R
Rational Madman
Legend
Platinum Level
Since around 2015, when the average player became 'good' at poker at most medium to high stake tables, there has been this notion that it's no longer objective which form of poker is most profitable and which is more guaranteed with income. There are two branches of this campaign:
1) The 'tournaments attract fish, cash games are now full of nits' camp.
2) The 'some personality types play better at different types, it's all subjective what's best for you' camp.
Which camp is completely wrong? Both.
Cash games, especially at lower stakes, are where around 80% of people 'training' or 'practising' their GTO plays to purely test that they understand probability (I am confused why you wouldn't play on free money to train but trust me, there are many trainees there) on the other hand, anyone turning up to a sit 'n' go and/or MTT with real money has probably played at least 12k hands online in free poker and has grown 'bored' of cash games so knows a lot more about probability than the average cash game player of the same cost level. What they probably lack (and where they are 'new') is the concept of loosening up proportionally as the game goes on, they will often either play the same the whole game or will bluff into nut hands assuming the enemy won't slowplay because they think you need to bluff in a tournament but don't understand that you only need to do this towards the end. So what am I saying? The average players turning to tournaments already have grown bored of cash games and thus are usually more experienced than the average cash game player of the same stake, especially lower down.
Camp 2 is just completely wrong, this is an utterly romantic notion that some are destined to be better at tournaments and some at cash games. I will explain to you right now what 'better at tournament' players really are experiencing; the inability to remain patient and handle repetition. They crave chaos and variety but this is exactly how you begin to define a fish as opposed to a shark; the fish plays to get joy (or is just very bad at playing to win), the shark sacrifices the joy to get more consistent winrates whether in cash games or tournaments.
I have another thread about why cash games are objectively better.
This thread is about clarifying that the two camps opposing it are coming from ridiculous angles.
1) The 'tournaments attract fish, cash games are now full of nits' camp.
2) The 'some personality types play better at different types, it's all subjective what's best for you' camp.
Which camp is completely wrong? Both.
Cash games, especially at lower stakes, are where around 80% of people 'training' or 'practising' their GTO plays to purely test that they understand probability (I am confused why you wouldn't play on free money to train but trust me, there are many trainees there) on the other hand, anyone turning up to a sit 'n' go and/or MTT with real money has probably played at least 12k hands online in free poker and has grown 'bored' of cash games so knows a lot more about probability than the average cash game player of the same cost level. What they probably lack (and where they are 'new') is the concept of loosening up proportionally as the game goes on, they will often either play the same the whole game or will bluff into nut hands assuming the enemy won't slowplay because they think you need to bluff in a tournament but don't understand that you only need to do this towards the end. So what am I saying? The average players turning to tournaments already have grown bored of cash games and thus are usually more experienced than the average cash game player of the same stake, especially lower down.
Camp 2 is just completely wrong, this is an utterly romantic notion that some are destined to be better at tournaments and some at cash games. I will explain to you right now what 'better at tournament' players really are experiencing; the inability to remain patient and handle repetition. They crave chaos and variety but this is exactly how you begin to define a fish as opposed to a shark; the fish plays to get joy (or is just very bad at playing to win), the shark sacrifices the joy to get more consistent winrates whether in cash games or tournaments.
I have another thread about why cash games are objectively better.
This thread is about clarifying that the two camps opposing it are coming from ridiculous angles.