Differences in cash & tourney greats

[Borgland]

I always hear how someone like Todd Brunson is a great cash game player and someone like Phil Hellmuth is a great tourney player. What are the differences in styles that make each successful at one but perhaps not the other?

[ElDuque]

Quickly:

- Greenstein said something to the effect that Hellmuthe told him that that he (PH) had all the requisite poker skills to win the "big game," but that he didn't have the self-control to deal with the situation.

- Hellmuthe loves the attention that publicized tourneys bring. Brunson doesn't strike as a man much concerned with mass public approval.

- The tournament stakes (both entry-fee and prize-pool) are paltry compared to stakes regularly seen the big game.

[Borgland]

What about the style of play? I would think the great tourney players play a tighter game than ring players.

I heard on that FSN PokerSuperstars II tourney how the amount of money doesnt effect Brunson at the table. Yet in tourney play dont you have to be accutely aware of all stacks at all times?

[AaronBrown]

I'd add a few more. In tournaments, even the high-entry fee ones, it's essential to extract the maximum from weak players in early rounds in order to have a large stack when you face the concentrated better players. In high-stakes cash games, you don't find weak players (or they don't last long enough to matter). It takes different skills to run up the score with weak other players than it does to win when playing only strong players.

Tournaments require a lot of stamina per dollar won. You have to play a lot more hands to win a $100,000 tournament than to win $100,000 in a high-stakes cash game; and you have to play a lot more tournaments to win one (or finish high in the money) than cash games. You have to travel to where the tournaments are, while you can find a steady cash game in one place. The tournament structure gives you much less flexibility about when to play, when to take a break, and so on. A lot of them are physically uncomfortable.

In cash games you play more hands against the same people, for a more predictable amount of time. Unless you're one of the top tournament players who's always facing other top players at final tables, you're playing a lot of strangers for shorter and less predictable amounts of time.

When you get to high blind/ante stages in tournaments, and also the the short-handed play at the end, the nature of the game changes.

Tournaments are all single-game affairs, with a single type of blind/limit structure (although the amounts may change). Many of the best cash games play different games over a session. And even if not, cash players need to learn a wider variety of games to keep themselves fully occupied.

Success in cash game requires the ability to get into good games, and if you don't play in a casino, to collect your winnings. I consider both of these to be poker skills, but a lot of people don't. Tournament players don't have to bother with them.