Tourneys are exciting, the exhilaration is great, I have won many tourneys and it never ceases to amaze me how each one has a particular joy, though the joy is elusive, unless you are Bax. In a lot of ways tournaments are Pavlovian for poker players, if you don’t have an addictive nature, it can cause you to have it. It is that cool. Only problem is, it is expensive, I have won over 100k in a 2 month period, only to go on a 4 month drought, that admittedly only cost me about 25k. So I was quite “to the good”, only problem is, I was horrible to be around. <READMORE>Erik Seidel said it best last year in a WSOP event, in tourneys you look like a moron until you win and then you get to be a genius again.

In my not so humble opinion this is fool’s gold, not because tournaments aren’t a great value, they most definitely are. Value is relative however. In your quest to become a great poker player you want to have a lot of clubs in your bag. When I was running badly in tourneys, I turned to cash games and crushed them. So the 25k loss became a 5k win. So that had me thinking. Let’s say you could project wins and loss’s, clearly in the 100k tourney example I could have been running good and it is likely that I would find another time I would run good. In the most optimum scenario however, I am only up like 150k a year. Though if I played cash games, which were much more stable and not as prone to lucky streaks I could see 120k worth of potential. So I became very interested in cash, especially considering that I was not playing the max limits on the internet, in fact, not even close. So it was conceivable I could beat higher limits and increase my hourly rate (though I never consistently gave that a shot), I was however playing the highest buy in tourneys online, so there really wasn’t a way (online) to win more in tourneys.

Then I met a friend in Aruba and he told me what I thought was a lie, he was beating the 1-2NL games on UB for 10k a month. I mean, I was playing 30-60 limit and 5-10 NL to get my numbers. I had huge swings, in the long run I won, in the short term his approach seemed better. Of course, he was likely lying. Though I was intrigued enough to try it and even tweak it a bit. He was playing 4 tables to get his results and playing solid up against bad players. I prefer heads up where you can felt a guy that plays bad. In the months after Aruba, that is what I did, I had to play irregular hours typically but when I did it was a flat at bonanza with virtually no risk at all. Before Aruba I played in the 25-50 NL game semi-regularly, in fact, this summer I had great results in a short period of time. I was able to do well because the games were so incredible but I was never really playing my game, I was reacting to bad players. Truth be told, I can’t throw 5k on a bluff, the money matters to me. When the money matters to you too much, you can’t be effective. Back then I could be effective because A-B-C poker got it done. In the long run against better opponents it would not have. My friends were amazed; they saw me beat these other limits and wondered why I would slum in games so small. Yet every night I racked up 500-1000 with virtually no risk whatsoever playing no bigger than 5-10NL, most often playing 1-2 and 2-4.

One common myth in poker in my opinion is this, “if you can’t satellite into an event you shouldn’t play”. While satellites are a good value, in my opinion they are not the best value. Your best value is where you are playing against opponents that aren’t up for the task. Satellites provide this but not in the same way some drunken donkey does who sits with 1k. In one hand, you could have all of his money. Going up to Foxwoods I won 10k online in 8 days playing in no higher than 2-4NL. People look at satellites somehow different than they do cash games. I would propose that while your time investment may not be optimal in cash games, your long term results would be. And satellites get expensive, though the buy in for 2-4 is rarely more than $400. You need further proof? In Atlantic City I played in a satellite, at my table was David Williams, Captain Tom Franklin, Antonio Esfandiari and Tony Ma. I got deep but didn’t take a seat, I was having trouble sleeping so around 5 am I strolled into the poker room and they were playing 2-5NL. There were 4 people who had no business there at all, they were too drunk and they had no idea how to play poker. THOUGH THEY WANTED TO RAISE THE LIMITS TO 5-10! As you can imagine I did not object. I won almost 2k in 30 minutes. I decided I would play until all of these players would go bust, only problem is, when one would go bust, another worse player would sit down. Eventually I was too exhausted to play and had to go to bed.

When you begin to take poker seriously the first thing you need to do is everything. You have to try what you can within your bankroll and record your results. Once you have figured out what makes you the most money, do that. I can tell you it is not that exhilarating beating someone for $600 in a 2-4 NL game. It’s often a lot like work. I do enjoy it mind you but I enjoy winning tournaments much more. Even if the first prize in the tournament was $600! That is just sick. When it is all said and done and you have no other means of support you have to go to what makes the most money consistently. For me that is cash games.

This is a 4 part series where I will explore money management, game selection and psychology (mental attitude). I hope everyone enjoys this and just because I am being nice doesn’t mean you need to say f beanie any less.

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