Good tournament player, but SUCK at cash games.

The title says it all....

I've been playing NLHE for about 2-3 years and I've always played tournaments, and have been successful in them. I started out playing play money, and my results were very good, I placed first in 100-200 player MTT's more times than I can remember. Lately I have been playing small stakes real money and have been having pretty much the same results as in play money.

So basically I understand most of the fundamentals to poker, I feel like I have pretty good online "reading" skills against most small stakes players, etc. BUT when I play micro-stakes cash games ($.02-$.04) I hardly ever make a profit.

I'm very aware that tournaments and cash games require a different style of playing, and I thought I sort of knew what those differences were, but my results tell me otherwise.

I was just wondering if anyone had any insight on this, and could explain the key differences between the two, or if you just have any tips on cash games I'd appreciate your input. Thanks

First 2 key points.
1. Tourney = strong pre flop play
2. Cash = strong post flop play.

You have so many different nuances. No blind increase. rebuy anytime. People playing relatively short on purpose (bastards).

This is a good read, Special 2k Post: So You Want To Become a WINNING Cash Game Player and books will help.

On tip I can give right off is PLAN YOUR HAND. When you bet pre, decide always what you will do in every case. Say you have AK and you raise 3x in EP. You know that if the button calls you will bet the flop no matter what and try to get it in against him You know that if the SB calls you will proceed carefully on the flop. This is so vague, I know, but I hope you see where I am going with this. If you dont have any info on opponents, then your cards and the flop/turn/river + action will help you decide what to do. If you do have opponent info, plan ahead what you will do vs action from each individual opponent.

Folding is almost never bad if you are unsure........at first..... Tight is right.... at first.

I had a problem like that,i spent so money at the cash tables so my br was dead for a whole month.Now,i'm back with tournaments and i'm doing just fine...I'm just not a cash game type of guy...

Cash is a marathon, tourny is a sprint. Position and starting hands matter more in cash, "tough folds" in tourny is tough, in cash is pretty easy.

The mindset is very different in terms of strategy . I like tournaments but found that I cash games was more convinent as I can come and leave as I please
I think the biggest difference (among other thing) is adjusting and managing the increasing blinds during tourn play
For cash games, I agree that post flop action happens much more and requires a skill that does not occur as much in tournament play
I think having a deep stack in a tournament can employ similar strategy in cash game

Try to describe your current style. HH's really help. Unless you want generic responses.

Just bet. Everybody always misses anyway. ~ Gavin Smith


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In tournament play I feel I have to adopt different strategy depending on my stack size
In a cash game I can stay deep stacked

don't stack off as light as you do in tournaments.

against nits overpairs are a standard b/f on the flop.

try 6-max instead of FR, FR nits are the worst.\

Thanks guys, I've actually been winning at cash games since after posting this and taking some of your guys' advice. For people having the same problem, here are a few things that helped me.

In 9 max games, tighten up preflop, especially in early position.
In tournaments the blinds go up so action is kind of forced on you and I was used to that so I was playing way too many hands. (The comment about tourneys being sprints and cash games being marathons is very true)
Playing 3 or 4 games at once really helped me with this because I just lose my patience playing just 1 game and will usually end up making dumb moves.

For me, it's been profitable in most games to play aggressive preflop in late position (OTB,CO) because most players' preflop ranges are so tight, I pick up the blinds quite a bit. In some games this can be a bad idea.

Also against certain players, 3-betting light has been profitable. This doesn't work in tourneys as well because most small buy-in tourney players HATE folding, but most micro-stakes cash game players are pretty tight and will raise-fold hands like AJo KJo KQo small PP's....a decently wide range. Note that there are only a few scenarios where I 3-bet light and it comes from a general feel of the table and the original raiser's tendencies, etc.

Also like someone said, making big folds is much easier in cash games, because in tourneys you only get so many opportunities to increase your stack before the blinds go up, and you never want to fold and be left short-stacked. In cash games you can just buy more chips and try again later.

