Chica_bonita
Sad Funny Lady🌬
Bronze Level
Hello! :ciao:
A lot of factors affect the game. The most important thing to study is the positions. The MTT and Cash game are fundamentally different: First of all, the style of the game. The tempo also varies.
The most important thing is that playing Cash - you see your money in front of you, and in MTT chips - it's much easier to part with chips.
I recommend that you take a 30-day course on this site. I think you will find answers to your questions and even more:
https://www.cardschat.com/become-a-winning-poker-player/
Good luck!
Joe
99.98% Kiln dried
Bronze Level
Hello daffydg, welcome to CardsChat! :wavey:
I'm (hopefully) going to help you twofold... :biggrin:
- The btn you can play a wider range because it's the most powerful position.
- 'UTG' or the player to the immediate left of the big blind is the worst seat at the table.
- This is a complicated question but, generally speaking, in a nutshell I believe it is wise to play cash games slightly more aggressively than MTTs, with a slightly wider range.
The above answers is the first help, second help is to move your thread to the Learning poker forum where I think you should get more replies! :wink:
F
fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
Welcome to the forum. When you have rather basic questions like this, I think, you could benefit a lot from taking the CC 30-day course. You find it under "poker strategy & Rules". As for the difference between cash games and tournaments the main ones are the following:
1) In tournaments the blinds go up, so you get to play with many different stack sizes and generally they are shorter than in cash games.
2) In tournaments you dont get rewarded for winning chips but for outlasting other players. This lead to tactical considerations, that are sometimes more important than your hand. Its often referred to as ICM (Independant Chip Model).
Just to give you a simple example of point number 2, lets say you are playing a 9-man SnG with a buyin of 10+1=11$ on ACR/BCP. The price pool is 9 x 10$ = 90$, which is paid out with 45$ to the winner, 27$ to the runner up and 18$ to third place. Starting stacks were 2.000 chips, and with 4 players left the stacks are as follow with blinds at 400/200 and a 60 ante:
CO - 10.000 chips (25BB)
BTN - 2.000 chips (5BB)
SB - 1.000 chips (2,5BB)
BB (you) - 5.000 chips (12,5BB)
CO has moved all-in for the fifth hand in a row, the other two guys have folded, and you look down at AKo. So what should you do here? If this was a cash game, the answer is "call", and its not even a decision. However this is a tournament, and you are a middling stack right on the bubble. In just another few hands SB will be hit by the blinds again, and then he will basically be forced to go all-in with whatever he has.
There is a very high chance of SB being gone within the next orbit, and you simply need to wait for that to happen, before you try to win chips from the chip leader. And for that reason you should fold AK, even though it looks like, CO is jamming almost any two cards. As in fact he should. Only JJ-AA are strong enough to call in this situation, and calling with AK is a fairly substantial mistake sometimes referred to as "ICM suicide".
1) In tournaments the blinds go up, so you get to play with many different stack sizes and generally they are shorter than in cash games.
2) In tournaments you dont get rewarded for winning chips but for outlasting other players. This lead to tactical considerations, that are sometimes more important than your hand. Its often referred to as ICM (Independant Chip Model).
Just to give you a simple example of point number 2, lets say you are playing a 9-man SnG with a buyin of 10+1=11$ on ACR/BCP. The price pool is 9 x 10$ = 90$, which is paid out with 45$ to the winner, 27$ to the runner up and 18$ to third place. Starting stacks were 2.000 chips, and with 4 players left the stacks are as follow with blinds at 400/200 and a 60 ante:
CO - 10.000 chips (25BB)
BTN - 2.000 chips (5BB)
SB - 1.000 chips (2,5BB)
BB (you) - 5.000 chips (12,5BB)
CO has moved all-in for the fifth hand in a row, the other two guys have folded, and you look down at AKo. So what should you do here? If this was a cash game, the answer is "call", and its not even a decision. However this is a tournament, and you are a middling stack right on the bubble. In just another few hands SB will be hit by the blinds again, and then he will basically be forced to go all-in with whatever he has.
There is a very high chance of SB being gone within the next orbit, and you simply need to wait for that to happen, before you try to win chips from the chip leader. And for that reason you should fold AK, even though it looks like, CO is jamming almost any two cards. As in fact he should. Only JJ-AA are strong enough to call in this situation, and calling with AK is a fairly substantial mistake sometimes referred to as "ICM suicide".
takinitSLEAZEE
Legend
Loyaler
Okay, calm down. Take a deep breath... Let it out... Repeat. Do that a couple of times and then get yourself a drink of whatever you want. Enjoy this moment because your brain is about to get a reboot and you might not remember any of this afterwards.
