Tournament Play vs Cash
I've been playing Tournaments for about 2 years. About 5 months ago, i decided to start playing cash games. I've been having consistent results in tournament play, making the money 80% of the time. However the same can't be said about cash games. What are some of the differences that you find in cash games, as opposed to tournament play that you think I might find usefull. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
You should go on the pro tourny circuit, forget about the cash games.
Unsustainable, assuming a reasonable payout structure (ie 50-30-20 in a STT). Â You also haven't mentioned anything about your win rate in cash games so I can't really comment on that. All I can really suggest is to improve your records tracking so you have a rough idea of your hourly rate playing both (but this will take a TON of hands/tourneys to get any sort of "reasonable idea"), and then decide for yourself which game you prefer (or think you're better suited to).
I think if you do a forum search for tourney vs. cash (or similar) you'll likely find some past discussion (I thought this was a bump to tell you the truth)...
I use StatKing, to track all of my play. I'm at a win rate of $23.60/hr. for tournaments, with an average income of $2350/month. I said 80%, because i do keep track. Most of my games are live, a couple online. Mostly $60-250 buy-ins, and I will actually start going on the tour starting this summer. I take poker very seriously, and the last couple of months that i've been working on improving on cash games, I've done everything I know, and my win rate is at $-11.78/hr. for cash games.
Most of my bankroll has gone into the wedding fund. I'm getting married this summer in the Carribean. I would like to learn how to play cash games a bit better, before I lose all of my bankroll, which i've made playing tournies.
So far, I've played mostly NL $1-2 and $5-5 in Niagara. I've gone to NL mostly because it's what I will play on tour, but will attack LHE $5-10 and $10-20 as well.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
I'm not calling you a liar, I just don't think it's sustainable. Â Are you talking single table or multi-table tourneys? Â Specifically how many tourney's have you played? Â I'm trying to figure out what your ROI is but it's next to impossible without knowing something about the tourney structures (and length). Â I'd guess your sample size is too small, but that's just my gut feeling.
I'll take this to mean "I've just started playing cash games in the past couple months". Â Correct me if I'm wrong, I wouldn't want to misquote someone on this board for fear of a flame war...
Back on topic, assuming you've been playing the NL cash games you've mentioned for 100 hrs a month (live) (I'm pulling this from the 100 hrs you seem to be averaging playing tourneys monthly), then I'd guess you've played somewhere around 6000 hands of cash game poker in the last 2 months. Â (This is all assuming you are managing to get in 25hrs a week live). Â Assuming you're a winning player, 6000 hands could simply be a bad run of variance. Â Or you could have some holes in your game. Â Hard to really say simply by posting results (which everyone loves to measure their play by)... Â
With stats like these why bother with the cash games??
Just play bigger tourneys which will payout more money.
Esool, I love tournaments the most, but I want to be a complete player. I want to be able to sit and play a cash game comfotably after i'm knocked out of a tournamnet, or when i can't find one. I agree with you, it seems that tournaments are bringing in the cash so why not move in in levels, which I will. Unfortunatelly, it's a little hard to tell my fiancee that i'm entering a $1500 tournament in Calgary, and I need another $2000 for flight and hotel, while all she thinks about is saving for the wedding, and putting money aside to buy a house.
BigChris, thanx for the advice, I guess I never really thought about that. I seem to always change my style at a cash game according to my stack, instead of attacking certain players and situations depending on my reads and knowledge of the players. My biggest problem, is that I feel like a total newbie at cash games. That's why I'm asking for advice here, where most people seem to know what they're talking about.
thanx for all of your advices. I'll keep you posted on what i find might work in the future.
I've found that with my online cash games, I have always done much better when I set a time limit, and leave when it's up. Whenever I've stayed around for "just a little while longer", or "until I hit $X", I've always left with less than if I would have left when I said I would.
That's so true, everytime i go to the casino, i miss the bus i was planning to take, and end up leaving home later, either down, or broke.
