Cash game
Money game with fixed blinds and no eliminations
Definition
Cash game is poker's historical format: chips are worth real money directly, blinds are fixed, and anyone can sit down, reload or leave freely. No eliminations, no payout structure — every pot won is immediate profit. Standard depth is 100bb (the full buy-in), reloadable after every hand. Strategically, cash game is "pure" poker: with no ICM and no rising blinds, only the chip-EV of each decision matters. It's the format where 100bb ranges, deep postflop play and concepts like implied odds or set mining fully express themselves. The same situation replays thousands of times identically — ideal for systematic learning and leak analysis. Its economic specifics: rake is taken from every pot (which punishes passive play at micro-stakes), win rate is measured in bb/100 hands, and table selection is a skill in itself — the seat to the recreational player's left is worth more than many technical adjustments. Usual bankroll management: 20 to 50 buy-ins of the stake played.
NL50 6-max (€0.25/€0.50 blinds, €50 buy-ins). A good reg targets 4-8bb/100 hands: over 100,000 hands at a 5bb/100 win rate, that's €2,500 in profit before rakeback. The same 100,000 hands with a 2bb/100 leak (over-tight BB defenses, say) cost €1,000 — range precision is what makes the difference.