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Age Old Question! Tournament pros vs Cashgame pros

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wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 15:28. Posts 6540
Been I while since I've contributed my thoughts to this forum besides the random handhistory commenting. I'd like to share my thoughts on why I think cashgame pros are on average far better than tournament pros. There will always be outliers tho.

I'm going to stay as objective as I can be but since I am a cash game player my argument may come off as one sided. But I invite you to debate/flame/argue your point so I can once and for all know If I'm on the right path.

As a cash game player, I can play up to 1.5mil hands a year and If I am up a significant amount steadily over those 1.5mil hands it is pretty much definitive proof that I am a winner. However for a tournament player to definitively say they are a winner it is much more difficult, lets work on some simple math.

Lets say a super dedicated tournament pro who plays only online (We'll get to live tournament players later) can get about 40 tournaments in a day with an average stake of 50$ and avg field size of 500 (my numbers may be off, if someone here is a tour pro please comment on a more realistic figure) so over the course of one year using 6day work weeks, and 50week work year...

40 X 6 X 50 = 12000 tournaments a year for a super hardworking pro.

Now lets say this pro is super GG at cards like resident hero mig.com and cashes 15% of tournaments and Final tables 6% of tournaments. This is going to be the biggest leap in my argument in saying the hands that REALLY matter are the hands in the final table. Lets say due to the table getting shorter and shorter we get an avg of 80hands/hour at the final table (including break time) and a final table on avg lasts about 2hours at most from my limited MTT experience. Some more simple math we get......

12000 * 6% * 80 * 2 = 115200 hands of significant worth over one year of every day grind.

We all know MTT variance is sick, but if the most amount of volume you can achieve in one whole year is less than what a good cash game player plays in a month or two how can we justify calling them a pro??

I think there are very few pure MTT players out there that have proven themselves, as most of them are young and as my simple math shows it probably would take them a lifetime of playing to play what a cashgame player would in a year.

Now I'm not saying you suck at poker if you've won a tournament, I'm just saying you haven't proven anything.

Let the discussion begin!





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The Last Laugh.Last edit: 28/10/2010 17:23

nolan   Ireland. Oct 28 2010 15:29. Posts 6205

first

On September 08 2008 10:07 Baal wrote: my head is a gyroscope, your argument is invalid 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 15:31. Posts 6540

btw, can mod change title to Age Old Question~~

Its 3:30am and I can't spell for shit.

The Last Laugh. 

TheHuHu3   United States. Oct 28 2010 15:34. Posts 5544



TheHuHu4 coming soon :) 

terrybunny19240   United States. Oct 28 2010 15:36. Posts 13829

lmao that gif is insane


LemOn[5thF]   Czech Republic. Oct 28 2010 15:45. Posts 15163

Who the fuck cares, this industry is about how much you win and also how can you market yourself when it comes to live MTTs.

93% Sure!  

YouGoTGoT   United States. Oct 28 2010 15:52. Posts 1118

Hahah title was so confusing, glad u commented cuz i had no idea wtf Age of Question meant lol.

Couldnt decide if it was Age Old Question, Question for the Ages, or maybe it's something really cool that I don't even know about

YA I TALK SHIT, GOTTA DEFECATE TO CONVERSATE 

YouGoTGoT   United States. Oct 28 2010 15:53. Posts 1118

Oh, ya, the actual post um...

A pro is anyone that does something for a living. So if they make their living playing tournies, they are a pro. I do agree that cash pros > tournie pros

YA I TALK SHIT, GOTTA DEFECATE TO CONVERSATE 

player999   Brasil. Oct 28 2010 15:54. Posts 7978

there's nothing to discuss, everyone knows this

Browsing through your hand histories makes me wonder that you might not be aware these games are possibly play money. Have you ever tried to cash out? - Kapol 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 15:54. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 14:45 LemOn[5thF] wrote:
Who the fuck cares, this industry is about how much you win and also how can you market yourself when it comes to live MTTs.



