Cash Games More Profitable? Or Are They?

Just something for all CC'ers to think about, during my studies in psychology we learnt about the behavioural approach to behaviour. This suggests that we are more likely to do stuff and enjoy it if it has instant rewards for example you are more likely to play with mates than revise for your exams. This was because you would get instant gratification and happiness from playing with your friends but on the other hand you would have to wait for the results to come out to receive feedback and satisfaction from these results.

So in context of poker terms i feel that this can be applied by saying people prefer cash games because they find quick, fast satisfaction when they win a pot of money and they get rewarded on the spot when they do this. This means they are getting instant feedback from their actions. However on the other hand when people play SNG and MTT they dont get the rewards say after 2 or 3 hours hard graft. So this may put people of them because people dont want to put in the 2 or 3 hours work for nothing and knocking other players out from a large field.Also its not an instant reward and they have to wait for the payments even though when they do get them they are usually large.

So are cash games really more profitable or do people just prefer them because of the instant rewards?

Just something for you to think about and does anybody have stats that proves they are more profitable

I don't have any stats at hand. But from my understanding in many poker forums, most SnG players make the transition to cash b/c at the higher stakes in SnG's players are more adept and have a near faultless ICM strategy. Therefore your edge in these games are pretty miniscule. Also the rake is quite high, so again your profit is considerably reduced. Eventually you see a lot of players transferring, b/c variance is lower and rake is as well.

^^^ this.

It's easier to become a very good sng player than to become a very good cash player, so as soon as you get to significant stakes, the fish pool dries up in sngs and the possible ROI becomes real low.

If you look at the leaderboards on sharkscope, you'll see that it's possible to get good profits from sngs, but that requires heavily multitabling mid to high stakes sngs, which is not a really fun thing to do as it amounts to applying ICM in a very mechanical way.

Getting the same kind of money from cash is just more fun.

It might seem counter intuitive that the game that's easier to beat is the game that's harder to beat. The same basic principle applies to limit hold 'em - and we've seen a mass exodus of LHE to NLHE in the last few years as well (myself being an notable example) - where the edges are small and the rake is high.

No-limit is easier to win money at because players have such tremendous amounts of rope to hang themselves with.

Interesting what you guys have come up with about the edge and rake!
Notice belgo says you can get the same money from "Fun" referring to my earlier post is this just personal preference or can this be due to the instant gratification that you are getting from the winning of money from pots rather than sng's
Its interesting from a psychological point of view your responses, but yet to see any raw facts/figures that proves cash games are more profitable or at least way more profitable over a substantial period of time from anybody. if anybody has any please post.

MTT tournaments just have too much variance. Most players will never reach the long run when it comes to MTTs (in fact, if you don't play MTTs pretty much 24/7 for years and years you'll probably be stuck in the short run). This can be a blessing or a curse. For a WSOP main event winner it's a blessing

I just absolutely HATE the payout structures for MTT tournaments. They're so ridiculously top-heavy that you usually need to make top 3 to make any kind of reasonable profit. This means that you'll have to play a boatload of tournaments to get anywhere near the long run.

If tournaments had a fairly linear payout structure (8th place gets twice as much as 16th, 4th place gets twice as much as 8th etc.) I'd be much more willing to play them a lot.
As it is, tournaments give you a way to luckbox yourself into a lot of money quickly. But most of the time you'll spend a couple of hours playing and maybe make your buy-in back or something.

I don't think any of us sees the money on our cash tables as money. They are chips, even if they have a direct monetary conversion. In that sense, winning a bunch of chips at a cash table or a bunch of chips at a SNG table gets you exactly the same thrill. If you do see the chips on your cash table as money, then you are playing above your bankroll and should move down immediately. You're not a poker player anymore, you're a gambler.

The reason cash is more fun is that we play a lot deeper in terms of stack to big blind ratio. It makes post-flop play a lot more challenging. If you want to have the possibility to bet pot on each street, you need to play at least 100 big blinds deep.

That nearly never happens in tournaments beyond the very first minutes of the game. A couple of levels later you're only 20/30 BB deep and it becomes optimal to play a simplistic "steal blinds, stack with TPTK", a couple of levels later you're less than 15BB deep and the gameplay becomes even more mechanical: push or fold according to ICM theory.

interesting you should say that about the chips as money because i look at it as money which i probably shouldnt do as your saying however iv just switched to cash from SNG's and i am playin 0.02/0.05 4 tabling on pokerstars with a BR of 100$ so not sure if thats over my BR if anything im probably over rolled just trying to get the hang of cash games again etc etc.

I agree with you about the chip stacks in the tourneys because unless you get good cards or average cards then your pretty much screwed in a SNG because if you keep getting 10 3 off 4 8 off 2 7 off etc you cant push and just get blinded out!! whereas in cash its the post flop skills your saying that attracts people to it and the deep stack play which allows people maybe to play abit looser?
Jurn

Check out the leaderboards at SharkScope - The Largest Online Poker Tournament Results Database . The top two players got about $300k each in the first 6 months of 2008 playing heads-up sngs, mostly $1100 and $2200 buy-ins. Of those playing full tables, none got more than $200k over 6 months. Those people play the highest possible stakes of SNGs.

