I think I'm more a tourney player.

I went to looking through my HEM today and found something that I really didn't want to see. I found I'm ten times the tournament player than I am the cash game player. I really don't care that much for 4 hour+ tournaments.

I really enjoy the cash games a lot more, but I can't seem to put a handle on my ego when playing them and I don't know why. I can sit and fold for two hours in tournaments though and not even think about it. Why can't I transfer this patience to cash games? Any suggestions on that?

But anyway, with my next deposit, I'm gonna strictly play tournies. Probably 50% straight money tournies and 50% tickets to bigger tournies. I just get so bored either waiting for one to start or starting a new one right after getting out of another one. But I still feel this is the right way to go for me until I can get up enough bankroll to handle the downswings in cash games. But for now, I'd like any suggestions from tourney players on how to deal with boredom and how to force yourself to play tourney after tourney. Do you just look through the day's schedule, make a plan and then commit to them right then and there?

1. Sign-up for tournament.
2. Play cash games while waiting for tournament.
3. Win tournament.
4. Move up in cash games.

That would be nice, but it would be more like this...

1. Sign up for tournament.
2. Play cash games while waiting for tournament and lose all my money.
3. Be pissed from losing all my money in cash games and go medieval and bleed chips like a stuck Phil Hellmuth on television.
4. Go to BB&V section and piss off West Virginia Hillbilly by posting 42 1/2 hands that I played terribly yet still insist that I played them correctly and the other person was a donkfish.

Just sayin'.

This is why we love you... Don't worry my stats are similar to yours. Cash not so great MTTs and SnG's are 10x better.

Instead of MTTs why not test drive SNGs? I view them as mini-MTTs (& play them that way as well)...there are 90 & 180 peep SNGs which fill up fairly quickly. I intermingle the SNGs with the MTTs so I constantly have something going when I'm online.

Calendar, calendar, calendar.

It's just like a work plan. Alot your BR according to your time available and follow the schedule. Obviously you'll be out of some early and in others longer than expected. Always try to leave enough time to be able to play to the final tables. Nothing worse than building that mega-stack on a couple of wild stack'em ups and having to leave or sitout.

If you have enough time to play and don't want to schedule anything else but poker and you bust out early, sign into a SnG or DoN or two to fill the gap.

One thing I don't do is to get too many tourneys going at one time. I have the patience to do one at a time, but if you need to do more than one, try to keep them the same game. All nlhe, all xxxx, but not different ones that will be tough to keep changing gears on.

GL !!

i dunno if im a better tourney or cash game player. ive begun to think maybe tournies because the past 4 months ive had 3 cashes for over $100.

thing with tournies is the time needed to invest in them which i dont always have. if you have the time and you feel your a better tourney player than by all means go for it big guy!

gl

I too have trouble playing cash games... last Sept I sweated at the FT (Micro-stakes) Tables to clear the full $50 in the Take-2 promo... although it did cost me $15 of my $30 bankroll to do so... and then having built a bit of confidence promptly went and lost my remaining $65 at the cash tables!! I have noticed that when playing the Micro's and I buy in for $2 there will inevitably be a player that comes along with $10 and constantly (or it seems that way) raises everyone off the pot, not based on the cards he holds but the size of his bankroll.

I have had a couple of wins in the Freeroll tourneys however, and have found that I simply 'feel' more comfortable playing this format. After all, if it's a $1 buy-in or $100 buy-in the starting chips are all the same, and everyone starts off on an even footing. I'm not that concerned when I lose a few chips as opposed to my own cash, making tourney play (for me) less tilt-able. The other plus side is that I just get more time to play poker in the tourney than I do in the cash games.

It took a while to recover from my original loss, mentally more than financially, but through studying books and refining my play, I have managed to scrape together a few bucks on about 3 different sites from zero by cashing in the freerolls. I know there are others out there who will say that there is too much variance in tourneys to be really successful, but what better way to practice for the WSOP than by playing tournaments as opposed to cash games?

In my view (and I'll probably get a few comments when I say this);
Cash Games are for Gamblers... Tournaments are for Poker players.

I actually was writing this in your $40K challenge thread and then decided to just post it hoping to get some advice outside of that thread. Funny that you commented here though.

The 90 and 180 seat SnG's is probably where I'll start. These aren't that long and I can play a few at a time to keep me moving.

This! I need to quit relying on my cell phone calendar because it's so tough to add things to it. I need to get a desk calendar to put beside me so I can just write on it and make a plan. Time management has never been one of my strong points!

I do know why you feel this way, I've felt the same before. But I feel that my feelings like this were aimed more towards micro stakes. Once you get above those, I think the games are totally beatable. The only problem, is I don't have a large enough bankroll to sustain even 5 buyins of downswing.

So, as I stated in my OP, I'm going to try a new approach of using tournies to build my b/r up enough to where I can play around 30 buyins of 50NL. I'll start at 25NL and work up, but I want to have the larger b/r as a cushion.

I usually watch tv and surf on the net if the tourny is boring.

I used to have a real bad habit of that. Now, I keep the tv turned off and only do my surfing through the breaks. I learned my lesson on that the hard way. I found when I surfed or watched I was losing in the first 25% almost every time.

i like to play a tourney while playing a cash table at tghe same time,,,this helps me stop playing crap starting hands on iether table ,,,try it it mite help

As Nick pointed out, for a tourney you need to allot yourself the time. You need to make it a work schedule (unless this is entirely a hobby) and stick to it.
Find the regular every day tourneys you want to be in (SnG's, 18, 60, 90, 180, Satellites) and make a schedule to see what you can register for. Include the CC tournies.