I think any person who spends most of their time on poker should care~~~

The Last Laugh. 

dogmeat   Czech Republic. Oct 28 2010 15:55. Posts 6374

in b4 'nobody likes u, gtfo'

ban baal 

SirBlotto   Germany. Oct 28 2010 16:04. Posts 1270

i like this argument.




thewh00sel    United States. Oct 28 2010 16:22. Posts 2734

Tournaments are a whole lot of really hard work for a very simple strategy, at least when it comes to non-live big tourneys anyways. no doubt there is a lot more depth to a cash player's game. The difference is that you have to make yourself grind those 1.5mill hands whereas with tournaments once you sign up u have a start and end point so it's easier to grind them. More grueling, but you need less motivation. As far as the numbers go I would say that the hands at the final table aren't the only thing that's important. That's like saying only pots that you were all-in in cash games are important so if out of 1.5million hands you are all in 10% of the time then you only have 150,000 important hands too.

A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. - Ayn Rand 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 16:26. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 15:22 thewh00sel wrote:
Tournaments are a whole lot of really hard work for a very simple strategy, at least when it comes to non-live big tourneys anyways. no doubt there is a lot more depth to a cash player's game. The difference is that you have to make yourself grind those 1.5mill hands whereas with tournaments once you sign up u have a start and end point so it's easier to grind them. More grueling, but you need less motivation. As far as the numbers go I would say that the hands at the final table aren't the only thing that's important. That's like saying only pots that you were all-in in cash games are important so if out of 1.5million hands you are all in 10% of the time then you only have 150,000 important hands too.



Mostly agree, except ur final point, because we are still playing texas holdem so by ur logic then it should be the 120000 hands on the final table and of those the 10% that you are allin so that makes it 12000.

See what im sayin?

The Last Laugh. 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 16:33. Posts 6540

could maybe say all itm hands are significant because they effect ur bottomline, but i chose not to because when your just itm your basically only paying off the buyin and the structure is so top heavy that only the final table make any decent money.

Where as in cashgames, every hand you play will directly affect your bottomline.

The Last Laugh. 

gawdawaful   Canada. Oct 28 2010 17:17. Posts 9012

Theres probably some form of flaw or circular logic going on here but I'm not smart enough to find it. But how can you arbitrarily say only ITM/FT tables affect your bottom line/are important? Suppose the most unluckiest tourney pro gets bubbled every single tournament on a KK vs AA or AA vs KK suckout, does he not play a single important hand at all in the year? Of course thats a super extreme example, but I feel like hands leading up to ITM also have some weight.

On the other hand, if a FPP pro plays 3million hands playing 6/6 at FR or something equally as ridiculous, meaning he only plays 180k hands, how does that compare with someone who plays 1million hands at 22/18 or what have you?

I think at the end of the day, who cares what route one chooses to take to make money so long as its within the legal route. For a cash game pro to shit on tourney pros for not being real pros is akin to having a live pro shit on online pros, or having someone with a normal 9-5 shit on poker players for being lucky degenerate gamblers.

Im only good at poker when I run good 

lostaccount   Canada. Oct 28 2010 17:18. Posts 6433

LOL WOBBLY i know you are good at poker but there is more important things the money and poker. who gives a shit if they are called a pro, donk, bitches, pussies, luckboxes. Just care about your own goals and morals. who gives a shit about other thinks about others. i mean poker is already stressful enough thinking for yourself, now you want to have a debate on a useless topic. Just use your common sense, no one gives a shit about these little things, well maybe btiches do.

making the world better is a goal 

Garfed   Malta. Oct 28 2010 17:23. Posts 4818


  On October 28 2010 14:31 wobbly_au wrote:
btw, can mod change title to Age Old Question~~

Its 3:30am and I can't spell for shit.


done


AndrewSong    United States. Oct 28 2010 18:08. Posts 2355


  On October 28 2010 15:04 SirBlotto wrote:
i like this argument.






