Cash games
Its all about ROI. Cash is a constant. The blinds don't increase so there is much less variance. A reasonably good cash game player can make ~$200 at $1/$2 in 5 hours. The game stays the same for the most part.
There's a lot of dead money in tournaments. But you have to navigate an entire field of good, medium and poor players to get to the money.
Low stakes ($20-$80) tournaments are the equivalent of playing scratch tickets. The structures of these tournaments rarely let you "play" the tournament to the end. Chopping is a way of life in some tournaments making them unprofitable when you DO make the final table. Think of it like this.....you play a 4-5 hour tournament to the final table. But the structure is so fast that all the players have less then 8 BB's. So the right thing to do is just chop the prize money. Otherwise you really are just playing BINGO. So you make $300ish for your 5 hour day. Oh......minus your, lets say $60 buy in. So your ahead for $240 for 5 hours of work.
Now a good player can expect to make the final table 2-3 times out of 10. If they say the cash more then 30%....they are most likely lying to you. Or not accounting for multiple buy ins. This is just not a model you can expect a wage from. Many tournaments players supplement their
bankroll with cash games.
About 50-60% of the time you will play 2-4 hours and bust (whether it be unlucky or a cooler) and walk away empty handed. Most likely to the live cash games. If you had the same run in a cash game.....you would have made your $100 buy in grow to $200-$300 in those 2-4 hours. And if you got coolered your number would drop another $100 but you won't walk away empty handed when you take a bad beat. Unless you steam, which is for another feed.
What are the stakes of the tournaments you have to play? Whats the duration of the tournaments? Can they be reasonably played to the end? These are very important details to include to properly answer your question.
, cash is where the money is
