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Cash game or tournament poker
This is a question ive always woundered. Can you truly be a tournament and a cash player, being sucsessful at both?
I find myself as a tournament player, this is where i will make any profit and its also where i enjoy myself the most, im not exactly patient enough to sit and wait for a hand in a cash game.
So are you a tournament or a cash player.
Comments
If I was looking to make a living from poker though, it would be cash and the occasional tourney thrown in as a treat. Making a living at mtt's would be very hit and miss and even at the top level the hit rate is only about 16% of tourneys to cash. Hit a bad patch and earnings could be zero for a long time. To put it into perspective my total profit from tournaments on Sky over the last 6 months is less than half my monthly salary so I won't be giving up the day job.
It all depends on what you want or need to get from your poker I think. Cash tables to make a living, tourneys for entertainment.
As the saying goes Cash for Dough & Tournaments For Show!!
started playing cash tables 4 weeks ago & have found that its helped my tournament game 2 fold so on that basis i would have to say yes you could be successful in both
dtw
The wonderful Post by elsadog sums up my views.
Can we be good at both? Unlikely, very few - vey few indeed - excel at both.
I cannot think of a single Pro player, or major "name", who is very good at both. Even at the very top, guys like Hellmuth are great tourney players & suck at cash, & Mr Dwan is the abso-nuts at Cash, but has never shown a shred of ability in tourneys.
What is better? Subjective. For recreational players, Tourneys are terrific fun, & good value, but if you want to make a living at the game, forget Tourneys - 99.5% of us are not good enough, but most of us could eke out a living playing cash.
I would of thought you love of being deepstacked and folding a vast percentage of hands may lend itself quite well to cash and tourneys
5000 players on sky x one half of one percent = more players than you just named.
The answer is correct for the vast majority.
I would be very suprised if anyone beating nl50+ cash games could not make a profit at small mmts and sngs over a large sample.
True but why would you want to? If we are talking about making a living then that doesn't seem to add up with regard to small mtt's.
There are obviously players who are very successful here but I cant seem to crack it. I try to be selective in which tables I play, avoiding those with known strong players.
I find playing one cash table very tedious, so usually play 3. It usually works out that I will make a steady profit on 2 tables but will have an accident on the other which will wipe out any real gains. So maybe after an hour I will have a profit of £20 or so for which I have put £150 at risk.
How do I stop these accidents happening ? A typical situation from yesterday was holding KQ on a Q high flop and facing a shove for a whole BI. I knew I was in front and made the call and lost to QJ on the river.
I will persevere but would appreciate any tips.
But at the end of the day I dont think anything will beat the buzz of a good final table in a tournament.
To be fair, he's the exception which proves the rule.
Absolutely
But I adore well structured &/or deep-stacked Tourneys, & I have an extremely high "in the cash" strike rate in such events in "Live poker", balanced by an extremely low "outright win" rate.
To be honest, I almost never play cash games by choice - the buzz I get from going deep in Tourney beats any drug, or alcohol induced euphoria. If I do play cash, by choice, I always play Omaha or Dealers Choice, the latter in particular being the most fun I can have at a poker Table - except going deep in Tourneys.
And it does not help that I'm pretty hopeless at NLH Cash. I rarely lose much money, if any, as I'm so tight, but I'll never be a big winner at it, as the new breed are so good, & fearless. I don't want to play ANY TP-ers at Cash, trust me, though I'd give them a good fight in a well-structured Tourney.
Believe me this is THE best way to win. I've led from the front and won, I've had a comfortable ride to the line, but ........ playing short stacked, making life or death decisions, getting to the H2H as the underdog and then taking it down is the nuts. Happy days.
Blew my bankroll on cash when I first started playing and then won abit playing tournaments, thought now I actually now know how to play I can go back on cash tables.
Still no joy
If anyone see's me on a cash table please call my mother.
A very good winrate at nl50 is 10bb/100hands/or hour,So thats £5 pounds per hour * how many tables.
Its not really risking 150 pounds if you have good bankroll management as the collers will even themselves out over time.
My winrate at 50nl over 100,000 hands is 7bb/100 but some days i can be down over £400.
If i only played on sky i would work it out by writing down how much i won and loss each cash session as well as how long i played for.
for example if i played 50 hours and was up 300 pounds.
50 hours= approx 5,000 hands
£300/5000 hands *100= £6 per 100 hands/hour
£6/0.50 (big blind)= 12bb/100
I know this is boring and time consuming lol but i would like to know how i was doing.
I think it is very true that some cash players think the tourny guys are donks and will perhaps be more aggressive when facing them. What I need to learn is how to use that to my advantage. Why do you think you are better live than online in MTT ? Dont you think your obvious STT skills should benefit you in tournaments. I think there are two kinds of successful STT players.... aggressive and non aggressive, and an easy mistake is being too aggressive in the early stages of a tournament. Perhaps people are less aggressive live because they have probably travelled to get there and cant just press a button to enter another if they go out. And of course 10 seat tables are a factor.
I found your posts very helpful DeuceAK. I have never analysed my cash play at all. It is difficult on a return on investment basis, but looking at return on time invested and hands played could be useful.
I find the idea of dropping £400 in a day horrific, knowing I would have to put in 50+ good table hours to get it back.
One more question. ....If you lose a buyin on a table do you go back for more ? I never do,even if I have lost to a bad beat, preferring to take a break or find another table. And if I see another player reload I see it as an opportunity, Am I right ?
One more!.....Do you have a profit target on a table ? I tend to run away if I have doubled my BI, thinking that in some way I am protecting my gains. Or should I use my psychological advantage to push for more ?
With regards to your statements about profitability in cash play, most successful players would say that you're going about it the wrong way. However, you should play how you feel "comfortable".
If you use lose a BI to a loose player who made a bad call and got lucky, you should re-buy (assuming that you do not tilt). The reason is that you should have a good expectation of making a profit on your next BI. Forget the money that you have lost, just consider if you expect to make money from thereon.
If you are up a BI then you are, presumably, playing better than the rest of the table so, again, you have a reasonable expectation of making further profit. Also, as you say, it will give you a psychological edge against some players who play worse against a "big stack" on a cash table.
I am sure that you are 100% right. But as you also say it is also a matter of feeling comfortable or confidence.
If I miss out in a £50 DYM through a bad beat I have no hesitation in entering another against the same players. Similarly if I win one I would love to go straight back for another !
I need the confidence to transfer this onto the cash tables. TY M8 !