LOL this is so funny. More then half of the MTT pros are slaves. cash game pros are boss. its obvious whos better in life and poker


lostaccount   Canada. Oct 28 2010 18:11. Posts 6433

haha love the picture

making the world better is a goal 

jchysk   United States. Oct 28 2010 20:22. Posts 435

Every hand in a tournament is important just as every hand is important in a cash game. The difference is the variance is dynamic in a tournament. As you progress through a tournament your weight or value in it increases, so say you're 80% through the field and only top 10% pays. You may have an average stack and 5x the buy-in in value at that moment, but you can still lose it in a hand. At an FT in a large field tournament the weight can potentially be hundreds of buy-ins over individual hands.
I played over 10k tournaments in 2009 over about 8 months and it's true that a single standard deviation of my bottom line could be $50,000, but if you break things down you see certain consistencies as far as ITM rate over time, graph of placement by %, etc. Playing tournaments with ridiculous field sizes is kind of like playing the lottery with a bit of an edge. I'd say a couple thousand of the tourneys I played were 180-man sngs and you can pretty clearly see a solid winrate with greater 1st place finishes than anything else. These kind of help stabilize some of the variance while you're trying at big scores.
So I think tournaments have a completely different feel and technique and are a lot better for people that have more gamble in them.

w00t 

Baalim   Mexico. Oct 28 2010 20:31. Posts 34304

the answer is more simple wobbly.

Tournament = less blinds, more opponents on the table, cant re-buy = much simpler form of poker


Thats why deep HU is the most complex form of poker there is...

the fact they cant rebuy makes emotional manipulation much less of a factor too.

Ex-PokerStars Team Pro Online 

RiKD    United States. Oct 28 2010 20:59. Posts 9286

well... i agree w/ you overall but think your argument is way too over simplistic and pretty shitty. using your ballpark numbers if every player were equal skill they'd make the final table 1.8% of the time. so how does someone make the final table 6% of the time if only the final table matters? also, to weigh all cash game hands the same is retarded. quick example: 160 hands 1 tabling a sunday major w/ good players sweating/discussing is obviously going to be way more valuable skill/experience wise than 160 hands mindlessly grinding 20 tables of 250+ buyin stakes. same w/ 4 tabling a sicko hu to the death versus the ladder. etc etc etc.

this is a boring/played out argument anyways. just can't pass up the call wobbly a retard in hopes of him losing his cool and entertaining everyone freeroll.

ps. that comic strip is enough entertainment in itself haha


RiKD    United States. Oct 28 2010 21:05. Posts 9286


  On October 28 2010 19:31 Baal wrote:
the answer is more simple wobbly.

Tournament = less blinds, more opponents on the table, cant re-buy = much simpler form of poker


Thats why deep HU is the most complex form of poker there is...

the fact they cant rebuy makes emotional manipulation much less of a factor too.



ding. well said and 4 lines.


wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 23:05. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 19:22 jchysk wrote:
Every hand in a tournament is important just as every hand is important in a cash game. The difference is the variance is dynamic in a tournament. As you progress through a tournament your weight or value in it increases, so say you're 80% through the field and only top 10% pays. You may have an average stack and 5x the buy-in in value at that moment, but you can still lose it in a hand. At an FT in a large field tournament the weight can potentially be hundreds of buy-ins over individual hands.
I played over 10k tournaments in 2009 over about 8 months and it's true that a single standard deviation of my bottom line could be $50,000, but if you break things down you see certain consistencies as far as ITM rate over time, graph of placement by %, etc. Playing tournaments with ridiculous field sizes is kind of like playing the lottery with a bit of an edge. I'd say a couple thousand of the tourneys I played were 180-man sngs and you can pretty clearly see a solid winrate with greater 1st place finishes than anything else. These kind of help stabilize some of the variance while you're trying at big scores.
So I think tournaments have a completely different feel and technique and are a lot better for people that have more gamble in them.



