When you sit down at a cash table, make the right decisions and play good poker, you’re going to end up with more money than you started with. No matter what your level, if you win, you’ll get more money. That’s one of the appeals of Poker. Of course, you want to ensure you don’t lose the money you just gained and that’s an important skill in its own right.

To a certain extent, there’s nothing you can do to avoid the “swings” of poker. If you get your money in at the right time, but get sucked out on, you’re going to lose. It happens and it’s something we all have to get used to. However, certain decisions you make while at the table can have a very immediate affect on your stack size. There are definitely some things you can do to avoid losing the gains you’ve just made.

If, for example, you’re a player that buys-in for $2 at a 0.01/0.02 game, and manages to build it to $8, then you’ve done well, but the moment this happens, you go from being a small stack player, to a large stack player. Your decision making process with $2 will be very different to what it should be at $8, because $2 is 100x the big blind and $8 is 400x times the big blind. You want to protect your increased stack, and to do that, you need to be more conservative about playing big pots.

You can learn more about this by checking out the Poker Strategy article entitled Stack Selection.

There are really only two things you can do when you gain some money at a cash table. You can either learn to play with a deep stack as best as possible, or you can cash out.

Of course, it may not be a decision or mistake you make that results in a loss of chips. You may just get unlucky! Either way, if you pay attention to your stack size and how you’re playing, you’ll be much better equipped to retain the winnings you’ve earned.

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