spain Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I was in Memphis last night so I decided to play in the $100 + $25 Nl holdem tournament they hold every Thursday at Goldstrike. 72 players started the tourney with the top 10(final table) getting paid. I have played this tourney 3 other times, finishing in the money once and busting near the bubble twice. I dont like tourney play that much because cash games are ALOT more profitable. The tourney was fairly well run and had a decent blind schedule. I monied busting out in 7th place and making $330. My problem is that I get near the bubble and then play to tight trying to make the money when I should be stealing left and right. I could have won this tourney based on the talent I saw there. I now know why I stick to the more profitable cash games. But it was alot of fun. Anybody else like the cash games better than the tourneys? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Anybody else like the cash games better than the tourneys? Me. But I don't get to play but every 6-8 weeks given the rest of my schedule ... so, its more about having fun than it is making any money... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darin3 Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I was in Memphis last night so I decided to play in the $100 + $25 Nl holdem tournament they hold every Thursday at Goldstrike. 72 players started the tourney with the top 10(final table) getting paid. I have played this tourney 3 other times, finishing in the money once and busting near the bubble twice. I dont like tourney play that much because cash games are ALOT more profitable. The tourney was fairly well run and had a decent blind schedule. I monied busting out in 7th place and making $330. My problem is that I get near the bubble and then play to tight trying to make the money when I should be stealing left and right. I could have won this tourney based on the talent I saw there. I now know why I stick to the more profitable cash games. But it was alot of fun. Anybody else like the cash games better than the tourneys? Depends. I find myself doing rather well in tournaments. Especially smaller ones. I am a rather tight player as it is, but I know when to turn on the aggression. That style of play lends itself to tournaments. Let the donks battle for paltry pots in the beginning... they try to double up early and then bully. Dumb, IMO. espana, I know you're a good poker player. I know you know pot odds. I know you know positions and position betting. I just use those key elements later in tournaments. But the key is... drum-roll, please.... poker is GAMBLING. You know this, I know this, everyone knows this. Sometimes you have to make a (calculated) gamble and maybe call that donkey's over-bet with your up-and-down straight draw or nut flush draw. If you miss, oh well, that's life. If you hit, you hit big. Now you can tighten up a little more and wait for the next wave. I personally find some cash games irritating. People know that they can just reload, and they'll try bullying you around with their big stacks. If I'm sitting at a cash game in Vegas, for instance, I prefer going to a fresh table or to a table where everyone's about the same. If I'm playing online, I try finding a table where everyone's about at the same stack. It's a little different there, though, because I typically play lower stakes and I'll gamble with that smaller buy-in from time to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tford Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I was in Memphis last night so I decided to play in the $100 + $25 Nl holdem tournament they hold every Thursday at Goldstrike. 72 players started the tourney with the top 10(final table) getting paid. I have played this tourney 3 other times, finishing in the money once and busting near the bubble twice. I dont like tourney play that much because cash games are ALOT more profitable. The tourney was fairly well run and had a decent blind schedule. I monied busting out in 7th place and making $330. My problem is that I get near the bubble and then play to tight trying to make the money when I should be stealing left and right. I could have won this tourney based on the talent I saw there. I now know why I stick to the more profitable cash games. But it was alot of fun. Anybody else like the cash games better than the tourneys? Tournaments have a stronger competitve feel than cash games. I will agree, I generally win moreso in a cash game than a tourney but something about tournaments gets the adrenaline running for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I like both, but I prefer limit hold em as a cash game and no limit for tournies. Different strategies and my style of play complements those games in those structures. For a cash game, sure you can make a big score in one hand, but, you can also get stacked off to a donk who lucks out. I find my style allows me to consistently win without the variance involved with the NL cash game, and this works well with my mental state as well as my pocketbook. I prefer NL in tourney play as there is a little more gamesmanship involved, you can take stabs at pots, etc. and again, my style lends itself well to a well structured no limit tournament, where I can be very choosy early on slowly growing my stack while the donks pick off and double each other up, and I can push hard against them when I know I have a significant advantage in the hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Tournaments have a stronger competitve feel than cash games. I will agree, I generally win moreso in a cash game than a tourney but something about tournaments gets the adrenaline running for me. Win a decent tourney and you're ROI will be a lot higher than anything you can hope for in a cash game for the same amount of time. $100 buy in NL cash game, you would be happy to make $50-100 in 3-4 hours (hopefully more obviously, but averaging that is a very good rate) $100 buy in tourney with 75-80 players - Win it and you can make $1800-$2200 in 3-4 hours depending on the pay structure. In general, cash games are were I make my money, tournies are where I enjoy playing poker a lot more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spain Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 Win a decent tourney and you're ROI will be a lot higher than anything you can hope for in a cash game for the same amount of time. $100 buy in NL cash game, you would be happy to make $50-100 in 3-4 hours (hopefully more obviously, but averaging that is a very good rate) $100 buy in tourney with 75-80 players - Win it and you can make $1800-$2200 in 3-4 hours depending on the pay structure. In general, cash games are were I make my money, tournies are where I enjoy playing poker a lot more. 1. I would never buy into a cash game with $100. I like to play $2/$5 NL and will buy in from a minimum of $500 up to $1000. If I have to play $1/$2 or $1/$3 I will buy in for the max which is typically $300. 2. The winner of our game last night got $2500. I think the house addes some to the pot. 3. I played for 4 hours and got $330-$125 for a $205 profit. I play at a $2/$5 game and I like my chances to make double that much or more. Or get felted and have to buy in again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spain Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 Hey BC! Give me some tips on limit holdem. My limit game sucks. everybody stays into the river on every hand. its not so much poker as luck of the cards. How do you play winning poker? