Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...

Sky_Poker

A thread to share advice and tips on this transition.

What are the differences? What's the same?

Is BRM different in your opinion?

jimb0d1

I am currently making this change.

1) Play tighter (early-mid stage tourny range)

2) Believe the fish postflop

3) Learn the regs

4) Play in position or fold the flop a lot

Of course, I am a loose non-believer who keeps playing vs the best regs out of position *sigh*.

BRM is more important to me in cash, as the losses hurt more mentally and I need to play on through my mistakes. I never used to consider my BR much playing tournaments as I knew the original figure that I span up from and am well in profit. Knowing I am behind in a cash session/my challenge frustrates me immensely when I know I should be a winning player by now.

KAM99

BRM is different in MTT, SnG and Cash. Its importance is NEVER different though, just maybe how much you need to have in reserve to cover your expected variance. There is a ton of advise out there as to what is right or wrong in this, and to be honest a lot of it is personal to your level of play, how serious you are taking it and so on. Hence get advice and then work something comfortable that suits you for wat you are playing.

For cash, as the above post says you will need to be careful to begin with. At least with a tournament you have a set buyin and then y ou play tilll you are out. At a cash table if you play badly or luck runs against you, you might find yourself down a few buyins quite quickly.

I don't agree at all with the above post on teh "play tighter approach" though. In cash game you have a fixed bb and so the game leads itself to more speculative hands. This doesn't mean play rubbish from all positions, but it does mean you are likely playing PP's from any postion looking for sets, where as in SnG and MTT you have to give up on this set-mining approach fairly early due to blind levels to stack level concerns. You are (or should be) at 100bbs and so your play is not so restricted. Also, playing suited conectors is common in cash game, postion a little more dependant.

One big chance you'll find in cash game is that you do have to be a better post flop player, and often why people say that cash game players are slightly better players. Further you go into an MTT the more often the choices get made on the flop or even preflop due to stack sizes, where as in cash games you'll often be facing choices all the way to the river. This means needing to be more aware of the board and possible villian hand ranges.

This also leads on to the fact you should not fall into the trap of overvaluing TPTK. Should should be a little wary about thinking to commit your whole stack in this situation. Certainly early stages of change to playing cash I'd say play with the mentality to win and lose small while looking for bigger hands to play for stacks. 2-pair, sets, straights and flushes.

As a guide to hands and postions and I'd something like this to start with. Download something like Equilab if you need help with starting ranges

UTG: 6% range.
MP: 9% range
CO: 23% range
BTN: 36% range.

That is my tightest range. And you shold be looking to play a tight-aggresive/aggresive style. Passive poker is a killer unless up against a agro player and then you can play the passive game against them. Lot at lower levels tend to be a little passive, certainly post-flop and even preflop when it comes to 3betting.

Thnks thats enough of a load. But if someone wants my 3bet range preflop etc, just say. Of course these are guides, as players do matter and as always postion is god.

Oh other than one side note. I have a rule with myself from bitter experience. Do nothing silly in the first 20-30 hands until you got some idea of the people at your table. IE no triple barrel bluffs until you have some idea who the callign stations are etc. And lastly as the saying goes, if you can't see the fish at your table within 10-20 minutes move table because it's you.

BigBluster

Roughly speaking, MTTs and cash are two different games. Just like chess and draughts.

You need mathematical skills for MTTs and people skills for cash.

Look at the best cash players on skypoker - zing, style, launder, sam, ajs etc. They are on the whole not very good MTT players. Very rarely do you actually see them playing MTTs, but when they do they almost always get busted by one of the MTT regs. They dominate the table for a while, but sure as eggs are eggs they get felted. Why? Because mathematics catches up with them.

So what happens when the MTT regs play cash? They're good at maths, they know all the odds, all about stack sizes and shoving ranges, surely it should be easy? Er...not quite.

Well I can personally testify to this. I'm a MTT reg who makes a little money by playing lots of MTTs and riding out variance. I find that I'm generally out of my depth at cash games. I can beat the game up to 20NL but after that it's a struggle. Why? Because up to 20NL players are unobservant. At 100Nl and above they are very observant indeed.

In MTTs, being observant is not that important - you switch tables so often so it's more about mathematics, positon and making the 'correct' play (MTT regs are good at this). People, reads, observations and even tells don't come into it that much (cash regs know lots about this).

So to summarise all of this waffle: the qualities that make you a good MTT player make you a poor cash player. Likewise the qualities that make you a good cash player make you a poor MTT player.