There are probably a lot more differences I haven't addressed yet but I'm definitely getting better. And I'm glad because the variance of MTT's was really starting to get to me. It just seems like all the bad players love the GTD prize pool and the idea that they can't lose more than the buy-in. It's sort of a love/hate relationship with them lol. They can be the reason you got knocked out because they called off 90% of their stack preflop with QTo to flop a straight...or they can be the reason you were able to chip up easily throughout the tournament and get first place. I guess it all depends on the cards. I do still love tourneys though, it's more exciting with the blind levels increasing, people getting knocked out, the big prizes at the end, etc. You're always on edge. Cash games (micro-stakes)you just sort of sit back and try to make a decent profit. Both are good times.

Good luck to all.

That`s very debatable. I suspect that you don`t understand the nuances of tournament play, if you feel able to make such a bald statement without any form of explanation or justification.

A big difference is that in tournaments you will find a lot of short stacks as the tournament advances while in a cash game most of the stacks will probably be deep, so while in a tourney you are very confortable getting in with 10-15 BB with AK pre-flop, doing the same in a 100BB deep cash game might not be so profitable.

Not harder just different, while on a cash game you could actually wait for big hands (not saying it would be profitable in the long run) you cant do that on a tournament becasue of the blinds increase.

Hey ZNT746, if u play micro limits its harder to make money, cause they fight for every penny. Other play shortstacked good Hands in a ALLIN PREFLOP LOTTO. And u have the Problem, u cant Bluff at this limits cause ,mostly at Titanpoker, nobody can fold. all pay to see. At higher limits 2-4$ No limit, u have more player that dont care about Bankrollmanagement, but they can fold o bluff.

That is sad

Why not deposit a bit to get you going?

Just remember in cash games there is virtually (blinds still) no pressure to jump in unlike tourney play so don't worry too much about folding if you're unsure.

Cash is confirmed harder and more challenging than mtt's in general.

The amount of study involved and hand volume needed to learn and beat any level of cash is tremendous. For every 1 hour of play i am studying at least 1.5-2 hrs; reviewing hands (HA-hand analysis), stat-leak checks, reading (quality material) and note taking.

Having the singular mindset of wanting to make money is not the same mindset that good cash game ppl have; its TOTALLY about beating a particular level. Its about the long term, and improving your game to its max potential,
well and also having fun too, but its fun to improve; get better.

So often horrible players bink, due to the structure and nature of tourneys. There ia a lot more dedication and discipline needed to be good at cash. However variance in Mtt's is much greater. (alex ).

if you want to become good at cash, understand that you need to study alot.

Confirmed by whom ?

Sweeping generalisation alert.

That may be true of online tournaments at $2 buyin, but surely a four day live main event at $1000+ buyin requires dedication and discipline and is most unlikely to be won by a horrible player ?

There are more bad players in tourneys which makes them easier to beat..

lol

GOTTA TIGHTEN UP SIGNIFIGANTLY IN CASH GAMES THE RAKE AND TOAKES EAT U ALIVE.... Plus in cash games there is alot more time to sit around and wait for some donko to pay u off when u hold premium hands.

Egon. You are a smart guy. We know this. We also know you play tournaments and that you will defend that but you have to acknowledge that it is widely considered throughout the poker community that cash games are the much more intricate and much more complicated/ more difficult a game.

Tournaments, you have less than 10bb so often and we are playing shove and fold for the rest of the game.

I have to agree with this. Gathering and processing more information in cash is essential. That's why it baffles me when I hear of people playing cash without a HUD.

I'm pretty bad at cash games as well. Sit n go's are more my thing. Would love to get better at cash play. Just have to put in the time I guess. BTW, I really like the sprint/marathon analogy! Makes sense.

If all u cash guys are so much better than the tourney guys, because the cash game is harder, and you are still playing cash (assumes you must be winners) why are you not playing tourney's and cleaning up?

I will agree they are played different, and then I'm with Egon.

DJ do you win at tournaments?

That`s largely true if we are talking about a CC freeroll, but there is a whole other world out there which is nothing like that.

