Theory on Ring compared to Tournaments

[Brizza]

I just had a couple of basic theories I wanted to throw around and get peoples opinions on.

1. Grinding and discipline are a much more prominent neccessity in ring games.

2. Position, defending blinds, bluffing and guts are much more required to be successful in tournaments but not so in ring games.

[JavaNut]

At lower levels you can to an extent get by with grinding + discipline, some call it ABC poker where you really do not care that much how your opponents play, but you will still need to learn how to defend blinds. Position is still key even for 'grinders', that is why there are starting hand charts. Bluffing might be the least needed skill but it still does contribute a lot to winning poker.

You do not need guts, what you need is to play at stakes where you do not worry about playing for real money.

There are differences between ring game play and tournaments but they are along other lines. Ie. stack sizes compared to blind sizes.

I can see your point of view, as it seems intuitively correct but it is wrong.

[PantsOnFire]

1. Grinding and discipline are equally important in tournaments. Perhaps later on the grinding diminishes but the discipline is still utterly important.

2. Position, bluffing and guts are also very important in ring games with position being paramount.

The only one I'll give you is defending blinds in tourneys and even then that only becomes important when the blind stealing picks up at mid tourney.

What separates tourneys from cash, IMHO, are three very significant factors: a. relative stack sizes, b. increasing blinds, and c. adjusting your game to changing conditions (usually related to a. and b.).

[mce86]

[ QUOTE ]
I just had a couple of basic theories I wanted to throw around and get peoples opinions on.

1. Grinding and discipline are a much more prominent neccessity in ring games.

2. Position, defending blinds, bluffing and guts are much more required to be successful in tournaments but not so in ring games.

[/ QUOTE ]
The only difference is in later stages of tourneys, luck becomes a much bigger factor. By the time a final table comes, its mostly luck and guts.

[Albert Moulton]

1. Early stages of a deep stack NL tournament with long intervals between blind increases requires a lot of discipline, patience, and "grinding."

Shallow-stack, loldonkaments still have some skill involved, but there's a lot more gambling to avoid getting blinded out.

So, I don't think your first point makes sense without specifiying the stacks:blinds ratio and blind/ante intervals.

2. In short handed ring games, defending blinds actually gets pretty important (6-max and shorter). And along those lines, this point is again dependent on stacks relative to blinds and antes and increase intervals in the tournament.

Finally, position and bluffing are critical in cash games, especially as you play better players at higher levels. And as for tournaments, position becomes importants in late stages by being able to act FIRST instead of last so you get what HoH calls "first in vigorish." As stacks get shallow, you actually want to be in EP with a decent hand so you can go all in to steal the blinds and antes.

And as for guts, I think that if you are properly bankrolled, you shouldn't need to be "afraid" in either game.

[drzen]

"Guts" all too often means -EV. You'll see it all the time. Donkey makes horrible call. Sucks out. Someone goes "gutsy call". Yeah, right.

[Brizza]

Thanks for your responses.

Further to this where do people make the most money? Ring or Tournaments?