THEROCK573

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...:

Roughly speaking, MTTs and cash are two different games. Just like chess and draughts. You need mathematical skills for MTTs and people skills for cash. Look at the best cash players on skypoker - zing, style, launder, sam, ajs etc. They are on the whole not very good MTT players. Very rarely do you actually see them playing MTTs, but when they do they almost always get busted by one of the MTT regs. They dominate the table for a while, but sure as eggs are eggs they get felted. Why? Because mathematics catches up with them. So what happens when the MTT regs play cash? They're good at maths, they know all the odds, all about stack sizes and shoving ranges, surely it should be easy? Er...not quite. Well I can personally testify to this. I'm a MTT reg who makes a little money by playing lots of MTTs and riding out variance. I find that I'm generally out of my depth at cash games. I can beat the game up to 20NL but after that it's a struggle. Why? Because up to 20NL players are unobservant. At 100Nl and above they are very observant indeed. In MTTs, being observant is not that important - you switch tables so often so it's more about mathematics, positon and making the 'correct' play (MTT regs are good at this). People, reads, observations and even tells don't come into it that much (cash regs know lots about this). So to summarise all of this waffle: the qualities that make you a good MTT player make you a poor cash player. Likewise the qualities that make you a good cash player make you a poor MTT player.
Posted by BigBluster

this is a load of rubbish, they dont play mtts on here because they all play nl200 - nl2000. nothing to do with there ablilty what so ever and more to do with the top prize for a main event on sky would probably be peanuts to there bankrolls, sam1986 is crushing mtts this year and style is for sure one of the best mtt players on sky he just rarely plays them, launders decent and zing and ajs dont bother but im sure they would be good if they did. pretty harsh on the cash players to say that when you have no idea how good they are mtts

DOHHHHHHH

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...:

- zing, style, launder, sam, ajs etc. They are on the whole not very good MTT players. Very rarely do you actually see them playing MTTs, but when they do they almost always get busted by one of the MTT regs.Posted by BigBluster

They're up over $81,000 between them at tournaments.

Add in tommyd, scotty, lolufold, 3 of the highest volume high stakes cash players on here over the last 12 months, and 'team cash' are up over a quarter of a million dollars on Sky tournaments.

Not bad on a site where the biggest daily buyin is a 60 runner £50 comp!

rancid

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BigBluster

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...:

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash... : They're up over $81,000 between them at tournaments. Add in tommyd, scotty, lolufold, 3 of the highest volume high stakes cash players on here over the last 12 months, and 'team cash' are up over a quarter of a million dollars on Sky tournaments. Not bad on a site where the biggest daily buyin is a 60 runner £50 comp!
Posted by DOHHHHHHH

LOL - looks like I was talking out of the back of my head! Not for the first time, or the last.

Batkin88

There isn't as much difference as made out, you play different in various stages in MTT's but in cash you build a solid consistent game. Which is why I would assume why cash is harder as you play with people for so long they can start to pick your game apart if you lose concentration.

I enjoy both formats MTT's more as cash becomes tedious that I win at.

KAM99

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...:

There isn't as much difference as made out, you play different in various stages in MTT's but in cash you build a solid consistent game. Which is why I would assume why cash is harder as you play with people for so long they can start to pick your game apart if you lose concentration. I enjoy both formats MTT's more as cash becomes tedious that I win at.
Posted by Batkin88

There is more differences than this. You aren't constantly playing 100bb deep in MTT's, and you don't have a blind structure forcing the action. This makes quite a vvast difference in fact you'll have to play a lot more post-flop, and certainly be facing trn and river choices more often in cash game than in MTT where often you are having to make the choices preflop or on the flop due to the pressure of your stack size.

I don't know to many people that started with SnG's and MTT's and did ok that didn't struggle quite a bit everytime they tried cash, certainly for a while. I know it was the case for me that when I started I tried switching to cash a couple of times before it stuck and I was profitable at it. Mistakes in some way that much more costly and more chances to make those mistakes.

RyanC7

In Response to Re: Advice for tournament players switching to Cash...:

Roughly speaking, MTTs and cash are two different games. Just like chess and draughts. You need mathematical skills for MTTs and people skills for cash. Look at the best cash players on skypoker - zing, style, launder, sam, ajs etc. They are on the whole not very good MTT players. Very rarely do you actually see them playing MTTs, but when they do they almost always get busted by one of the MTT regs. They dominate the table for a while, but sure as eggs are eggs they get felted. Why? Because mathematics catches up with them. So what happens when the MTT regs play cash? They're good at maths, they know all the odds, all about stack sizes and shoving ranges, surely it should be easy? Er...not quite. Well I can personally testify to this. I'm a MTT reg who makes a little money by playing lots of MTTs and riding out variance. I find that I'm generally out of my depth at cash games. I can beat the game up to 20NL but after that it's a struggle. Why? Because up to 20NL players are unobservant. At 100Nl and above they are very observant indeed. In MTTs, being observant is not that important - you switch tables so often so it's more about mathematics, positon and making the 'correct' play (MTT regs are good at this). People, reads, observations and even tells don't come into it that much (cash regs know lots about this). So to summarise all of this waffle: the qualities that make you a good MTT player make you a poor cash player. Likewise the qualities that make you a good cash player make you a poor MTT player.
Posted by BigBluster

Lol. Ayyyyyyyy. Have a word lol... FT's of UKIPTs not good enough?

hhyftrftdr

Not like BigBluster to come out with claptrap