[erdiesel]

Looking for opinions. reason why i'm asking is should i play more of either one to get better in poker in general? and be able to transition to the other type of play "easier". this is in reference to no limit holdem

[hachkc]

Hard to say IMO. Each has its own nuances and challenges.

I'd say tourney to cash though its almost a coin flip IMO.

[cpiaaq]

I'm not qualified to answer this. However, I'd say cash to tourney only because if you're making mistakes (read: learning) you can only lose your buy-in.

[erdiesel]

my amateur opinion.......i think it would be easier to transition from cash to tourney because in cash play, you play a much wider range of hands and hence you're involved in more pots simply because the blinds are set and don't go up. So in cash play you just get much more experience through the higher quantity of hands played. in tourney play i think most people start out playing very tight and playing mostly "premium" hands and not until the blinds become a real factor do people loosen up.

i just think the more hands you play, the better feel for the game that you get and you just play more hands in cash games.

of course i haven't been playing poker for very long so i'll be interested in other opinions

[jojobinks]

Originally Posted by erdiesel

my amateur opinion.......i think it would be easier to transition from cash to tourney because in cash play, you play a much wider range of hands and hence you're involved in more pots simply because the blinds are set and don't go up. So in cash play you just get much more experience through the higher quantity of hands played. in tourney play i think most people start out playing very tight and playing mostly "premium" hands and not until the blinds become a real factor do people loosen up.

i just think the more hands you play, the better feel for the game that you get and you just play more hands in cash games.

of course i haven't been playing poker for very long so i'll be interested in other opinions

conversely, you could argue that cash game players overestimate their ability to outplay opponents after the flop. in most tournaments (short levels, relatively short stacks) this isn't possible. in that sort of situation not only is it different from cash games, it's not even exactly poker.

last month i played more cash game hands than any other time in my life. in those games, when folded to me i'd NEVER lay down T9s. coming back to tournaments in february (for the bankroll challenge) i have to physically restrain myself from raising with that hand.

[Sea Vulture]

IMO it's easier to transition from tournament play to cash. I tend to play MUCH tighter in tournament play then in cash. It's a style that has done me well. In cash, I open up play a little based on odds and will play more hands in late position based on the number of callers. If I guess wrong in a tourney, I'm out. If I guess wrong in cash, I can reload. In general I find it easier to open up play then to shut down hands. Mentally it's just easier.

In addition, stack size, time, and increasing blinds are a factor in tournaments, and can have an effect on what you play. This isn't true in cash games.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by erdiesel

my amateur opinion.......i think it would be easier to transition from cash to tourney because in cash play, you play a much wider range of hands and hence you're involved in more pots simply because the blinds are set and don't go up. So in cash play you just get much more experience through the higher quantity of hands played. in tourney play i think most people start out playing very tight and playing mostly "premium" hands and not until the blinds become a real factor do people loosen up.

I've said this a few times on this board... no one seems to agree with me (or at least admit it), but...

Does anybody else see the contradiction here?

Most people here agree that, in the early stages of a tournament when the blinds are small compared to your stack size, you generally want to play tighter pre-flop. Then, when the blinds get big compared to your stack, you have to loosen up, and when the blinds are very big compared to your stack (like M < 5), it becomes a "push pre-flop or fold" sort of situation. This is pretty much the underlying theme of every book I've read on tournament poker.

Then why does everyone keep saying that a player should play looser in a cash game? The blinds are almost meaningless compared to your stack. There is no reason to enter a pot unless you think you can win it. Just as in the early stages of a tournament, this suggest that the optimum strategy is to play tight, not loose (unless you think you're really good at playing after the flop and want to try a LAG approach, or you're very short-stacked due to buy-in restrictions or don't have any more money). Harrington comments on this in one of his volumes on tournament play, comparing how you must be looser in tournaments -- at least in the middle and late stages -- than in cash games. He mentions this as one of the reasons why many great cash game players don't adjust correctly in tournaments, especially in the old days (when tournaments were relatively rare and virtually all pro poker players were cash game specialists). I can't remember if it was in HOH or one of Sklansky's books where it's mentioned that a tighter player will almost always win against looser opponents at cash games in the long run (and gives examples and counter-examples). I think it was in a chapter on table selection, or something like that. And if you play online at micro and low stakes, the big stacks are almost always VERY TAG. Works for them, works for me, should work for most people.

If your thoughts are, "but I can always reload at the cash tables", then please follow me around and play at my tables. I like it when my LAGgy and LP opponents reload and reload all day long! More money in my bankroll...

[abby99]

Great question!

My learning progression was limit HE cash games, NLHE tournaments, and finally NLHE cash games. They're all so different, and the knowledge I gained in each was based on what I had learned previously. I think that it's easier to learn tournament strategy if you already know the basics of hold'em from cash games (limit or no-limit) and have had the opportunity to play a decent number of hands in cash games in order to have a good idea of how various hands play out against one opponent versus several opponents.

As far as cash games go, according to game theory you want to play a little tighter than your opponents. OK, that's a gross simplification, but it suggests that you don't play loose or tight in an absolute sense, just tighter than a certain benchmark (your opponents) that happens to change from one game to the next and even during the same game as players exit and enter the game or change their play.

Similarly, tournament strategy can't be categorized as loose or tight in an absolute sense, but requires the ability to shift gears, not only as the tournament goes through its various stages, but as situations change within the various stages (e.g., position, tendencies of individual opponents, etc.).

Just my opinion, FWIW.

[jojobinks]

Originally Posted by jdunford

Most people here agree that, in the early stages of a tournament when the blinds are small compared to your stack size, you generally want to play tighter pre-flop. Then, when the blinds get big compared to your stack, you have to loosen up, and when the blinds are very big compared to your stack (like M < 5), it becomes a "push pre-flop or fold" sort of situation. This is pretty much the underlying theme of every book I've read on tournament poker.

depends. playing supertight in the early levels is definitely important with ultrashort tournaments, like sngs. but it's not really true of longer tournaments where accumulating chips is important.

the deeper you are, the less important it is to start with the best hand. for instance if you're fairly sure that the early position raiser has AA/KK/QQ/AKs, he raises to $4 in a .5/1 game, and effective stacks are $400, then you're making a big mistake to not call with any two on the button. this is true whether it's a cash game or a tournament.

tournaments are like cash games in the early going, b/c chips haven't started diminishing in value and you're far from the bubble. it starts to change as you get closer to the cash.

[Poboy]

I don't know if there's much difference going from one to the other. Cash games are about pushing your margins since you can rebuy and blinds don't go up. It's easy to take that and play too many hands in a tournament. Conversely, tournaments require tighter play, which is exploitable in cash games and doesn't maximize winning opptys.
Seems to me it's a personality thing more than anything else. Is it easier to rein yourself in, or loosen up?