There are many factors which determine how tight you should be playing at a cash game. I do not have stats for my own hands because I play online on Unix and can't get the tracking programs to work but I keep my own records and am familiar with them. Also, most of my cash game play is live so I wouldn't have numbers for those hands anyway. But, from my own experience, I can say that 24/17 isn't bad... depending on your skill level post-flop. It is a tad loose but I am thinking of 9 handed play mostly. 6 handed play does require the willingness to get involved in more hands and the necessity of playing those hands stronger (thus the higher pfr). I don't think these stats are out of line with a reasonable playing style. I regularly play with a player who is probably close to 35~40/25. And he generally does very well because he is almost uncanny in his ability to know where he is at in a hand at all times and his absolute fearlessness when he believes he can move you off a better hand. He does much better live than online because he plays the people more than the cards most of the time.
I usually play 8-10 handed and 200BB+ deep. The general strategy there requires slighly tighter play because you have greater risk both in the depth of your stack and the number of players. Being up against 5 people is vastly different from facing 9 players. And 25NL is 100BB deep... at least most places I have seen it online. So your stack is not dramatically deep. It's still deep-stack play, don't get me wrong, but you're not risking quite as much if you get to a point where you need to make a decision for all your chips. And you're also much less likely to be facing a better hand. Even 9-handed though, I am probably at least 25/15 (on a tight table) if only because I open a lot when I have position or am likely to have position. I fold if there was action from an early player but that is compensated for when I get a strong hand in early position and open. On a loose-passive table, I am probably near 40/15 because I am limping more from late position after several other players with hands that could win a big pot against many people and opening earlier for a raise to get players out when I want to take the flop short-handed.
So what do I mean by tighter? Well, it depends. It depends on a lot of things. In general, the deeper you get and the more people in each hand... the tighter your positional starting requirements should become. It's costing you less of your stack for each hand and you're more and more likely to be up against a stronger hand. The less people in the hand and the shorter your stack gets... the wider your starting requirements become. 6 max is a great game because it is an action game. You can and should be looser because each hand is costing you more (0.25BB compared to 0.17BB for 9 handed) and the odds of your A-J being up against A-Q or A-K are dramatically less.
An example:
10 handed live game [250BB] A-10 UTG.... to be honest... I am usually throwing this hand away unless the table has become completely passive and a raise is very unlikely. Even then, I am not thrilled with this hand. I just can't see a lot of good coming from it and I am putting all my chips at risk for what it likely not even the 2nd best hand at the table right now and probably won't improve enough to make it a sure winner. Never forget, in NL when you enter a pot... your entire stack is at risk. If I limped with this hand and saw any action pre-flop... I am folding without a second thought.
6 handed game [100BB] A-10 UTG... easy and obvious opening hand. I am very likely to have the best hand at this moment... further, only three players need to fold to give me position for the rest of the hand (less than half as many as above). On the flop, I am less likely dominated and have less chips at risk if I am -- plus, if the blinds called... I also have position. I am still thinking of throwing this hand away pre-flop if there is a big raise but now it's not certain... especially if that raise comes from the blinds.
Anyway... after all tight, I still don't have a solid answer for what "tighter" means. It is very relative to the game and the table... and even the moment in time. But in a cash game, you are not under pressure to play a bad hand out of position because you're going to go bust otherwise. You need to decide if playing the hand is likely to be +EV or -EV. Most of my advice about being very tight does apply for full tables.
Most decisions in a cash game come on the flop and turn. The better you start, the easier those decisions become.  |