Two sides of the same coin

Tournament or cash? A recurring gripe from many people takes the form of…

“I’m a successful tournament player and I’ve spent 6months building up my bank roll, last week I decided to give the NL cash tables a try, it’s full of fish but I’ve blown 80% of my roll, I can’t understand it!”

So why is it that so many people who are perfectly competent STT and MTT players struggle so much when it comes to playing with real money. I think there are several reasons, first of all the bank roll required to play successful tournament poker is much smaller than the roll required for cash games. The no limit cash games can be especially brutal and your hard earned can evaporate at an alarming rate. Before you know it you’ve reloaded 4 times and your sphincter is tighter than a multi-tabling Scandinavian. It maybe that these losses are in permissible range for a decent bank roll but the impact on the average tournie roll can be catastrophic.

It’s about this point where the tilt monster raises his head and it’s harder to draw a line under a loosing cash session than it is a tournament. In a tournament, you lose, that’s it, you’re out! You can’t get back in and get revenge on the fishy bastard who just sucked you out, in a cash game the option and the temptation to reload is always there.

There is also a massive misconception held by the majority of tournament players about cash games as well. I was playing in a live cash game recently and a chap who has a reputation for playing solid tight tournament poker made a call for all his chips with 2nd pair with 3 spades out in the community. He lost and when I questioned the call, he said …

“It’s a cash game isn’t it? I can reload. I wouldn’t have called in a tournie!”

Now it may have been that he was just blowing off a bit of steam, but you hear the sentiment repeated time and time again. They think that you should play looser in a cash game when in fact the opposite is true.

In a tournament the blinds are constantly moving forward, putting you under pressure. This pressure towards the middle/end of the game forces you to make more elaborate ‘moves’ and get your chips in with half decent hands more frequently. Top pair could be a behemoth of a hand in the latter stages of a tournament and may well merit getting all your chips in, thanks to the ever increasing pressure a lot of the time you will get action from an inferior hand.

But is the same true in a cash game?? Without the pressure of the increasing blinds the value of your hands is reduced…so why play looser?? No one at the table is being forced to overplay their hand and if you start to over play your hand the only action you are likely to get is from someone with a better hand.

Doubling up is a frequent occurrence in a tournament due to the nature of the game. In a £1000 sit down NL cash game you can blow it in one hand with ease and if the cards are not going your way you can wait all day for the chance to get it back!

In my opinion betting out (or as is more frequently is the case , calling) with a good, but not great hand is the main reason why tournament players come unstuck in cash games.

They sit there thinking….

“I can always reload! It’s a great hand!”

When they should be thinking…

“I value my chips! Is this the best spot to get my money in!”