To what extent are Cardschat's tournament guides applicable to cash-games?

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tealurker

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For example, their 30-day course seems to be focussed on tournaments/SnGs. Their hand suggestions are also sometimes specifically mentioned to be for tournaments (https://www.cardschat.com/poker-starting-hands.php : e.g. paragraph "Tournament Example: Call, raise or Fold?").

Their advice helps me a lot to understand a more sophisticated way of playing poker, but thusfar it seems I have also (if not more) success with it in cash games. In what ways would your tournament play differ from cash games? Especially when it comes to which hands you will play/standardised hand selections and how to play them?

I know it is a broad question, since the phases in a tournament should affect your play as well, but it is still difficult to make my question more specific since I'm not that of an advanced player yet. The main problem I bumped in to is not understanding why you would play a different (generic, so apart from tournament phases) selection of hands in tournaments than in cash games.
 
Matt_Burns88

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Good question. Generally early tournament strategy mirrors cash game play quite closely because at the start of a tournament you normally start with 100 - 150 big blinds, which is what you would normally have in a cash game (if you buy in for the maximum). As the tournament progresses the number of big blinds decreases, even when you're up in terms of chips. As your big blind count shortens your strategy will change, but in cash, you should be topping up in order to make sure you're making the most of your strongest hands.
 
mt2lhd

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The difference between starting hands in tournaments and cash games is that in MTT the variance is high, the blinds will you up and there is ante and you should choose your starting hands considering how deep or shallow your stack is but in cash game you can play with more confidence and the blinds and antes won't grow so you don't have to change your range many times
 
vinnie

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There are significant differences in tournament and cash game dynamics. For example, being a short-stack in a tournament is a disadvantage. Players can pressure you into folding because losing all your chips means you are out. It is not a disadvantage in a cash game, because you can just rebuy if you lose a hand. In fact, there are well documented situations where the shortest stack, in a cash game, has a distinct advantage against a couple much deeper stacks.

Cash games are generally a lot deeper, which means you are making more significant decisions on the turn and river. That means you need to be better at reading the board, understanding your opponents and their ranges, and manipulating the size of the pot to best align with your hand's strength. Position matters much more in a cash game than raw hand equities.

When it comes to hand selection, you'll do ok if you stick with early tournament hand charts. But, there are also situations where you should be wider and playing hands with more implied odds. You can afford to see more flops when deep-stacked in a cash game than in a tournament where the blinds are going to increase and reduce the effective size of your stack.
 
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Berzerker2x

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Very similiar

If you got it shove... if you don't put em down
 
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tealurker

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vinnie said:
There are significant differences in tournament and cash game dynamics. For example, being a short-stack in a tournament is a disadvantage. Players can pressure you into folding because losing all your chips means you are out. It is not a disadvantage in a cash game, because you can just rebuy if you lose a hand. In fact, there are well documented situations where the shortest stack, in a cash game, has a distinct advantage against a couple much deeper stacks.

Cash games are generally a lot deeper, which means you are making more significant decisions on the turn and river. That means you need to be better at reading the board, understanding your opponents and their ranges, and manipulating the size of the pot to best align with your hand's strength. Position matters much more in a cash game than raw hand equities.

When it comes to hand selection, you'll do ok if you stick with early tournament hand charts. But, there are also situations where you should be wider and playing hands with more implied odds. You can afford to see more flops when deep-stacked in a cash game than in a tournament where the blinds are going to increase and reduce the effective size of your stack.
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Thank you for the detailed answer. Exactly the kind of insight I'm looking for.
 
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