Tourny vs Ring, which has better skill?

I found myself hijacking another post so I thought I'd bring a new thread instead of stealing off another... Sorry if this has been addressed before.

It's being posed that tourny players may not have the skill needed to make it as a ring game winner. Or vice versa, for that matter.

Personally, I think ring is where the essence of poker is learned and it takes a better/more committed player to survive in the ring game 'life'. Many times a tournament player will 'roll the dice', and I think it's safe to say that to truly win a tourny, you will need to win a few races along the way. Where this may happen in ring, tournament play seems to lend itself to this 'luck factor' more readily. Ring players are willing to grind out 2BB/hour and be happy when they profit 12 BB's for a 4 hour session.

However, true tourny players are an animal in their own. There are several stradegies and theories behind tourny play that allow the best tourny players to rise and make a good living. They must be doing something beyond the average Joe yelling all-in.

So who is the better poker player, tournament or ring? Or are they just such different beasts that it's a fun conversation, but comparing them isn't quite possible?

Vollycat said:

Or are they just such different beasts that it's a fun conversation, but comparing them isn't quite possible?

Click to expand...

This ^^^ lots of merit to the discussion though

Well they are complety diffrent and diffrent skils are needed so its hard to compair.
Im mostly a tornement player but i still belive that doing good at ring is harder then doing good in tornements.
But that just my personal view and there is no way to compair so there is no right or wrong answer.

But it doesnt really matter in both formats good players will come out on top in the long run.

I'd say similar skill, but different skills.

Tourney players need to be able to quickly figure the blind pushing ranges in the shortstack stages, and basically be right more on reads. One bad bluff late and you bust early it costs a ton of money. One bad bluff in a ring game is just what you bet.

Ring players need to be able to play well in postflop situations, deal with light 3 and 4-bets, 5-betting thin, calling 5-bets thin and just in general have a much greater amount of weapons in their arsenal.

Tourney players need to have the mental toughness to withstand long periods of not cashing and just being way below expectation.


Probably some things I'm missing, but I'd also say that perhaps a deepstacked slow-blind tournament has more skill involved than a ring game, not positive about it though. It has similar dynamics of a ring game, but you have to factor in the difference between chipev and $ev, with payout structure and such. But a normal tourney where you have 30-50 blinds at most times, I think the postflop strategy/skill in a ring game is greater, while the skill in a normal tourney is reacting to blind structure/payout structure, and in addition adjusting to how other people feel about the structure as well (ie attacking weak players on the bubble, etc.).

Not really that great/experienced with tourneys so can't guarantee I'm 100% right here but I'm pretty sure this is all accurate.

Tourneys are a lot easier to become competent in. Most decisions can become fairly routine--fold, raise with x hand, etc.--but in cash, especially 6-max, your range is different, stacks are way deeper and situations with a lot more on the line come up way more often.

It is way tougher, at least in my experience.

I agree with Zack about equal but different skills.

The rising blinds in tourneys (especially the horrendous turbos) make the biggest difference.
The other major difference is that you cant rebuy on tourneys (at least after the break if we are talking about rebuys). You literally cannot go broke if you want to make any money.

Ring games require more discipline and are a great way to improve your games. more profitable too.

I myself am much better ring than tourney. If you don't stack on tourneys you are all done later where as ring it is all hand by hand action. I am not aggressive enough for tourneys and miss money in rings because of it as well, but I feel I have more control in the ring as the blinds stay the same.