[GeeBeeQED]

To play a cash game well you have to play after the flop very well. You cant sit in a cash game and figure AK is always the best after the flop when you hit the K. In a tourny you often properly push this kind of hand hard. In a cash game, I'm salivating to play such a player. In cash your looking for hands that are better than 1 pair to get all your chips in. Even then you have to use restraint, judgment and good hand reading skills. If you play short stack (50bb or less) and are trying to learn cash game play you have no chance, no chance. Don't buy in at all. It's true that a fully opperational Death Star like Pzhon can get in there and play any style effectively. You probably cannot. Short stacked players get no respect and that's exactly what they deserve most of the time. It's a little quiet followed by a big moves and the shorter the stack gets the more epileptic thier play becomes. Short stack forces you to play almost like your in a tournament. Buy in for 100bb or nothing. Cash games require more patience and 2x the skill in my view than tourny play.

I know my advice on 100bb buy in goes against the grain. Let me give you my reasoning. One of the things your trying to improve when you move from tourny to cash is your level of patience. You need better hands in a cash game on average to show a nice profit at the end of the session. When you have lots of chips in front of you, you can afford to let a few more hands go and wait for better spots where you've got a more certain lead. You don't have to push every micro edge (which a beginner can't deturmine very well) to the limits. It's about learning a new skill, to play at a different speed, moving to a game that is more post flop oriented. Take your time, settle in and deturmine that your not moving all in with top pair at every opportunity. Give these players some rope to hang themselves with.

I like Gonso's 6 player table advice if you can't really control yourself and slow down. Playing 6 player table will be more agressive and more tourny like. It might be a good transitional step. But, becoming a great 6 player table master isn't going to do you any good when you sit down in a Casino with your first $300 buy in for a 1-3 game. Those will almost all be 9-10 player games. Use the 6 table game as a transition if you must.

All that being said you should understand that the typical player at this penny level is terrible. Just awful. They play too many hands and call way too much. Your primary strategy at most tables will probably look something like this.

Make a hand.
Bet it for value
Bet it for value
Bet it for value
get sucked out on
fold,fold,fold,fold,fold,fold,call,fold,fold,fold, call
make a hand, bet for value, bet for value, bet for value, rake in a nice pot.
fold, fold, fold, fold.
Lather, rinse repeat.

You know what the biggest mistake these players make, it's calling too much with second rate holding. Let them make that mistake, take bites out of them. Don't be a pig and move in every time you think your best, you give the donks the best part of variance when you do this. Just be content to grind them down made hand by made hand.

Don't try to get fancy, don't try to bluff these donks, they can't read the value of thier own hands very well let alone figure out what your trying to represent with a bluff.

Granted there might be 1 or 2 good players at a table like this but they are probably too timid to move up where they need to be. You might make moves on the 1 or 2 best players at the table but be careful. There is a reason they don't have the bankrolls to play higher. They CALL WAY TOO MUCH. Us that against them. Make a hand..............

Micro stakes is only marginally better than playing free poker. At least some of the players in a micro stakes game will be trying to play well. However I warn all not to become too influenced by these kinds of players. These games are very frustrating and you spend alot of time just to win lunch money. Play as high as you can play and break even if your goal is to learn. You become what you surround yourself with.

Dave