could beat yours.
How high or low the stakes are not as important as how you play
What I mean by this is that there are players who will play against you for a 20p pot, as if it was a £200 pot. On Sky Poker, there is no big difference between how games play out at the micro stakes levels compared to the higher stakes levels.
I’ve found that higher stakes players tend to be stronger players on the site than lower stakes, which does make it tougher, but what I mean is that there is no ‘it’s only a few quid, I can lose this no problem’ mentality prevailing on the lower stakes tables.
This means that even micro and low stakes games are played just as tightly as the higher stakes games. You find very few instances of players playing gung-ho on the lower stakes tables. So you need to be as patient on these tables and play just as you would for bigger cash sums.
How you bet is vital
My last nugget of advice for Sky Poker cash table gamers is about your bet. In cash games, how you bet is absolutely vital.
What are you hoping to achieve with the bet? Do you want to build the pot because you hold the nuts?
Are you looking to make what you believe is a better hand fold? Do you want to narrow down a family pot?
Betting is more than just throwing chips into the pot.
Choose the right type of bet for your situation and then select the right level of bet to achieve the aims you want, then use the feedback from other players to infer the strength of the hands you are left facing. Remember, a with your betting you want to mask what hand you hold, while finding out about what other players hold.
If you can do that successfully, you are on the way to becoming a top notch Sky Poker cash table player.