In terms of the differences between tourneys and cash, make sure that whatever limit you're comfortable in playing you're comfortable losing your buyin. Ie. if you're sitting $5-5 NL, I'd assume that you'd buyin for at least $500 and have no problem losing that amount (or more). Tourney's are a little different in that you only risk your buyin, whereas cash you'd have to be comfortable losing whatever you have in front of you on the table (perhaps multiple times). And while in tournaments you are often looking to minimize variance, in cash games it shouldn't matter (assuming you're adequately bankrolled for that limit).
Read the NL chapter in SSII. Do what Doyle says regarding NL cash.
You have to have balls and the bank roll. This is why I play mainly tourneys. No balls.
I apologize to everyone if it sounded like I was a cocky bastard (I know it did for Scooby, for some reason, I pissed him off), but i was sincerely looking for advice, and I think I got something that I can work off now.
You'll have a better idea of where you are when you hit a flop with those hands than you will with AQ or AJ.
I wasn't pissed off per se. I was merely suggesting that your tourney run (80% ITM) was probably unsustainable over the long-run (ie. you were running somewhat hot), and coupled with the beating you've been taking at cash games that maybe you were hitting a cold-run there. Naturally it's possible to conclude from this that you are good at tourney's and bad at cash games (if you correlate it to your wins/losses). I'm suggesting that in the short-run you can't make those kind of quick decisions based solely on results... Variance is a real pain in the ass that way...
I respect that, and just soak up all you can by reading, posting, playing, repeating. After all, it's always nice when you're on a shitty tourney run busting on the bubble if you can take a break and crush a cash game for a bit (or vice versa). Variety is the spice of life...
I don't think thats a big part of it. The first time I played a NL cash game yes I was scared shitless because it was actual money and not tournament chips, but that went away fairly quickly.
lol, would I still be playing poker if it were the latter?
Bump.
yeah, in the bizarro world
I find this post very interesting, mostly becauase I only play live cash games and have so for about 4 years now, I learned poker at when I was 19 playing 5/10. I mostly a limit player, but play about 10 hours a week NL live. Tournaments are fine, the payout structures deter me from playing for the most part and the typical newbies that play low limit tourney's. There is no final reward to cash games, you just grind it out, and make the best out of the hands when in position. Aggresion in Limit is not always the best recipe and I feel that leading a hand in earlier position can be beneficial. I find I make the most entering at peak time periods and leaning on newbies and loose callers, stear clear of quality players and pick on the weak ones. With tournaments you stand only to lose the buy in, cash games you must control yourself becuase you stand to lose alot more. When I'm up above a level I deem ok, I look at the level of play, time, my physical condition (tired or awake) and really think about how much more I could take out of the table. With cash games, its all about putting plus's on the board, you can't get greedy, just build and walk away.
1. I’m surprised no one has mentioned money management. You built your bankroll in tournaments, now because of some desire to be well rounded your dwindling it trying to learn cash games. Noble cause, but limit yourself, so no matter what, your not hampering your ability to play your bread and butter (tournaments). It’s easy to get carried away playing cash games.
2. If your true talent is tournament play, cash games will only hurt your tournament play. You will indeed get better at cash games, but your tournament strength will suffer. Do you want to be mediocre at both, or a specialist at one? This may be a bad analogy, but what you are attempting is like competing in the 100m AND the 800m. Just like the 100m and the 800m require two different types of athletes, cash games require a different type of specialist than tournaments.
3. If your serious about your poker play, get serious about your bankroll. You shouldn’t let anything hamper your bankroll. If the women wants to get married so bad, tell her to get a second job and pay for the wedding. Your poker money, is for poker. If you can afford 1500 + 2000 in your bankroll to go to Calgary, then go. If you start down the slippery slope of cashing out poker winnings for "practical" stuff, you’ll never advance.
So for all the reasons above. Stick to tournaments. Once you’ve created a monster bankroll, then pursue your dream of being the worlds greatest 0.5/$1 limit player.