There are players making about that much ($1k per day) playing 400nl: http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9...00totalkn9.jpg . 400nl is far from being the highest stakes available.

72o is a very nice pushing hand. If you never push it, you're bleeding money.

It depends a lot on stack sizes and position, but there are a lot of situations in the latest stages of a SNGs where the correct pushing range is "any two cards". That includes 72o. If you want to succeed in SNGs, you need to learn proper ICM ranges.

yeh thats Heads up SNG's what about 6/9 seaters, MTT's however i do doubt anybody could beat that play 400NL tbh and thats pretty impressive winning that amount of money but 116k is only a small sample be interesting to see if he kept that up throughout the rest of the year IMO because of variance.
Personally think its interesting in why people play each type of game and how they do but obviously there is a larger profit margin for cash games i feel which in turn makes more donks play (myself included) because i have made the switch to cash earlier this week which you will see on my blog but for the experienced players turns into yet more profit while we try to find our feet when moving up in levels etc which is why im going to try and beat micro micro stakes before moving up. I feel if i cant beat the people playing at that level then how can i possibly beat the better players although there is alot of fishing!
Jurn

Top 5 worst starting hands in poker

1. 2-7 (offsuit)This is the worst hand to start with in Texas Hold 'Em Poker because there are so few good options: you have no straight draw, no flush draw, and even if you wind up with a pair of 7s or a pair of 2s, you're very unlikely to have the best hand. Of course, you'll see some crazy flops every now and then. But just because you might see a rare 7-7-2 flop once in a blue moon doesn't make this a good hand to play.

Top 5 Worst Starting Hands for Texas Hold 'Em Poker

Dont think im bleeding money if i dont shove

Actually, at such low stakes, SNGs might be more profitable that cash, and imply less variance. With $100 you'd be rolled for $5 SNGs and those are extremely fishy. IMO, you won't encounter serious SNG players before you move up to $22 turbos at the very least.

these are irrelevant issues when you are in push/fold mode in late stages of a SNG. Get yourself the trial version of The SitNGo Wizard - Home and learn the proper mathematically correct end game strategy. It's crucial to becoming a winning sng player.

i simply just want to build a BR to be able to start playing these tournaments and atm obviously thats 10% of my BR!

Also i have just recently about 2 days ago downloaded the trial version of poker tracker 3 ? will this provide me with the same data as the sng one ?? however i dnt understand some of the stats that it displays such as the ones where you get at the table although i know one is aggro factor i dont know whats good/ bad figures etc and how to categorise players from these.

No, PT and sngwiz and two completely different beasts.

I agree with Chris_TC about MTTs always being in the short-term. It's very possible to have a winning MTT player who just isn't very good. He/she may have gone deep in a big tournament, and made enough in one game to pay for months of losses. At the ring games, I think your success is tied much more closely to your ability. A heater will only last so long, and you'll achieve your average win-rate much more quickly. SNGs are probably somewhere in between.

But, all three game types require different skills. Or, rather, the same skills applied in different ways. So, it's possible for a very capable player to be posted an excellent profit in ring games, floating around break-even in SNGs, and losing 80% of his money at MTTs. Or even the complete opposite.

We're talking about $100 bankroll as well as $5 and $22 sngs, right? What exactly do you think is 10% of your bank ?????

Haha sorry belgo, just me being a retard i ment 20% with the 22$ tourney lol

Interesting points there pokervic especially about the diff skills and the application of these!
I think i agree with you about the difference in types because IMO if a highly skilled player enters an MTT it only takes one coin flip loss, one donk out even AA vs 22 and the 2 hits for example then they are out whereas in the cash games the player can use skill and exploit the weakness over a number of hands against this player whereas in the MTT they may only have 1 chance and if luck goes the wrong way then its hard to win you buy ins back!
Although some good thoughts and opinions there Pokervic
Thanks
Jurn

I too built my initial deposit playing SnGs. I played SnGs exclusively up to the $10+1 level (I've always used 2% as my STT buy-in max so I had a BR then of $500+). At that time I just got tired of the time required to play any tournaments and switched to FR. I've never regretted the move but I'm glad for the time I spent building my BR and my skills playing the low $$ tourneys. I would recommend STTs to anyone building from a small BR and those new to online poker.

yes, i think that's the line a lot of us took. STTs until you are properly rolled for 10nl or 25nl, and cash from then on.

I personally moved from STT to cash when my BR was about $1000 and i was playing $20 sngs.

this should be archived eventually very good thread, as I am moving to cash games also, because I do beleive that it can be profitable once you reach higher levels. Plus I think variance form long mtts is making me go gray at 20 :O

Your getting ready to have a kid so you'll be bald by 30.

Hahah KC !! yeh there is alot of variance in MTT's however if you reach 1 FT in a week and cash in big time in the top three then this could be a large amount of money compared to your buy in even though you may not cash big in any other tourney.
I just wanted to see if the psychology behind it would connect a link to poker lol however i think this is turning out to be my first big thread which i have created and my first main contribution to CC!!
As i am also moving to cash mainly its very interesting to read the replys!

