Cash Game vs Tournament

Yesterday I published my "Living The dream" blogs and had several PMs asking me to explain myself where I said that I loved to see tournament players sit down at my ring game.The "what's the differnce" question popped up, and there were a few requests for me to explain why tournament players were seen as fish to cash game players. This blog is an attempt to explain what I mean, and to enlighten Railbirds of the difference in styles of play needed to be sucessful in both venues. There is no one difinitive style of play in any game, what I am offering here is merely my viewpoint, and this needs to be taken into consideration when reading what I have to say on the subject.

The main reason that I like to see tournament players sit down in a ring game is the style of poker that they are use to just won't work long term in ring games. We all know the difference is blind structure, in tournaments you pay a set fee and recieve a set amount of starting chips for that fee, usually a much higher face value than actual dollar value,and everyone in the tournament starts off with the same amount. The object of the tournament is to get all the chips in play, this means that you have a set time frame and a limited number of hands to accomplish this end result. In the live cash game you decide to buy in for the minimun,or maximum allowed or somewhere inbetween them, but each chip is clearly marked as to the real money value it represents, and you can play as long or short of a time as you choose, and the blinds will never increase.You can take a $100 chip from a ring game to the cage, and they will give you a Benjamin for it. There is no pressure to win all the chips in play, just a fair profit is all you need.

Let's say you are in a 60 player $100 buy in tournament, and everyone starts with $2000 in chips, the blinds double every 20 minutes, and the top 6 people get paid. This tournament will probably last around 4 hours, and therefore you can expect to see in the neighborhood of 200 hands. Of the 200 hands dealt you will end up playing from 25 for a tight player, to 75 or more for a loose player and the percentage of those hands that you HAVE to win to continue on to the final table is at least half, or more of them.

The chips have a denomination them that represents their value, but they are not valued to be equel to what they are actually worth in real money terms. Your $100 investment makes these chips worth $20each in theroy, so you don't really associate chip value with actual cash value. It is easy to bet $100 at a pot when you actually are only spending $5 of your investment in the game, so naturally you get use to playing with large amount bets. The deeper you go the blinds keep raising, and the bet amounts rise also to the point that the amount you started with $2000 is a standard bet, or even big blind at the final table, or before. The more chips you collect the less each one is valued to you, and when you get short stacked they become increasingly more valuable to you as they dwindle away.

Thru televised tournaments we learn that agressive people are the ones that keep coming back to the final table and getting the lions share of the winnings, therefore this is the style of play that most tournament players have learned, and try to perfect, be it tight agressive or loose agressive, it is non the less their learned style of play, and seldom deviate from it.

When a tournament player sits down at the cash table, they generally play the exact same way they would in a tournament, and realistically the first couple rounds of blinds in a tournament are very similar to a ring game in the sense that you have a large amount of big blinds in your stack. The transistion from tournament chip value to real money value of the chips in a ring game is not always something that people percieve quickly. That $100 bet is actually going to cost you a hundred dollars real money now, and if you have a tournament mindset you don't value the black chip for its full value in relation to your stack. You are use to beting this amount when it was really only valued at $5 and a lot of people don't think of this when they first sit down and drop more cash then they should right away. Unlike tournaments the more chips you collect in a ring game the more valuable they become to you, as they represent your profit.

Most tournament players that sit down in ring games play way to many hands with poor hand selection. By starting with better cards against them the expierenced ring game player already has an advantage just by seeing flops with better hands, in cash games playing tight reduces the varience thus giving you an edge also. The true paradox of poker is tournaments require loose play to win, cash games require tight play to win and this is a very difficult transition to make, even for those that realize it needs to be done, and there are bunches and bunches of tournament players out there that don't realize it at all ! These are the ones you look for, and turn into your own personal atm machine.

tournament players are usually use to playing pot odds, and make their decisions based on them. Because you can reload if you go broke in cash games, pot odds are considerably less important than implied odds. In tournaments when put to the test a lot of times we fold just to survive to stay in the game, and conserative players do this in ring games too. They should reconsider tho, one good hand does not a tournament make, but one good hand can make a good cash game session. If you have an oponent with a large stack betting into you post flop and you have the nut flush draw just needing one more card to bust him, but he sets you all in to play, in a tournament it pays to fold and keep on playing. In a ring game it is much eaiser to call ths bet because of the implied odds you are getting, and if you miss, you can reload and try again.

Another aspect of cash game play overlooked by a lot of tournament players is the mental preperation to play. They are "just killing time" until their tournament starts, or have just got knocked out and don't want to quit play right yet. I love for someone to sit down just after he got knocked out of a tournament ! Most of them are a bit on tilt, and almost all of them play with the tournament viewpoint of starting hands and strategy, they make no adjustment and for that they will pay. If they are a losing tournament player, their strategy is really gonna cost them in a ring game ! They are use to taking more risk then necessary in a cash game and an astute player will capitolize on this very quickly, often breaking them for their buy in in just one hand. You hope he has deep pockets and rebuys for the max, and sits there all night getting more and more fustrated as he goes!

The things you need most to be sucessful at the cash game are #1 the ability to read your oponents strengths and weaknesses #2 the ability to stay off tilt and quickly regroup if drawn out on #3 the balls to bet your hands, position, and bluffs #4 the ability to stand up and cash out when you reach your win goal. I have seen it many times when a player gets a hot streak and says, "man I am hot tonight" and then sits there and loses all his winnings back to the table. This isn't playing poker, this is gambling and that is a topic for a whole different blog.

If you are a tournament player but want to learn to play cash games then I have a couple of suggestions for you. # 1 and it's free, read my basic tips for cash game blog by clicking here www.railbirds.com/blog/119413/cash-game-tips-from-topcat.html & #2 If you are really serious about wanting to play cash games well I would like to reccomend this book for you to buy and study : "Pot limit & No Limit Hold 'Em" by Ciaffone and Stewart ,you will find it very enlightening. I hope this blog answers some of the questions that were in your minds, and helps my fellow Railbirds be better cash game players, or at least know some of the differences between tournament players and cash game specialists.

........play on ..........TC..............