Should I stop playing tourneys?

So I've been playing NLHE for a little over 2 months now. I think my cash game has been pretty respectable so far considering how long I've been playing (see the cash attachment).

However, I started playing poker because I was interested in the tournaments. That's where I felt that poker was really played (I am a victim of TV production). So I'm a little frustrated at my tournament graph (see 2nd attachment).

As you can see I'm far from breaking even in tournaments. In fact, if I would have not played a single tourney I'd be almost triple my original deposit in two months. The only area I've been successful is $1 SnG's. I have a 10% ROI over 135 tournaments.

So I see this big negative in my winnings graph and of course the first thing I want to do is make it go up. Well in my mind it will take me 1000 more $1 sng's at 10% ROI to break even so I started playing the $3 Sng's. But after 12 tournies I've only gotten 3 3rd place finishes so I'm negative ROI again. So now I am even more flustered because I'm thinking to myself that I can only win a tournament if it's a $1 SnG, and that must make me a pretty crappy tournament player.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal but I actually like playing the tournaments over cash games. And also, it was the reason I started playing poker. So I guess my question is, does anyone else suffer from this syndrome? Are you ok with just playing cash games? Is it ok to only win at $1 SnG's?

I think the most difficult thing about tournaments is concentration and patience, tournament poker can be such a drag sometimes.

Furthermore you can get so frustrated when you get sucked out by a worse player and there's nothing you can do about it, you're out of the tournament.

In a cash game you can rebuy and try to get revenge + the fact that if you're carddead you're not stuck there you and can leave at anytime.

I have better results in cash games and 1 $ sit-and-go's too and I feel it's because of the reasons mentioned above, OK you can't leave a sit-and-go too but they don't take so long.

If you wanna get better at sit-and-go's I would suggest you pick up a copy of Moshman's Sit and Go Strategy, I have heard good things about it.
And for tournaments everyone is very positive on the 3 Harringtons.

GL.

there is such a dramatic difference in style of play between cash and tournys, even sng's. you have to try to adjust you style of play for the game you're playing at the time. I've seen lots of people who make a great profit at cash games pretty much always be out within the 2nd rnd of blinds in tournys, just a style they can't really comprehend, the moves to be made are different and I think farther apart than in cash games

12 $3.30 tourneys isn't enough of a sample size to make a decision; just keep playing and after a while you decide you just aren't comfortable with them you can just stop and concentrate on cash

There are some big differences in tournament vs. cash game strategy. I would recommend reading some books on tournament strategy. The Harrington on Holdem 1,2,& 3 are great books for tournaments and he also has 2 new cash game books out now that are great also. If you enjoy playing tournaments then t6here is no reason you should stop playing them. I would play the less expensive ones and get more experience and then as you get better move up again from there.

So you been playing for 2 months and you have 3 third place finishes that nothing to be up set about. All I play is tournaments this is were you can gain alot of knowledge about online poker you start to see that you can't play every good hand you get until you know that some idiot isn't going all in right away. I have the worst time in cash games so thats why I like tournaments and the fact if you win you just beat alot of players.

if you have time and want to play a bit poker tourney is a good thing. if you want to get action from start on cash games are right. for tournaments you must bring much more time and energy and you cant make big steps like in cash games.

i enjoy small tourny's because, i feel way to sacred when playing for big dollars. I say get used to the pressure with small tourny's then move up slowly

Playing Tourneys

i enjoy playing tourneys mostly freerolls.but after hours of tourney play i sometimes lose my concentration and make a bad move . the key is to b patence

How many SNGs and tournaments do you play at once? Have you read any books on SNG or tournament strategy?

There's nothing wrong with your results so far. As you've said, you've only been playing for 2 months. You have a long time to learn about the game. If you're successful with the $1 SNGs then play them for while. Work on improving your game. Eventually you'll jump up to the $3 games and have success.

I actullay perfer sit and go's over tournys. Tournys over 100 people I do not like as much. Any thing less than 100 I will play. I really will play any kind of tourny, but less than 100 is what I perfer.

billthebill make some very excellent points. I've included them below..