I find some of the comments very amusing here!!!

MTT - "Even poor players can win" - lol
SNG - "Somewhere in between" - obvious
Ring games - "Quicker return" - lol

Get to grips with this. It takes a different strategy to win the different forms of poker as above.

I`m guessing the people who say the above are doing OK with SNGs but not with MTT`s.

I would say the above for the different kinds of poker

MTT - a lot of patience is needed along with being very brave. You will be playing for hours and you might need the bottle to put you tourny on the line with very little.

SNG - Need to be aggressive in the late stages. Bottle needed on the bubble.

Ring games - you can be more of a limper here. Your bank roll management needs to be good. Self control needed.

This is just general. However, notice how I don`t do down one form of the game?

It bores me when people say this form of poker is more lucky than the other. Bores me because I can almost guess 100% that the game they think is `lucky` is the game they can`t win

I`m a winning MTT player, winning ring game player and I`m fighting back with my SNG`s after being silly by playing at too high a stake a few months back.

Wasnt asking about the strategys to win thats completely irrelevant, talking about different forms of the game being more profitable which i know has something to do with the strategy on how to do this but im just talking about the profit factor here and is ring games most profitable or have people got another form they find more profitable. There is obviously going to be individual differences but im looking for a general response.

By the sounds of it you must be a very successful player and play full time, hopefully you can provide tips to players like myself

I don't see anyone saying one form of poker is luckier than another, Ronald. Better players will still come out ahead in the long run, it just takes much longer to constitute the long run in MTTS.

Never said anything about luck. I said SNGs were harder to beat for a high $/hour because it's relatively easy to play nearly perfectly in the latest stages with push/fold decisions based on ICM, and since most higher stakes players are aware of that, you can't have a big edge over your opponents.

Cash doesn't have that problem because it's significantly harder to get close to an hypotethic perfect strategy (in terms of game theory), so even as somewhat high stakes you can have significant differences in skills.

Cash game are indeed more profitable. They also require more skill and less luck.

I mean, unless you have $1000+ to drop on the EPT WPT and WSOP every year, I just dont see the point in playing them. Thats just my opinion though - if you have alot of money you can play more MTT's. I see them more as a perk to playing cash games, if you have extra money you can sattalite into them and possibly get an amazing return.

SNG pros all follow the same winning "style" so to speak, so I guess there is alot of variance with it, I used to be a low stakes sng player before I moved to cash and I was breakeven/losing sng player. I still kinda suck.

Rarely do I manage to go robusto from cash games though, its easier to play with real $$ and each decision is more crucial... I dont know but I like how each choice I make affects my bankroll instantly. Whereas in mtt or sng, you can make 4-5 great winning choices and then get absolutely nothing for your work.

And I in no way meant to imply that there is less skill involved in MTTs. Merely, that one exceptionally well-played (or lucky) MTT can fund playing like a donk for the rest of the year. You simply cannot earn enough in one sitting of a cash table to do that.

Tourneys and ring games require different skills, not more or less. There is a reason why people like Irexes, aliengenius, and bob_tiger (just 3 off the top of my head) consistently win $$ from big MTT, because they're REALLY good at them. You've admitted that you lost money playing tourneys, because you're NOT very good at them. So obviously there is skill involved in tournament poker, it's just a different skill that cash games.

I think without question cash games have a higher hourly rate than SnG's given a similar bankroll. I'll go through some math here off the top of my head.

$500 Bankroll, so we will be playing :
25NL Cash
$10 SnG's

We'll say this is a good winning player with winrates in the games at
5PTBB/100@25NL
10%@$10SnG's


We'll assume he is just an average player, capable of playing 4 tables at a time so :

320h/hr @ 25NL
8 games played/hr @$10SnG's



Cash Games
5PTBB/100@320h/hr = $8/hr

SnG's
10%ROI@8 games per hour = $8/hr


Well son of a bitch if that isnt a coincidence. Whatever, it all comes down whichever you are better at I guess then.

Hmmmm yeah, you are right in a sense. Tournament poker and Cash game poker are entirely different games with different styles suited to achieving victory.

But why is it that all the top pros phil ivey, patrik antonius, just to name a few.. think that cash games require the most skill? In the TV cash games they repeatedly say all the *best* players in the world, their words exactly, are cash game professionals. I agree with them fully.

Sorry, I am going to disagree with most of you.

MTTs are where the money is. MTTs are the most difficult discipline (as compared to STTs and Cash Games) because they demand wide strategic grasp and the ability to switch gears etc. as well as to play individual hands effectively.

It follows that, if you are good, your edge over the poor players is greater.

A word of caution - because variance is high in MTTs, you have to be really good to make consistent profit in a reasonable length of time. It`s not enough to just be above average.

I make the FT once in every 9-10 tournies I enter, and I guess if you were to ask Rex (for example) you would find he was around the same success rate. That`s where you need to be.