Of course I know that the majority of those posting here will be mostly familiar with, and thinking in terms of, online low stakes donkaments, but there is a lot more to tournament play than is found at that level. Once you have played in tourneys that start 400 Big Blinds deep and play for days, under the pressure of spectators and press photographers looking on, you`re never likely to accept that grinding a dull ring game is a superior challenge.

Ok egon, so we are playing deep stack. Who is going to do better, the person playing for 10bb every day or the person who plays cash games for 100bb min?

Again, not helping your arguement.

And lets talk about pressure because everyone is playing under spectator pressure in online tourneys right

In the 'longrun' to do well as a tournament player you have to be decent (how long is the 'longrun'?.. who knows, lol).
'but'
Tournaments can be won by really bad players (we can see all kinds of evidence of this online.. ie. yesterday's SunStorm hu playing for $157k, both were real bad). Newer players w/o alot of knowledge can bink a big win (how about that donk who took down SunMill awhile back & lost it all in 5days?)... last night's SunMill, 3-way chop, one player had avg. sng buyin 0.90 (yah.. 90cents!) & less than 100mtt's, avg. bi <$4. Their 3rd biggest cash ever was actually the $10 turbo 100seats satty to the SunMill (earlier in day on same day (yesterday) that they binked 2nd in 3-way chop).
So.... part of what I'm sayin' I guess is > anyone can bink a tourney (even a shyt player can do well at times in tournaments). Doubt a shyt player will ever do well in cash tables for any length of time at all!! It's just not gonna happen.

There are quite a few good tournament players (decent-good.. or at least pretty regularly getting good/decent results) who are actually pretty piss-poor postflop deepstacked players. This is pretty common knowledge. Doubt a cashgame player would do well if they're piss-poor at playing deepstacked postflop poker.

To dj... I did just move to donkaments because they are so easy lol.

Of course they are.... just not on Bodog

Lol you win this thread btw.

It's two different games but tournament is harder.
1) Tournament means you buy in and play till eliminated
2) You are often forced into coin flip situations before flop risking your whole stack.
3) You have to play until you are eliminated or win

It's not that you can't make money playing tourneys or that the play is better it's just that you are forced to play with a limited amount of money and the blinds increase (excluding rebuy events, even then you have to take into account your expected return on investment).

Cash games are a different story, at a table you don't find good ev, leave. You can rebuy if you get short but you think you have +ev. You can wait for good hands and play the player vs. coin flips. You can choose your opponents by watching the table before hand. You don't see as many all-in pushes pre-flop.

Both games require different stratigies, cash games require constant evaulation of limited opponents. Tournaments require adjusting to new players and changing conditions over a single stretch.

Sigh, tourneys are easier potluck because the competition is worse and the concepts are simpler.

This is horrible logic; no offense but think about what you are saying. a flip involves NO skill!

think of it if you will in terms of ICM; (and dollar value per mtt chip);
playing against new villains and the same villains everyday with cash is so much harder, your thinking about aspects of the game not about how to be a winning player. And how to dominate villains, w/e but your post makes no sense. and any logical honest person will read your post as proof of tourneys being way easier to bink.

Imwatcher to say the competition is worse in tournaments is like saying red is better than blue. Playing micro limit cash games and micro tournaments attracts the same bad players. I agree with what you are saying but you must admit that there are good players there also and you will be going head to head with them in the late stages.

Taaron yes a flip involves no skill, I'll take AA vs QJ every day but I have no need to risk my whole stack in a cash game. I am not saying you can donk to the final table in a tourney. I am saying that when I make 200% of my buy-in in a cash game I can leave, same if I'm down. In tourney you are forced to play for EVERYTHING every time.

If you look at my SNG and Tournament stats (which I cannot post since I don't currently have a HU) then I'm a winning player because I have finished in the money enough to make up for all my buy-ins (but you are talking only like ten or twelve events).

Cash is easier because each hand I am involved with is not "life and death". Every fold in tournament is costly due to the increasing blind structure. You can play a short stack in a cash game and wait for the best spots, in tournament you are forced to play marginal cards when your M drops to untenable levels. We are still talking about small stakes games, higher stakes cash games do become much tougher.

Once again I am not talking about the play skills as much as the difficulty of winning money for any given player with no particular skill in either.