I've always enjoyed SnG style of NLHE. It's the format that got me playing poker to begin with. At the begining of this month I decided to "take the online plunge" again and this time play strickly SnG's. I found that PStar's have the cheap, double or nothing or DoN(kaments) SnGs. The problem with these is they would appear very easy to win, the level of play is horrific, and the rake is killer... you have to win 23 out of 40 just to break even (1.00 + 0.15 entry : 2.00 payout ... 40*(1.15) = (2.00) * 23 )

billthebill said:

How many SNGs and tournaments do you play at once?

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This was something else I really wanted to work at: playing 4 concurrent SnGs and winning.

billthebill said:

Have you read any books on SNG or tournament strategy?

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Before I jumped in, I asked a number of the more experienced CC'rs for advice on this very topic. The almost unanimous response was: Colin Moshman's Sit & Go Strategy. Very simple to read, not terribly long but fantastic and IMO, you should see immediate results.

Next I laid out my goals: Play only DoN(kmments), 4 at a time, identify and fix weaknesses, be profitable, sustain prfoit before moving up.

The very first goal was the 4 at a time. Feeling confident and comfortable keeping them going and actually playing. I attacked this by playing 360 player 0.10 buyin donkests... the reason being I didn't want to risk $$$ while playing more screens than I could deal with. Once comfortable, I moved on to the DoN(k) SnG's...

I started at the begining of this month. So far I've played 141 of these things. I see you already have PokerTracker. Excellent. All lot of the vgood CC'rs use it. It's very important to re-hash your play and find your leaks.

Here are my results so far:

As you can see, in the beginning I was being beat by both the rake and the players (red area). I adjusted my starting hands and position play. This resulted in now beating the players but losing to the rake. Next came my realization I was overleveling a number of these players. Looking back through my hand histories and trying to remember each of my hands, I quickly found a number of times when I was giving them way, way too much credit. (yellow area) Once I started winning consistently, I began trying to build my tourney chip stacks as high as possible in each tourney (my goal is to move on to regualr SnGs at this level before moving up). As of right now, I'm fairly happy with my play. I'm ending most tourney's as one of the top three chip stacks (after eliminating 5 players of a 10 player field). This also has the added bonus of shortening the games I play in! So, my remaing goal is to grind this way for a couple hundred more of these... if the chart keeps moving upward, it'll be time for me to do the same.

Well, that's my plan and I'm sticking to it... hope you find something helpful in this.

Poker Pete, how is reading Moshman's Sit & Go Strategy going?

Steveg1976 said:

Poker Pete, how is reading Moshman's Sit & Go Strategy going?

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wow... ummm somehow when I read the OP I got the facts completly brass-backwards... wow... please ignore my reply to a post the op didn't make thanks for the heads up on that

billthebill said:

How many SNGs and tournaments do you play at once? Have you read any books on SNG or tournament strategy?

There's nothing wrong with your results so far. As you've said, you've only been playing for 2 months. You have a long time to learn about the game. If you're successful with the $1 SNGs then play them for while. Work on improving your game. Eventually you'll jump up to the $3 games and have success.

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Right now I'm playing 2 SNG's at once and then either 1 or 2 2NL games. If I make it to 5 or less players on an SNG I'll usually close one of my ring games so I can concentrate on the tourney. If I'm playing an MTT I'll usually play one and then an SNG and then 1-2 ring games.

As for books, I read Harrington on Hold'em. I match my strategy pretty close to what is described in the problems. I don't play as many MTT's as I do SnG's so I'm not sure if the advice translates as well. Betting for information in SnG's tends to get me low on chips going into 6-7 players. I'm thinking in an MTT where you need to win more chips to have a shot it makes sense to take chances, but in these $1 SnG's, you can almost fold to 5-6 players and still have a decent stack left.

thing about tournaments is they can have so much reward for little risk, for examble in a cash game if you sit down with $10 you will probably not leave with more than $20-$30 at best, where as in a tourney if you buy-in for $10 you could make a deep run and cash for a few hundred. I have never been good at cash games so i just stick to HU Sng's and the odd MTT.