Cash games: the table that never ends
A cash game has no clock and no finish line. The blinds are forced, stacks can be topped up between hands, and the only rule protecting the size of your commitment is table stakes. Get those three right and the rest of the game — position, seat selection, when to leave — becomes readable.
Hand 01The blind is the engine, and it is a cost
The blinds exist to create something worth winning before anybody has a hand. Two seats are forced to put money in, and that forced money is dead in the pot: it belongs to whoever wins the hand, not to the players who posted it. Everything that follows — who has a price to call, who has to fold, who can profitably raise — is downstream of that.
The consequence is easy to miss. The players in the blinds are not paying a fee to the room; they are paying a cost to the table, on every single orbit, whether or not they play a hand. A player who folds every hand still loses their blinds. That is why the game rewards patience and punishes drifting: sitting out is not free.
| Seat | Forced money | Acts first after the flop | What the seat really decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small blind | Half a bet | No | A cheaper price than anyone else has, which is exactly why it is the easiest seat to overplay from. |
| Big blind | A full bet | Yes | The most money in and the least information, with the worst acting order on every later street. |
| Cut-off | None | No | Acts late enough to open a wider range, because late position is what makes a wide range work. |
| Button | None | Last | The best seat at the table: no forced money, and the final word on every street after the flop. |
A cost, not a fee
Blinds and antes are paid to the other players, not to the room. The room's money is the rake, and it is a separate line in its schedule. Confusing the two is one of the most common ways players misjudge the true cost of sitting down.
Hand 02Buying in, topping up and table stakes
At a cash table you choose your stack, and you may add to it between hands up to the table maximum. That freedom is the defining difference from a tournament, where the stack you start with is the only one you will ever have. It also changes behaviour: players can buy back in after a loss, which means a bad session can be extended indefinitely by anyone who is not disciplined about stopping.
Table stakes is the rule that protects what you have committed: you can only play the chips in front of you, and nobody can be forced to put up more than that mid-hand. It is the reason a big stack at the table is not an unlimited threat — it can win only what an opponent has in play. The rule is often described as a courtesy, which understates it; it is the structural promise that keeps a hand bounded.
Hand 03What a fee per pot does to a cash game
In a cash game the room is usually paid per pot rather than per hour. A small percentage is taken out of the pot, often with a cap, and sometimes a time charge is used instead of a per-pot fee at higher stakes. Because the fee is charged on every pot that sees a flop, its effect is proportional to how many hands you play, not to how much you win.
That ratio is the reason the same fee feels trivial at one stake and crushing at another. A capped fee is a large fraction of a small pot and a small fraction of a large one, so a player grinding small stakes pays proportionally far more for the same service. The effect is arithmetic, not opinion, and it is why stake selection is a bigger decision than most players treat it as.
Hand 04When to leave is a decision you make in advance
Because a cash game has no clock, the session length is entirely up to the player, and that is precisely where the discipline is tested. Winning players who stay too long give back an edge to fatigue; losing players who stay too long chase a loss with a bigger commitment. Neither is a card problem.
A useful defence is to decide before sitting down what a session is: a number of hands, a time, or a stop-loss you will honour without renegotiating it. The point is not that a stop-loss changes the game — it does not — but that a decision made in advance is made by the same person who chose to sit down, rather than by the one who just lost a big pot.
- Decide in advance Set the stop conditions — time, hands, or a loss limit — before the first hand, and write them down.
- Expect to be drawn Long stretches of poor cards are a normal feature of a table, not a sign that anything is wrong.
- Watch the cost The fee is charged per pot, so every extra orbit costs something whether or not you play well.
- Leave on time Leaving when the plan says so is the only version of this advice that works, because it does not require judgement in the moment.
A tournament is a different product entirely
In a tournament a stack is lost forever once it is gone, the blinds climb on a schedule, and the room keeps a share of every buy-in before a single prize is set.
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