Have you ever heard the phrase; “The house always wins”? Well the same is true for cash games, but house isn’t the online poker site, it’s your fellow poker players and the online poker site or your choice. Basically, the same pool of money will constantly move from player to player and the only true winners here are the sites because of the rake.

Based on what I see (and what I’ve done plenty of times in the past myself), you will eventually lose your money at a cash table session (bad beat, called bluff, dominated hand, ect.) if you continue to play. It’s really just a matter of time based on the fact that you can’t win forever. A lot of unsuccessful cash game player are unsuccessful not because they are bad cash game poker players, but because they don’t have an exit strategy.

A common exit strategy that I’ve seen at cash game sessions would be to take the “money approach”. The money approach is to start a session with a certain about of money, then leave the tables if the player doubles, or triples their start up amount. This approach does work, (somewhat) but from what I’ve seen (and again, done plenty of times myself in the past) you will lose your starting buy-in a lot more than you will reach your profit goal.

A new strategy that I have started using and have proven to produce consistent profits while minimizing losses would be to use a “hands played” exit strategy. By approach is to play 100 hands plus any extra hands before it’s my turn at the big blind (under the gun). More often than not, after about 100 hands seen, I have made a profit, but not doubled my profits. I have very rarely lost all of my money before 100 hands and most of the losses were less than 1/3. I have won double and triple my initial cash buy-in, but it’s not a common occurrence.

This new strategy isn’t designed to grow a bankroll quickly at the cash tables, but more a way to make consistent profits. Try this strategy for a week and comment on your results.