Once you have this schedule, you shift all the other stuff around (you know, that pesky work crap!) and fill you hours with poker.

Until you are comfortable, turn OFF the TV, stop surfing the web and concentrate on your poker. (A little background music is ok)

GL

Ya me too DG, my tourney chart heads straight north, and my cash graph is flatter than piss on a plate (tho only a few K hands)....

I think I have a psychological problem with the idea of losing my buyin in one hand... I know its part of the game, but I am an old stud player, and not used to seeing my whole stack disappear on the turn of a card.

Funny, but I don't have the same fear in PLO.

Maybe all the money I lost years ago, trying to learn NLHE (I didn't know what a button was, much less a blind!!), has me still running scared -- tho I know the cash game OK I think, thanks to Harrington and others... and I refuse to give up -- I WILL BE a winning cash player some day, dammit!!!

yea i think im more of a tournament player too. ive been getting consistent cashes

i also just placed 2nd in a $2 tourny to take in $150 so im gonna stick with tournys for a while

I feel like tournaments are more manageble... always feel like there's a correct move, and unlike cash games theres no question of 'when should i stop playing' its when you win or when you get knocked out trying to win.

i will play micro stakes at ring games while in a tourney just passes the time while waiting for some people to play in the tourneys and u can get ur br moving forward .

I really don't like the idea of mixing cash and tourney games. Feb. 27th will be my 3 year mark here and I think one of the best things I've learned is that cash games and tourney games take two very different styles. Mixing those, imho, isn't good.

And although I hate to admit it, it's my ego that beats me in cash games. I will sit down at a cash game and one of my first thoughts (at micros) is "I'm a better player than these guys". This, I know, is a horrible attitude. But I just can't ditch it. And from what I've been noticing, I'm right. The only problem is that much worse players than I, will call down and sometimes hit those big hands their looking for. And it seems like dumb players are becoming smarter "dumb" players. They will just let me do the betting for me after they hit, making me the dumb one.

maybe you sit so long in mtts that when you get on cash game see the Cashish flowing you get excited and want to be part of that action so you loosen up and play hand s that you would normally sit and wait for in an mtt . must be it no action vs action so you jump on the wagon and loosen up ?i find myself doing that sometimes cause ill sit in mtt for hours and only play few hands so i get on cash table i seem to be looser but maybe thats just me sometimes. need that action once and while/ fun or you would get bord and quit .

Nick`s suggestions are very sound. I personally have a detailed calendar and my first task of the day, before I open up any poker sites, is to plan the tournaments I will play.

Most days, I do my planning before breakfast and before I go to the office to do my day job. When I come home, my part-time evening job (playing poker) is already mapped out and scheduled, just like a real job.

Playing tournaments is a long grind and treating it like a job helps to keep the mind sharp. I have at least one day off every week, when I play no poker at all, and when I am playing that is my focus.

I usually play solid hands. And if I go broke, 9 times out of 10 it's because I have a good hand and wasn't paying attention and got beat. I don't get anxious very often anymore. There are times when I'll defend my blinds against a steal from an overactive opponent. But my post flop play has become much better and I can usually lay down if he stays aggro and I haven't caught anything great.

Egon, this is what I'm going to do. Just plan my days and probably make myself a challenge thread as well to keep me playing the SnGs and MTTs.

One aspect of tourneys and the reason I like them mainly is how much poker you can get for such a little price.
I have a ridiculously small br and except that I'm currently doing well at PL micro on a small site I'd be playing tourney's a lot more.
I agree that ring games are very different than tourney's and I have conversations all the time about the survival aspect as well as the small ball style of play that can really build your chip stack in a tourney.
I personally would not have both styles running at the same time.

Well if your a winning player then step it up and multi table maybe start with 2 or 3 tournaments that way your not as bored and if your a winning tournament player it should triple your winning if you can handle that many tables

I am a better MTT player then a cash game player.

I would take the approach of playing the MTTs then taking the winnings and playing micro cash games. So if the buyin is only 4 play the min and when you loose you can not play untill you have won the money to replace the loss in an MTT. I have also found that once I double up or tripple up if I quit the game and buy in for the minium again then I am banking the profit. Just learn that when you lost the initial money you can not play for another day. it is hard but worth the time to work it like this.

But this is just my thoughts on it.

i am the same way, i think most of the reason has to do with that you are prepared to lose whatever money you bought in for in the tournament, but in a cash game whatever is sitting in front of you is at risk, and its usually a lot more than a 30+ dollar buy in.

plus i think it's the fact that a tournament ends, whereas cash games dont, you are working towards something by folding consistantly, and playing right. even though you are working towards making more money in cash games by doing this, there is no real means to an end, so i think it lies somewhere in there. because i'm the same way but this is the best i can do to try to figure out why. i stick with tourney's as well, i'm sick of cash games, not only can my bankroll not take it but i get really sad when i lose a lot of money in cash games.

Good point froghump...buy in = sunk cost.

For anyone not practicing BRM, Cash Games ceiling = balance in cashier .