Cash players > Tourney players

Cash game gets my vote.

Cash game players are much better. Deep stack NLHE is such a ridiculously more difficult and complex game than Tournament poker with shallow stacks and escalating blinds. Short stack poker is almost solvable thats how simple it is. If you asked who was better SNG players or tournament players I don't think anyone would say SNG players. Thus I fail to see how anyone could say tournament players if this is the question for the same reasons. You don't think BarryG knows more about this than you? Ok.

Who are the best all round NLHE experts online? If you considered anyone ranked in the top 10 bar Mr.Menlo you are probably very wrong.

Neither is better than the other. It's two different types of poker. Cash games are all about post flop play and tournaments are largely won and lost before the turn.

If you want to say an excellent cash game player can succeed in tournaments before a tourny game player can succeed in cash games......I guess, on a limited basis, I can buy that. But by and large, it's two different games and good hold 'em players are good hold 'em players.

It's like comparing apples and oranges. Cash games and mtt's require two different mindsets. Some people have the mindset to be successful in both, but I don't think you can really say that cash game players > tournament players or vice versa.

 

Originally Posted by fishm0nger

 

Originally Posted by CraftyCal

To me it looks pretty simple, ring game play to me is just my early tournament strategy, don't try anything super-fancy and stay tight pre-flop waiting for a chance to flop a monster by limping with with suited connectors and mining sets.

If this is your cash game strategy you will get eaten alive at any level except the micros.

How silly of me, i knew i should of spent hours typing out a full cash game strategy for you all to read first.

PS: At this point i'd like to add that this topic is only aimed at no-limit hold'em, i reckon thats the only game where tourney strategy is strong enough to argue against cash play, should of mentioned that at the start

 

Originally Posted by TheConArtist

Oh yeah and Crafty the reason you don't understand why Barry said what he did is you clearly haven't the faintest notion about cash game play.

I've just read your hobbies list, i'd keep quiet if i were you

 

Originally Posted by fishm0nger

My point was that you are providing an extremely simplistic view of what cash game play is.

For the record, at least as far as NLHE is concerned, I am mostly a tournament player.

To be honest i haven't really said enough about cash game no limit yet for you to accurately judge me as simplistic, but i agree from the small piece i did write that impression may come across

Oh and for the record, upto very recently i have been mostly a cash player playing stud NL Hold'em and a little HORSE. I changed to tournaments only in the last few days when i noticed i had a fairly good ROI in tournaments, and all my goals in poker involve tournaments so i felt it was right to make the switch now rather than wait till i build a very large bankroll and then switch to tourneys which was my original plan

"To me it looks pretty simple, ring game play to me is just my early tournament strategy, don't try anything super-fancy and stay tight pre-flop waiting for a chance to flop a monster by limping with with suited connectors and mining sets. "

lol @ ur opinion of playing in a cash game. So you basically sit and wait for big pairs and setups. So your profit will = like 1 bb per session.

lol

I am a cash player and a tournament player. Cash players are definitely superior to tournament players. A good cash player can win in both cash games, as well as tournaments. Ever seen a tournament player play cash? They are big losers. While there is a different strategy to tournaments, it is way way way more formulaic as opposed to cash games which requires a deeper thought process and is considerably more complex. If you are good at cash games, you can just learn that formulaic strategy pretty easily and be a winner in tournaments too. Also just for the record, to whomever said that early stages of a tournament is just like a cash game, you are wrong. Most players play way way tighter in the beginning of tournaments than you should in a cash game. If you play too tight in a cash game you will get no action, whereas in a tournament it doesn't matter since people are forced to play with rising blinds/antes.

I look at this question from two perspectives. first, which has a better success rate? and second, which has more "bang for your buck"? These seem like pretty easy questions to me.

Cash games for sure have a better success rate, and this is for many reasons. First you have all the time you want to play whatever style you prefer, and you can leave at any point in the game. Tournaments, you can play a great game, but get busted and have nothing to show for it, and obviously cant leave at whatever point you wish. This is why many of the big tournament players are in on cash games, so they can fund there tournament play when they are on a bad run.

the "bang for your buck" definitely goes to tournaments, the large fields and heavily wieghted payout structure towards the final tables allows you to turn your cash out 1000 X your buy in. Cash games would take forever to do this and keep a low risk.

So the score is even, but i believe that cash game players definitely need more "skill", or knowledge of the game to be highly successful. Tournaments can run and pay out largely to tons of fish that get all there money in preflop and hit a lucky card. Though it has been touched on by everybody here, when you have a deep stacked table over long periods of time, you really have to play good poker, and not rely on luck because overall you will end up terribly short. Hand reading and post flop play are much more difficult than memorizing rules and push/fold options, because alot of this relies on the chance that you face whenever you do it. It is a guessing game in the end on a tourney.

-claydog

Cash game players are superior to tournament players obviously. To do well in MTT's you really don't have to have any post flop skills. Basically you are chugging along with 10-20 bbs and thinking should i push this hand or resteal all in. If a tournament has deep stacks toward the end then you are playing real poker. Let's just say that alot of the top MTTers on this site get blasted by the cash game pro's on 2+2 for their poor play in cash.

Listen, you can disagree with his posts, you can dislike his picture, you can insult the man in any way you want, but...........

Don't you dare making fun of his hobbies. He practices the most honorable activity the human race knows, period.

 

Originally Posted by mathclub

I believe any of the top 100 cash game players in the world could crush high stakes tournaments if they had a few months to practice and some tips.

I belive that the majority of the top 100 tournament players (actually the 100 best, not just 'ranked' players) would be break even or losing players in the high stakes online cash games after the same time to brush up. A few freaks would win at the high stakes cash, but the majority would do well to break even.

Exactly.

Cash players > Donkament players

cash players are better then tourney players