First of all this is just a card game. I know, I know, it seems like it's the greatest financial problem solver on the planet just shy of crypto. And it can be. You might just have to tweak your approach to poker a bit and then the answers to the questions above will rain down like manna.
For poker to work, for me, I must remember that this is what I want to do at this moment and nothing else, really, matters. Try and keep a leveled-head and competent outlook; mainly that if I do lose it's not going to matter other than the lessons to be learned from that session. There's so much out there to enjoy that, sometimes, poker just takes a backseat; Just as it should. Music can be awesome. Sudoku's pretty cool. Do you own a pet? Dog's are great to remind me that life's going to be okay. They're so full of love and joy that... Ok.
1) Any 2 cards can be used to raise on the button. The real question is what's the BB's stack-size compared to yours and what bet can be a believable raise if a flop comes and you need to make a c-bet?
2) The worst seat is the seat left of the BB known as "under the gun" or utg, imo. Some might say the small-blind but that's up for debate.
3) In a cash-game the blinds do not increase so you're playing each hand, basically, in the moment. In an mtt the blinds increase and depending on your stack size moving up the pay-ladder will incorporate making "timed moves" such as shoving from the SB w/3 limpers or floating a big-stack to the rvr or folding pkt-K's or Q's pre-flop on the $-bubble, which in a ring-game is unheard of. The main difference is that in a cash-game the money you're playing for is at the table; In a tourney the $ is waiting at the end, somewhere in a duffel-bag or suitcase or some secured container.
I will say, from personal experience, patience is probably the greatest weapon in the poker arsenal that you can have. If you can't achieve a mature level of it then poker is not going to work for you. I'm serious.
Go read a couple of poker strategy books and then go for a drive or a walk. Then go and find a game you can have fun playing and reap the benefits of this kick-a$$ game. GL daffydg.
Phoenix Wright
Legend
Loyaler
-We should generally play a wider range from the BTN than earlier positions because of our positional advantage, but what hands I'd raise (raising range) I vary based on other factors such as likely opponent(s) I'd have to face in the hand and factors like table image.
For this reasoning, I don't really want to say any specific cards because it really varies a ton based on the other factors...I'd usually raise pocket Aces if that helps
Joking aside, I'm sure there are BTN preflop charts based on stack depths available to look up, but I only use preflop charts are a guideline anyway as I'm much more adaptable in a mid-game to look for opportunities. I personally use charts just to make sure I'm not completely out of line without reason
-Worst seat at the table is debatable, but we all can agree it is an earlier seat. UTG is the logical answer, but I'd argue the blinds might even be worse - especially the Small Blind (SB).
-This could be a deep discussion in itself, but cash games are more about maximizing equity. Anytime you have a +EV play, then you take it! MTT tournaments are much different because of the risk of busting (in a cash game, you just rebuy if wanted). To calculate how this impacts the game, there are ICM calculators (Independent Chip Model) which displays how much each chip is "worth" during the game. Yes, a chip is a chip, but chips are more valuable later into the game because of what they represent (prize money for higher spots etc.).
With MTTs, you might have a +EV call, yet still want to correctly fold to prevent going broke on this hand (like near money bubble or laddering up as they are common examples where pressure could be applied knowing this; players don't want to bust just outside of the money, so players playing to win might choose to be more aggressive here to win chips uncontested more often).
Hello! :ciao:
A lot of factors affect the game. The most important thing to study is the positions. The MTT and Cash game are fundamentally different: First of all, the style of the game. The tempo also varies.
The most important thing is that playing Cash - you see your money in front of you, and in MTT chips - it's much easier to part with chips.
I recommend that you take a 30-day course on this site. I think you will find answers to your questions and even more:
https://www.cardschat.com/become-a-winning-poker-player/
Good luck!
Nice
You've saved me the work of posting the cardschat 30 Day course link. Yes, I recommend this course as well. I might be biased since that freeroll was my first ever cardschat MTT win (and first "money-to-potentially-be-won" MTT poker game ever!), but I'd recommend this course even if I didn't have such fortunate results Good responses too, but as bad as UTG is (players should notoriously play very tight from this seat), I might argue the Blinds are even worse (even if you are getting a better "price" in the blinds due to pot odds).
Joe
99.98% Kiln dried
Bronze Level
I wouldn't argue that SB is also an extremely weak position, quite possibly/arguably weaker than UTG, especially when considering SB is also automatically -0.5bb when unplayed.
In my opinion BB isn't as weak as UTG or SB even considering the 1bb cost whether played or not.
Not sure why I think that, but I do! :laugh:
For me it is either UTG or SB all day.
Personally I think I probably end up playing SB more often than UTG due to the numerous occasions when you're getting value to flat or limp in behind from SB, whereas with the same hands UTG would be insta-muck.
:dontknow: