Cash Game Or Tournament
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“Should I play cash games or tournaments” is one of the most common questions asked by new poker players. You will have asked it yourself, I know I have.
Players tend to have already decided on their variant of choice – it is usually No-Limit Hold’em – but cannot make their minds up whether to jump into the tournament arena or sit down at a cash game table. The answer to the question that started this article, like most things poker-related, is it depends.
Both cash games and tournaments have pros and cons. Just like when you are buying a new car, you need to weigh up all of the options before parting with your money. There is no point looking to purchase a Mustang if you need seven seats for all the children. Likewise, tournament poker probably is not for you if you have the attention span of a goldfish because they last several hours.
These are some of the pros and cons to consider if you are deciding to play cash games or tournaments.
Cash Games Pros
Flexibility is a major plus point to choosing cash games over tournament poker. Cash game players can start playing when they want and leave when they have had enough. They can play a single hand and quit the table if they wish.
Being able to dictate their own schedule is a major factor in poker players opting for cash games over any other format. Look at an online poker cash game lobby and you will see games running 24/7.
This leads us onto table selection. Cash game players have more control over the table they are seated at. They can position themselves to the left of the weakest players – the optimal position – or completely avoid tables with solid players seated at them. Being able to do this has a major influence over potential win rates where tournament players are randomly seated and only get to move seats if they bust or the table breaks.
There is a saying that cash is king and this is true in poker. Tournament players may have the occasional big win to boost their bankrolls, but cash games players win more consistently. A winning cash game player will still endure losing streaks, yet nothing compared to a tournament player. Even the best tournament players run the risk of having a losing year at the tables if Lady Luck is not shining on them.
Cash Game Cons
You pay a lot of rake as a cash game player. Tournament grinders are raked once on their buy-in. Cash games are raked almost every time there is a flop. It is almost like the rake is an additional tax on winnings. Online poker sites such as Americas Cardroom, Bovada and Ignition Poker offer loyalty programs linked to the rake you generate. Be sure to check out the best offer for you if you play a lot of cash game poker.
The potential for large losses is another thing to consider if you have not decided whether to play cash games or tournaments. Tournament players can only lose the money the invested in the buy-in, but cash game players can lose their entire bankrolls if they are not careful. Avoid cash games if you are prone to going on full-blown monkey tilt!
Cash game players tend to be stronger poker players than their tournament counterparts. Stacks are deeper more often in cash games and this leads to a more analytical approach. It is rare to find weak players when you move up the stakes in cash games, yet there are terrible tournament players at all levels.
Tournament Poker Pros
Fame and big wins are two of the biggest pros for tournament players. Tournaments are the staple of any poker-related TV show and are what attracts the attention of recreational players. How many times in the last month have you read about a cash game grinder having another profitable week? Compare that to the number of articles you have seen talking about someone winning a tournament.
Tournament players tend to be weaker overall than cash game players. Recreational players are drawn to tournaments by the potential big payout, often 100 times their buy-in, and some treat tournaments simply as an experience. This is especially true at the World Series of Poker where hundreds of God awful poker players buy into the $10,000 Main Event. Playing a $10,000 cash game would see you playing against some elite opponents, your gran would have a shot in the WSOP Main Event!
Tournament Poker Cons
Time is a precious commodity that often seems in short supply and poker tournaments will drain all your available time. The biggest online poker tournaments take up to 15 hours to crown their champion. Some major live tournaments are spread over several days. It’s a hard slog and every minute spent playing the tournament was for nothing if you bust before the payouts.
Cash Game Vs Tournament Dfs
You will also need a much larger bankroll to play poker tournaments regularly. Cash games players can get away with 35-40 buy-ins. Tournament players need a minimum of 100 buy-ins and even that is not likely to be enough. At least double that figure and you are somewhere near.
Also, the swings in tournament poker can be immense, soul-destroying even. Losing for months on end despite playing perfect poker can shatter your self-confidence. Your wallet may recover, your mental state may not.
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing cash games or tournaments. Just give each format a try online for a few days or week before giving the other a go. The one you enjoy the most should be the one that you dedicate your attention to.
Tournaments
If you’ve ever seen PokerStars’ live or online poker coverage, there’s a strong chance that you’ve seen tournament play before. Events such as European Poker Tour (EPT), PokerStars Players’ Championship (PSPC) and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) focus on tournaments with major prizes and glory going to the winner.
The biggest ever poker success story comes from a tournament in 2003 where Chris Moneymaker qualified to the WSOP Main Event for just $86 and went on to win the event for a cool $2.5 million.
Tournaments are scheduled with a stated buy-in, start time, prize structure and starting stack (the chips you can play with). Your buy-in will consist of a contribution towards the prize pool and a smaller fee towards the casino or poker site.
The objective of playing in a poker tournament is to be the last player remaining in the field, but once you lose your chips – and if there is no opportunity to rebuy – then your tournament is over.
At regular intervals, the compulsory blind levels will rise, which means the minimum bet-size escalates and players will have to continuously spin up their stack to be safe from elimination. These intervals are determined by the ‘speed’ of the tournament. Furthermore, after a set number of blind levels, antes are introduced – this means every player starts to pay a fraction of the big blind towards the pot in every hand.
You may have heard of the popular Sit & Go and Spin & Go games, and they are also types of tournaments. These are not conventional tournaments as they start as soon as the predetermined number of players is reached, and in single table tournaments they will be over much quicker than a scheduled tournament. It remains that players will buy in for a certain amount and receive the same amount of chips to use to work their way through the competition.
There are certain nuances to poker tournament play that will see you adapt how you play. Here are some examples:
- Freezeout tournaments: You only have one buy-in, so make it count
- Rebuy tournaments: Everyone has at least one more chance to enter should you bust out, so players may be more aggressive from the start.
- Knockout tournaments: You receive a cash prize for eliminating other players, so look for those opportunities.
- Satellite tournaments: The prizes is an entry to a bigger tournament. If the top prize is the same for a number of players, focus less on being 1st and concentrate on surviving into those prize places.
Cash Game Vs Tournament
Cashgames
Cash games are the purest form of poker. This is the game commonly seen in movies where the hero sits down at a game already underway and starts playing. This happens because unlike tournaments, cash games have no natural start or end time – if there’s a seat open, you can play, and you can leave whenever you like. This is unlike tournaments as you don’t have to wait for a certain number of players to buy-in, or for the start time to come around.
You can buy in for any amount between the lower and upper limits of the table. This is where the fiction of movies diverges from reality, you can’t throw your car keys into the pot – you can only use what you have bought in and is sitting in front of you. Nor can you use stacks of cash – the cash you use to buy in is exchanged for chips worth the corresponding cash value.
Unlike tournaments, going bust in one hand isn’t necessarily the end of your game. If you can afford it, you just pay for a new stack. Similarly, blind levels will not change from the level of the table you sit down at, and you’ll be able to continue playing for however long you like, so long as you still have chips to play with.
Cash games come with their own different types of games also. Not as varied, because cash game is a standard that is difficult to disrupt, but for instance there are Zoom games on PokerStars which see you moved to a brand new table with a new starting hand as soon as you fold. There are also differences in sizes between the tables; you can play at tables with six players, tables with as many as 9 or 10 players, or heads-up against just one other player.
Cash Games Or Tournaments
Which should you play?
This question is up to you. Which game sounds like the most fun to you? Better still, try out each of the games with play money on PokerStars and see which suits you better.
There are other bankroll and playing time considerations – which we will cover in What is the Best Poker Game For You? – but the most important aspect to deal with right now is making sure the game of poker is fun for those playing it.
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