cash game vs. tornament

[Shad]

Aiming for their money is good but I find poker much more interesting when you're trying for first. Cash games you can leave at any time. It's probably because I started out playing tournaments and prefer them over cash games.

[mafalda34]

i started playing tournaments too, but i really think im concentrating on cash games more right now, the reason is the game is way easier and i can manage to win some more money.

I love to play tournaments but i know when there are more than 1000 entrants theres going to be a tough competition out there.

[pokerchammp69]

i would say tournament unless its heads up sng

[scrawnybob]

hi all

nice thread topic

I would have to say in terms of building and bankroll and purely from a profit angle

cash / ring games every time -

to me the ROI is alot higher and much more consistent although you've got to be prepared for the occasional swings in bankroll - generally you can either adopt a pretty tight solid game and do ok, steadily building your bankroll

If I'm low on bankroll either because I've cashed out or paid for some of our tournies to be set-up I will put in either full or half the max buy-in and then play until I have double up (half max buy-in) or increased max buy-in by 50% ... then I leave the table and find another good table

this will give you easily an hourly ROI of 25-30% (allowing for bust-outs)

on the other hand in terms of enjoyment and the challenge - definately tournaments

I used to play only SNG's but as the fulltime pro grinders will tell you the ROI on SNG's over the long term is only 6-10%

so I like SNG's to warm up for a MTT session

but as much as I would like to play more MTT's I havent got the time slots to be able to sit down for 5 hours and give it my all - too many distractions and too many things on my to-do -list

I think if your a recreational player it's best to find what you enjoy most - if you can break even or make a little its all good ;-)

If your able to I would go with alot of the pro's advice -

play cash games for the cash then use the profits to play tournaments for the glory and the satisfaction

cheers scrawnybob

[mafalda34]

JUST two things:

1. What the hell is ROI ????? I hate all those abreviations

2.Do u think entering a cash game with half the max buy-in is profitable ??

In FTP half the max buyin would be 50bb, and particulary on the lower stakes the game is too loose, so i dont think entering with 50 bb would be good.

Also the normal raise on a cash game i about 5 times the bb so with 50 bb u wouldnt have to many chips to gamble with, and by having a lower stack the other players will try to bluff u much more so i dont think thats good at all.

[jacks_off4me]

same as maf, what is ROI??

scrawnybob, on which sites do you play (cash or mtt) besides the regular league?

[FortMyersDrew]

I am deffinetly gonna have to say Tournament want to know why? Because if you loose to a hand at least you didnt loose all of your money and you have a 2nd chance to get those chips back and make a comback. you play cash games and loose 2 or 3 good hands bye bye money

[AotearoaNZ]

i used to play ring for fast cash,

but now i play only tours,get some training in for the wsop..lol 1 day maybe lol


R.O.I. had me stumped for along time as well ..gl

[jacksRwild63]

It was once said, that very few poker players are good at both cash and tourneys.
As we all know, loss control is one of the nice things about tourneys. you pay your buy in and thats all you can lose. Ring games , (no limit) on the other hand, you could lose your roll in a single hand if not careful.

In a tournament, you have to slip your donkey hat on and hope to get lucky at times with the blinds on the rise. In a cash game, you are looking for one big score an hour.

[scrawnybob]

hi

sorry guys -

ROI is Return on Investment

ie. what you can expect to earn from a given number of buy-ins into SNG's / MTT's / ring games over a decently statistically viable number of games

in other words not playing 10 SNG's and thinking your average ROI over time will be 50%

SNG's apparently from very experienced grinders upto higher limits is 6-10% (you will get a bit more at very low SNG's but this figure is always a shock to alot of low stakes SNG players

but over several 100 games it will be about that in majority of cases

I've probably played 1000's of SNG's and over time your really gaining alot of experience cheaply but the ROI is that low - borderline break even as you need to allow for the rake also

Suggestion of buying in for 1/2 max buy-in on low / micro cash games

OK I guess I should clarify this a bit - I will pretty much always buy-in for the max buy-in
and would want to have the right bankroll for this to be sensible also -

so on acounts I use to build bankroll and then use that profit to pay for our tournaments ;-)
it means the balance will get to say $60-120 then I have to pay out $50-$100 to fund tournaments

so in this situation with $10-$20 basically all the bankroll management rules go out the window

I would prefer to buy-in to a 5/10 cent game at FullTilt with $5 (half the max $10) and then play it up to $10 then move to another table

than put all or half my total bankroll on the line in one table

there are a few reasons for this and it's counter intuative as I do normally recommend full buy-ins

but when very short on bankroll it's better to appear to be a desperate player because you cant manage the full buy-in ... this means players think your desparate and likely to all-in with anything

you obviously dont - waiting to be able to move all-in with a near nuts hand knowing that they are more likely to call an all-in move from a short stack than someone who has the good sense to make a full buy-in

at the low stakes - most players are pretty bad - this technique allows you to be pretty tight without having a sign about your head saying "if I bet big - fold"

When playing with such a small bankroll even 50% increase from a 1/2 buy-in is worth taking and running (leave table and go into a new equally juicy one)

this way you can build a $10-$20 bankroll at $2.50 a time risking less of your total (small) bankroll until you have it up to a better level when you can then stay at same limit but make the full buy-in (still aiming to only increase by 50% ie. $10 to $15 at table and leave)

hope that's a help - it might not work for everyone

but the key mindset is to very very gradually and carefully increase your small bankroll by small but realistic amounts - rather than saying f**k it I'm going to put all $20 into one game and hope to get lucky in 2 hands (although that's all your looking for in cash games - but with responsible expectations)

cheers scrawnybob