Whether or not IQ is really intelligence or simply one form of intelligence, there clearly are smarter and dumber people on Earth. I am not saying that the smartest will win the most in poker but they definitely won't lose as much and not nearly as often as the less intelligent players.
Let's first address the classic line that I hear from tournament defenders: You lose less because you can't lose more than your buy-in. While this is true, what they fail to see is that in cash games your bad beats are far more rapidly made up for with your consistent wins as bad beats happen only minority of times. Also if bets get huge, smarter players have the self control to fold a really great hand because the raise is getting to an amount where they wouldn't want to engage without the nuts.
Self control and having good read on players (as well as basic understanding of hand probability) are why the idea of only losing the buy-in is negated because you win back faster what you lost if you're a smart cash game player.
Tournaments are unfair on smart players because the luck later on means no matter how well you played so far, you can get knocked out due to big stacks going full loose aggressive and you know you can't win back what you lost, like you could in a cash game. On the other hand, this attracts the more foolish players because they know they can beat smarter players as the minimum bet increases meaning that the ones who took dumb risks earlier on now have the stack size to bully the smart players into all or nothing situations to tilt them into a high risk scenario.
My bad beat is going to be 50 in a few days, so what do you know?
I prefer to loose my money slowly. my IQ was tested around 130 if this is a measurement, but it was just solving funny riddles. Who is intelligent enough to decide whether somebody is intelligent or not?:fight:
Sure you need skills, sure you need experience. But you don't need intelligence in Poker.
I'd say it's more experience and a feeling of what is going on, when you have been once intelligent enough to read and understand all the same and the same and the same that ppl are writing everyday.
In the long run you will win anyway, but who has 80 lifetimes for the long run?
It doesn't matter how intelligent you are. If you are not intelligent (or dumb) enough to open up your own poker room, you will never have a guarantee to win.Whether to choose cash or tournament depends more on ones personal aimes, the time available and the stress, that is accepted. Because we both know, cash games burn a lot more of energy than tournaments.:fight:
