Cash Games vs Tournaments

Bowlboy · #1 12-21-2006, 01:27 PM

There is often a lot of debate about which is more profitable and how great a role luck plays in tournament success. I read an article, sorry cant remember where so take it FWIW in regards to the amount of luck required to win the WSOP. A study was done, where number of entrants, increases in blinds etc, were all taken into account and they found that the winner would have to surrvive on average 360 (i'm not quoting the exact number here but for all intensive purposes this is close enough) coin flips. Winning 360 coinflips is insane. But of course if you did a World Series of Coin Flips with as many entrants as the WSOP somebody would ultimately win all of their coin flips ( assuming a single elimination tournament format).

Tournament players often reason that there is also luck in cash games. This is true, however the impact of when you happen to be lucky or unlucky in a cash game is quite less than in a tournament. Getting dealt KK when somebody else has AA will typically cost you 100BB or more in a cash game, but in a tournament it will usually end it for you if your opponent has you covered. If the hand happens to be late in the tournament with few players left and the player goes on to win it, the AA vs KK hand where he doubled up will usually be quite significant in comparison to the many times he was able to make the correct decision in marginal situations throughout the tournament. Similarily, a player can often be forgiven of many marginal mistakes by hitting that one big hand, or run of cards later in the tournament. In cash games however, getting it all in the middle with your AA against somebody's KK is still somewhat of a gift from the poker gods though it wont save you from the everyday mistakes you can make in the course of a session.

AA vs KK is often worth +1 buy-in at low stakes cash games. The marginal situations that you are faced with however arise hand after hand.

Back to the whole 360 coinflips idea. If a skilled multi-table online tournament 2+2 player with solid knowledge/experience/skill qualifies for the WSOP, how much of an edge do top pros like Chris Ferguson have over this online player. Sure he's likely to be 3x as skilled or more but if the online 2+2er gets lucky and wins his first few coin flips, he may well be on his way to later stages in the tournament. If however, Jesus has some bad luck and loses a couple of key hands, he has to go into short stack strategy and is forced to push or fold and surrvive even more coin flips, as he will inevitably be placed in more of these situations (ie, Jesus shortstacked gets dealt 99 UTG and pushes and gets called by ATs)? He may have to get all his chips in the middle several times just to get back to a medium sized stack.

Now if you were to take all of the entrants to the last WSOP and sit them down at all their tables but now, they're playing cash games(assuming all players are rolled for this level of play) and each day the tables are going to get randomly shuffled to mix players up. Let's say this goes on for a month. Are we going to see a larger ratio of big name pro's earning more or are we going to see a large ratio of new up and coming players in the money.

I think the answer is obvious.

fishpielemonsole · #2 12-21-2006, 01:46 PM

so whats the answer?

sorry couldn't help it....

Jerrod Ankenman · #3 12-21-2006, 01:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Now if you were to take all of the entrants to the last WSOP and sit them down at all their tables but now, they're playing cash games(assuming all players are rolled for this level of play) and each day the tables are going to get randomly shuffled to mix players up. Let's say this goes on for a month. Are we going to see a larger ratio of big name pro's earning more or are we going to see a large ratio of new up and coming players in the money.

I think the answer is obvious.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "big name pros." A lot of names that people would recognize as "big name pros" wouldn't be making a lot of money in cash games because they aren't very good at poker and the reason that their names are recognizable is that they won a lot of money in tournaments and now they play at high limits, bleeding money away (not that fast, of course, and there's plenty of variance to hide it).

GiantBuddha · #4 12-21-2006, 02:49 PM

You're going to see the better cash game players end up with the money. Some people are a lot better at adjusting to a tournament structure. Others are a lot better at playing straight up. Some people are famous but not that good. Others are very good but not that famous. Some are famous and good. Many are not famous and terrible.

But over a month of cash play vs. a week of tournament play, yeah, the cash results should show less variance.

ElChief · #5 12-21-2006, 08:59 PM

What do you mean by 'surviving' a coin flip? I took it to mean mean winning 360 consecutive coin flips where you're all-in and so out if you lose it. If so, then that number must be at least an order of magnitude out since 1 / (2 ^ 360) is a ridiculously high number – about the same as being dealt pocket aces on 45 consecutive hands.

AlienBoy · #6 12-21-2006, 10:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]

But over a month of cash play vs. a week of tournament play, yeah, the cash results should show less variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tell that to Daniel Negraenu - on the show "High Stakes Poker", a high stakes CASH game, an interesting hand came up with Negraenu against Hanson - Negraenu made a boat with his pocket 66, and Hanson made quads with pocket 55 - it cost Negraenu $300,000.

Now, if this were a tournament, it would generally cost you ONE entry fee.

What I'm getting at is the rare hands like these can cost you dearly in a deep cash situation, but in a tournament, just the entry fee.

AB

aces_acehigh · #7 12-22-2006, 12:20 AM

You'd obviously see some big name pro's at the top like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow and Barry Greenstein. But there's a lot of top of the line cash game players as well who aren't big name pro take TexasLimitKing for example and many other online poker pros.

lengthy · #8 12-22-2006, 01:26 AM

I think that obviously your going to see the skilled cash game players end up profiting over the course of the month. while the tournament player might win every coin flip situation that comes up, the skilled player is going to out play the others in the long. over a month, luck is not going to be a factor.

Iwineverypot · #9 12-22-2006, 03:39 AM

well think about it, if you end up winning the tournament it is likely that you were chipleader for alot of it, in which case "surviving" a coinflip doesnt mean you're out if you lose.

GiantBuddha · #10 12-22-2006, 06:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Tell that to Daniel Negraenu - on the show "High Stakes Poker", a high stakes CASH game, an interesting hand came up with Negraenu against Hanson - Negraenu made a boat with his pocket 66, and Hanson made quads with pocket 55 - it cost Negraenu $300,000.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's just because they're playing ridiculously higher stakes. If they were playing a cash game with a $10,000 buy in, it would be harder to lose $300K in one hand.