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 1. I would never buy into a cash game with $100. I like to play $2/$5 NL and will buy in from a minimum of $500 up to $1000. If I have to play $1/$2 or $1/$3 I will buy in for the max which is typically $300. 2. The winner of our game last night got $2500. I think the house addes some to the pot. 3. I played for 4 hours and got $330-$125 for a $205 profit. I play at a $2/$5 game and I like my chances to make double that much or more. Or get felted and have to buy in again... My analogy was meant to show for the same "cost" of poker.. ie $100 cash game buy in vs. $100 tourney buy in. House must have added some, as a 10 person payout usually has no more than 25% to first (some do go top heavy and pay 30%) which is where I came up with my guesstimate on payout. Looks like if you had 75 players at 100 a pop to the prize pool they paid 33% to first, not totally out of line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Hey BC! Give me some tips on limit holdem. My limit game sucks. everybody stays into the river on every hand. its not so much poker as luck of the cards. How do you play winning poker? For the lower limits, which I generally stick to, it is a very mechanical game. Very tight preflop, purely mathematical decisions from later positon (ie, suited connectors, high cards etc.), extreme aggression with big hands preflop. Post flop generally very much a fit or fold strategy, and if I hit I am not giving free cards if there are two of any suit or any two cards within 2 of each other for potential straight draws. I am charging the chasers every time. If I hit 4 to a flush or an open ender, and the board is not paired, you generally have the odds to call a single bet on the flop... if there is a bet and raise in front of you, I only call if I am drawing to the nuts, other wise let it go. Many times will let the straight draws go for sure with a bet and raise in front of me. If I do hit the flush on the turn, if it is the non-nut flush, I am betting out. If it is the nut flush, I may check and hope to check raise. If there has been a lot of action early, I likely am betting hard once I make my hand as I really don't want two pairs or sets to hang around so I can watch the board pair. If you get to the river, many times it is mathematically correct to call a single bet even with a very mediocre holding as you are often getting 8-10 to 1 on your money, so, you only have catch an opponent bluffing one in 8 times or so to make it a profitable play. SO, especially at lower limits, it is very much about getting the right cards, but it is equally as much about getting as many extra bets out of your opponents and saving as many bets as you can. Just 4-5 years ago it was next to impossible to find a no limit cash game... they just didn't have them, but, with the WPT booming, everyone wanted to be able to go "all-in" and most people are too stupid to realize that what is shown is a very select few hands, in a very specific situation, but they wanted to play no limit, and they see these guys on TV going all in with A4 etc., not realizing the situation, so you have a lot of donkeys now playing the NL games that they are profitable, but, because of the luck of the cards factor, they are highly volatile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easy n Dirty Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Just 4-5 years ago it was next to impossible to find a no limit cash game... they just didn't have them, but, with the WPT booming, everyone wanted to be able to go "all-in" and most people are too stupid to realize that what is shown is a very select few hands, in a very specific situation, but they wanted to play no limit, and they see these guys on TV going all in with A4 etc., not realizing the situation, so you have a lot of donkeys now playing the NL games that they are profitable, but, because of the luck of the cards factor, they are highly volatile. I'm with you BC, I prefer limit hold 'em for cash games and NL for tournaments. But I did run across something not too long ago written by Matt Maroon, a young poker pro and poker author, which gave me some pause for thought. The part that grabbed my attention was the notion that you can make similar money with less variance at NL than you can at limit. Here's what he said: "People have been asking me a lot lately about bankroll/variance in no-limit hold'em. I always tell them I really don't know much about it. And I don't. I know that no-limit is significantly lower variance for a given win rate. In technical terms it's probably much higher variance (when expressed as big bets per hour or big bets per 100 hands) but since your win rate at a no-limit table is much higher when expressed the same way that isn't a useful comparison. A $30/$60 limit player might only have to play $5/$10 no-limit to make the same hourly. So while a $30/$60 limit game is going to have much lower fluctuations than a $30/$60 no-limit, it's going to be far higher than a $5/$10 nl. And I know that limit players often experience bad streaks lasting over a hundred thousand hands. Multiple people I know were solid winners over a long time, had a losing 100k hands or more, and then won again for a long time. I've experienced losing over 130k hands in the last year, though I haven't played much since. I know a lot of people who've played a lot of no-limit and have solid records. In fact, I probably know more of them than I do limit players. None have ever even had a losing streak of 50k hands. Most of them say that even losing over 20k hands is very are. I think that's a large part of the attraction to no-limit. You can make more profit on a given bankroll. And it makes emotional endurance, in some ways, less a part of the game. Still not as little as a tournament, where one bad beat often eliminates you, preventing you from tilting. But far less than in limit hold'em. It's also nice because it allows you to make more meaningful determinations about your game. If you lose over 50k hands in limit you might be playing as well as anyone alive. You probably aren't, but you can't really get any idea. In no-limit it is much more likely that you're playing badly." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Good read there EnD... I'll reread again to keep it fresh... tonight is a live NL cash game with sky's son and some of his friends. My third time playing with the group. usual buy in is $40 to keep it a friendly game, but my first time playing I was up $200, and last time I had a strong finish to get back to even after suffering an AA vs. JJ river beat.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moneyshot Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 I'm a decent cash game limit player, but pretty much suck at NL tourneys, well more NL in general. But, I'd agree that cash games are much more profitable. Tourneys are gay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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