Tournament vs Cash

[guesswest]

GaF's excellent post on inflection points got me thinking about this, though not in a very organised way so apologies if this is a bit of a ramble...... I started playing online poker about 2.5 years ago, and for the first year and a bit played only tournaments, and did really well. I picked up 20+ four figure finishes - and in one beautiful week I won the $10 buy-in 20k guaranteed on prima ($5600 1st) twice in the same week, monday and wednesday. At that point I decided to work on my cash game, and I was at the time a godawful bad cash player. But I worked on it and got better and eventually ended up showing regular profit. But I noticed that as my cash game improved, my tournament results suffered. Now my tournament results are just plain shite. I'd initially put it down to variance and a bad run, but with the downturn in tournament performance having gone on over a year now, it's a sample that's staticially significant so I can only assume I'm just not playing as well as I used to. So I've been trying to work out what it is that I'm doing wrong, and GaFs thread on inflection points gave me an idea. A tournament is essentially a mini-bankroll. In a cash game you'd always want to take positive expectation because you're playing for the long term, so if there's five people in front of you all-in you'd call aces every day of the week even though you're an underdog. When I started playing cash it took me a while to wrap my head around that, but I think when I finally did, I then developed a problem stopping myself from applying the same thing to tournament play. For instance in a cash game if I have AKd and the flop comes rags with 2 diamonds and I put the guy on an overpair, I'll call everytime because with 2 overcards and the flush draw I'm a small favourite. The problem is, I think, I'm making the same calls in tournaments. In the same way you wouldn't sit down in a cash game way above your usual stakes with your full bankroll, you need to play tournaments as a microcosym, with your stack representing your full bankroll. In a cash game I don't want to shut out the flush draw, I just want to take away pot odds so it's an unprofitable call if my opponent chases. But in tournaments I DO want to shut out the draw, or at least make it a much bigger mistake to call, because I'm going to run into situations where i'm a similarly small favourite multiple times in one tournament and I only need to lose it once to get knocked out - and the odds hugely favour that I will lose it once. I'm making a fairly decent income playing cash, but I'd really like to do better in tournaments. So in summary I think that a big part of why I'm now a fairly crappy tournament playe - taking small +EV way too frequently when I'm not under pressure to do so, and failing to minimise the amount of hands that result in a showdown. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions as to how I could improve my tournament game I'd greatly appreciate it! - cos I'm certainly doing something wrong. I'd also be interested to hear from others as to how they rate themselves at tournaments vs cash, what you think the differences are etc

[Pokerose]

Re: Tournament vs Cash A new struggle for me. Gafs post also got me thinking a lot in this direction. I've been playing poker for a year now, firstly limit hold em (I ask myself how, how did I ever play limit for so long? Wheres the all in button?!) And no limit cash games for about 5 months now. I'm not a great cash player, I usually just play micro limits but I'm satisfied enough at the moment with the way things are. I don't really look at poker winnings as an income as such, so I'm not that dependent on the way a game turns out. Except, small stakes cash games can be a bit of a grind. Grinding out small edges with the long term expectation of a steady profit for playing correct poker. Only one thing is going to happen if you go all in with 84o in the games that I play. No positive expectation there So, after reading some of the things on this forum, I decided to look at playing MTTS. One of my biggest problems is looking at my hands the same way that I look at my hands in cash games. And changing my style of play. In all fairness, anyone who has seen me play a cash game will know that actually, theres not that big a stretch. I can be a bit of a bully, and I guess thats why the move in to tournaments hasn't been that much of a shock. My biggest problem is coming up against players who will happily out aggress me and what to do about them. This change has not been very positive for my cash game, I'm afraid. I find it difficult sometimes to move successfully between the two modes. I now really only play for cash with strict provisos in mind. Simply that, I need raked hands at Ladbrokes; I need to take a few risks as possible whilst doing so; If I want to play in an MTT at Ladbrokes, my expectation of winning is still not that high so I must get my buy in in the cash game beforehand. My Bankroll there is pretty static at the moment due to these factors, especially that I'm funding small buy in MTTs with it, But I have enough good sessions to keep me out of trouble. For a preference, frustrating as I find them, I suppose I probably like Tournaments better at the moment. I'm still on my second reread of Harrington 1. Its helped me immensley.