Playing poker cash games can be intimidating at first, but you’ll get into the swing of things.

These poker tips will help you to improve your cash game performance:

1.Play tight – in poker tournaments, you can’t wait forever for the right hand, the increasing blinds will eventually kill you. In a cash game, the blinds are always the same and you have the option to re-buy, so why take risks?

2.Don’t sit down short stacked – make sure your buy-in is at least 100x the big blind. You want some room to manoeuvre, otherwise you’ll end up with just two choices – all-in, or fold, and that’s not what you want.

3.Learn the odds – you need to know how to calculate the pot odds, and you need to understand implied odds. If you don’t understand these things, you’re missing out on the information you need to make good decisions. Spend some time learning those skills now.

4.Betting to manipulate – betting is more than just changing the size of the pot. The size of your bet alters how the other players at the table think. Think about what you’re aiming for with your bets. Are you trying to make another player fold? Narrow the field? Build the pot? You can force players to make bad decisions simply by changing how you bet.

5.Observe the field – when you sit down at the table, don’t post your big blind right away. Take a little while to watch the other players. Identify their styles and plan your poker strategy before you start playing.

6.Be picky – if you have a choice of where to sit, use it. Ideally you want aggressive players to your right and passive to your left. If you have the chance to choose, take it.