Online Poker » Best Poker Sites » Best Cash Game Poker Sites

Cash games are the most common type of poker game on the Internet. The simple definition of a poker cash game is a game where the chips directly correspond to the amount of money that you have invested in them. For example, if you wager a $0.10 chip on a poker pot, you might as well have placed a dime on the poker table. By using directly correlating poker chips, most poker players find these games easy to play and understand.

Best Cash Game Poker Site - Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker has largely made their name by offering a wide variety of high stakes cash games - many of them surprisingly well populated. Cash games are offered at Full Tilt Poker across the spectrum of game varieties such as Texas Holdem Stud and Omaha. Mixed game cash games at Full Tilt Poker are especially popular and some of the top professionals online can often be found at normal cash game poker tables.

Best Cash Game Poker Site - PokerStars

PokerStars has nearly double the amount of cash games of the closest competitor on the Internet. Of course, the most popular cash games at PokerStars are No Limit Texas Holdem games. However, PokerStars cash games are well known for being very tight - even at the higher limits. PokerStars offers a variety of stakes and limits for all cash games on their web site.

Best Cash Game Poker Site - Absolute Poker

Absolute Poker is one of the best cash game poker sites largely because of the wide variety of games that they offer for fixed limit bettors. One of the reasons that so many people participate in fixed limit cash games at Absolute Poker is that they are considered to be the best places to clear the 150% up to a maximum of $500.00. Cash games at Absolute Poker are available in Texas Holdem, Stud, Omaha and Mixed game varieties.

The counterpart to cash games are usually tournament games where you buy in with a certain amount of money and receive a certain amount of chips. However, as players are eliminated from the tournament and the blinds increase, the chips gradually begin to change in value and begin to be less representative of their value when you first bought in to the tournament. The best cash game poker sites offer these types of games in multiple formats and cater primarily to cash game poker players.

How Cash Games Work

One of the unique aspects of cash games on poker sites is that they never technically end. Players can come and go as they please and, when a poker player does not wish to play any more or runs out of money in their poker bankroll, they are replaced with another player in the table wait list or when another player joins. In many other poker game formats, players play until there is only a single player left. In tournaments, this last remaining player might be reshuffled into another player or the table reshuffling might occur based on how much time has passed during the game. However, in cash game format, you can potentially spend an entire online poker session sitting at the same table.

Another aspect of cash game poker is that players are free to come and play at the table with any amount of money as long as it adheres to the table minimum and maximum. The best cash games poker sites provide a great deal of variety in these limits in order to accommodate a number of players with different wagering preferences. The maximum limit obviously places players that come to the table at a chip stack advantage over players that arrive with the minimum limit but this advantage is usually not strong enough to make simply joining a table with the minimum cash game chip stack a poor strategy.

If players seated at a cash game run out of chips, they are given the option to refill their stack to continue playing. At the best cash game poker sites, this process is performed automatically through an auto-rebuy system where you can set the amount at which you will buy back into the game if your chip stack is entirely depleted.

Cash Game Poker Strategy

One of the fundamentals of taking advantage of the cash game online poker atmosphere is to avoid one of the most common beginning poker player mistakes - thinking that you need to stay at the same table the entire time. If you are struggling at one table, remember that you can move to another cash game at the best cash games poker sites. Play a few hands to try out a table and make a decision as to whether sticking around is wise.

If there are too many good players at the table or players are playing too tightly, you are usually just wasting your time, especially at micro stakes. To win consistently, you need to learn how to take advantage of the ability to switch to another cash game at any time. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you need to stay at table where you have lost a few large pots to win your money back. Accept your losses, figure out what you did wrong and develop as a consistent cash game poker player.

Another aspect of cash game poker play that you can use to your advantage is the way in which players join the game at the best cash games poker sites. When new players join the table, they have the option to join the game immediately by posting a wager equal to the big blind or they can wait for the big blind to reach them. Use this time to get some information about the other players at the table before you actually put money on the line. One way that you can often spot a loose player before they even begin playing is that they are too eager to get in the game and post the wager immediately. Take the opportunity to watch a few hands before jumping right into the game and use the information to your benefit.