Hello brother
Look, I will answer you from my personal experience.
When I started on the path to becoming a regular poker player, I initially had to choose which mode to play, whether cash or tournaments.
I started studying with 2 coaches and playing cash. Today in cash I play low levels of NL5, but I found in this modality mainly that the players' decision making depended much more on losing a box or $5 in this case, than on working to obtain an ITM or a good place in a tournament.
What I want to tell you with this, that you can have AA and if your opponent because he has extra money has 33 he will pay you, and although the statistics are in favor of AA 5 to 1, it can happen to you that you have as I have I went all-in 3 times in a row with AA and they beat me in different games at the showdown and beat me.
Maybe in the long term the one who plays well with AA will surely end up winning, but in the short term these situations honestly cause you some discomfort. The famous downswing is experienced by all poker players.
In my case, I think that although I have a lot more to improve in my game, I feel like a good tournament player, the variance really works in my favor when playing tournaments.
My priority is to enter the ITM. certainly the ITM is what allows you to fight against variance.
For example, just yesterday, in a tournament where they entered the prize pool in 79th place and the second prize was 54th place, I held on almost in last place until 54th place, earning at that time 3 times what I had invested in the tournament. , until the goddess of fortune or good play meant that he could have reached the final table, taking 2nd place with a prize of 80 times what he had invested in the tournament.
With this I want to tell you that in my case at least, the variance is much more positive in tournaments than in cash.
Besides the difference in the game. For example, I have played more than 300,000 cash
hands at least. The day ends and even though I won 50 dollars like what happened to me, I really didn't feel happy because in truth no one can take away the happiness of having a good achievement in a tournament.
What I want to tell you is that in my case at least, playing cash doesn't make me want to play the next day. On the other hand, playing tournaments, even though I may have badbeats or coolers or other situations in the game that can work against me, the next day it makes me want to have revenge.
With this I don't want to tell you that you shouldn't play cash to avoid negative variance, that's not the case. I deeply admire very good cash game players, because I have the concept of many of them. I think that when a cash player adapts to playing tournaments, he adapts much better than a tournament player adapts to playing cash.
That's why great tournament players like Doyle Brunson, Sam Farha, and many more were first great cash players.
The great Doyle won 2 bracelets with the famous 10 2s hand. Let's be honest, not even the best solver in the world would tell you about playing that hand, and he not only played it but he won two tournaments, and he was one of the players who lived off of poker his entire life.
But at least for me, the way to try to improve the variance positively is to dedicate myself exclusively to playing tournaments, but I never cease to be grateful for the teaching I had playing cash.
Greetings
