Does Tournament Play Aid Cash Skill?

[AceLuby]

I'm a fairly good microlimit MTT player (<$10) and have lost big chunks of my bankroll trying to convert to cash games. Cash games probably help your MTT, but MTT KILL your cash games. Seriously, I have about a 200% ROI playing the 4/180's and am WAY down playing NL50, NL25 and even NL10. I've gone the way of MTT's and have decided that cash is just not profitable for me. But that's just me.

[FortunaMaximus]

It might help a fundamentally aggressive game, if it has a very strong mathematical and postflop game to boot.

But, otherwise no. If you go into cash from tournaments, you forget to play all streets and tend to donk off stacks in races. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

And that might be a fundamental problem for some tournament players.

[AceLuby]

[ QUOTE ]
It might help a fundamentally aggressive game, if it has a very strong mathematical and postflop game to boot.

But, otherwise no. If you go into cash from tournaments, you forget to play all streets and tend to donk off stacks in races. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

And that might be a fundamental problem for some tournament players.

[/ QUOTE ]

BINGO here!!!

[Jeff76]

I have no problem playing NLHE cash games profitably, but I really approach them very differently. I feel bored when I play NLHE cash games after playing MTTs, and I feel constrained by the stack sizes when I play MTTs after playing NLHE cash games.

My solution is that I now play HORSE instead of NLHE. It's never boring to me, and I don't feel constrained by my stack when I move back to tournaments. HE is really my least favorite game now, except for tournament play.

I have found that the skills I use most in tournaments don't generally get exercised in NLHE cash games, and vice versa. One thing I find moving from NLHE to MTTs is that I start to play too many "speculative hands" when I'm not deep enough to play them. I don't think MTTs have ever really hurt my cash game play, but I don't see much in them that has helped either.

[Beachman42]

JMHO, but MTT strategy isn't as detrimental to LHE as NL.

[BadgerPro]

[ QUOTE ]
It might help a fundamentally aggressive game, if it has a very strong mathematical and postflop game to boot.

But, otherwise no. If you go into cash from tournaments, you forget to play all streets and tend to donk off stacks in races. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

And that might be a fundamental problem for some tournament players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I understand this but you need to be able to adjust to the game you're playing. If you have 100BBs you need to understand how to play with 100BBs whether in a cash game or tourney. If you have 20BBs you have to understand how to play with 20BBs.

Learning both ways shouldn't hurt either one.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It might help a fundamentally aggressive game, if it has a very strong mathematical and postflop game to boot.

But, otherwise no. If you go into cash from tournaments, you forget to play all streets and tend to donk off stacks in races. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

And that might be a fundamental problem for some tournament players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I understand this but you need to be able to adjust to the game you're playing. If you have 100BBs you need to understand how to play with 100BBs whether in a cash game or tourney. If you have 20BBs you have to understand how to play with 20BBs.

Learning both ways shouldn't hurt either one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. And personally, I'm finding I'm increasingly comfortable with larger stacks, to the point I'm finding some interesting conclusions when I start the first hour of MTT's as a ridiculous maniac. Yes, I'm aware that could mean I might be suited for rebuys and deeper stacks, and that my tournament flaws become mathematical with <40BB stacks, but learnin'. The mindset is, oh, yeah, I got more than 80BB now, I can play my game. Which is a postflop game moreso than anything else.

As far as cash goes, I know I can be profitable but as other posters have said, there is a basic boredom when it becomes a cash grind, but this isn't true of non-HE games, I've found.

Beach, yes, the adjustments are not as drastic. There's more of an ability to play a patient tournament game, and the blind increases do reward that to some end, as you can pass on slightly marginal spots for just as marginal spots, but with more chips in play if there's a forthcoming blind increase.

Just how I see things, and that's improving lately. I'm in no hurry, really. Poker ain't going anywhere, as far as I know.