In cash games, often called ring games, chips have real-money value. Players get as many chips as the amount they paid to enter. Tables have minimum and maximum buy-in amounts, ranging between 20 and 100 big blinds.
You can join a cash game and leave whenever you want. If you lose all your chips, you don’t have to quit. You can reload and keep playing as long as you have enough money in your account.
Cash game stakes stay the same the whole time. To play higher or lower stakes, you need to leave the table and pick a new one.