This post and baals post are pretty much the only posts that make any sense. But like I said, i've already said I'm not saying tournament pros are all bad most of them are just unproven winners. And yes if you grind out the big sng games with smaller fields yes it is more possible that you are a great poker player.

What your saying is, everyhand is significant because in tournament poker the 90% of time you played for 10% of value and the rest 10% of time you play for 90% value thus the total value played out avg per hand is the same as cash game. But the problem is that the 10% of value im saying is pretty much meaningless and insignificant to your bottomline compared to 90%. You can run super super bad in those ITM/FT hands and cause all the run good or play good in the first 90% of hands to mean absolute shit. So I'll say it again, there are good poker players who only play MTTs but we dont know who they are. The majority of the MTTs are unproven.

The Last Laugh.Last edit: 28/10/2010 23:17

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 23:10. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 16:18 lostaccount wrote:
LOL WOBBLY i know you are good at poker but there is more important things the money and poker. who gives a shit if they are called a pro, donk, bitches, pussies, luckboxes. Just care about your own goals and morals. who gives a shit about other thinks about others. i mean poker is already stressful enough thinking for yourself, now you want to have a debate on a useless topic. Just use your common sense, no one gives a shit about these little things, well maybe btiches do.



What makes you think I care what other think, If I did I'd be a suck up like everyone else in this world. This topic is far from useless, If I'm right people who play MTTs only may be saved a lifetime of wasted time and be enlightened.

The Last Laugh. 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 23:13. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 16:17 gawdawaful wrote:
Theres probably some form of flaw or circular logic going on here but I'm not smart enough to find it. But how can you arbitrarily say only ITM/FT tables affect your bottom line/are important? Suppose the most unluckiest tourney pro gets bubbled every single tournament on a KK vs AA or AA vs KK suckout, does he not play a single important hand at all in the year? Of course thats a super extreme example, but I feel like hands leading up to ITM also have some weight.

Maybe, I'm hoping someone can if thats the case and enlighten me. People run into coolers and setups just as often in cashgames

On the other hand, if a FPP pro plays 3million hands playing 6/6 at FR or something equally as ridiculous, meaning he only plays 180k hands, how does that compare with someone who plays 1million hands at 22/18 or what have you?

not sure what you mean here

I think at the end of the day, who cares what route one chooses to take to make money so long as its within the legal route. For a cash game pro to shit on tourney pros for not being real pros is akin to having a live pro shit on online pros, or having someone with a normal 9-5 shit on poker players for being lucky degenerate gamblers.

I think there is a definitive better type of poker pro and I think its online cash game grinders > online MTT grinders > live players and if there is sound logic behind it why shouldn't we care. 9-5 compared to poker is comparing apples and oranges tho imo.

The Last Laugh.Last edit: 28/10/2010 23:26

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 28 2010 23:24. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 19:31 Baal wrote:
the answer is more simple wobbly.

Tournament = less blinds, more opponents on the table, cant re-buy = much simpler form of poker


Thats why deep HU is the most complex form of poker there is...

the fact they cant rebuy makes emotional manipulation much less of a factor too.



All true but your off tangent. I'm saying tournament pros aren't proven winners!

The Last Laugh. 

Funktion   Australia. Oct 29 2010 00:35. Posts 1638


  On October 28 2010 22:05 wobbly_au wrote:
What your saying is, everyhand is significant because in tournament poker the 90% of time you played for 10% of value and the rest 10% of time you play for 90% value thus the total value played out avg per hand is the same as cash game. But the problem is that the 10% of value im saying is pretty much meaningless and insignificant to your bottomline compared to 90%.



But you have to apply that same principle to cash games as well. You can't weight and/or apply rules to one set of hands without applying those same bounds to the other set of hands. You haven't standardised the data as far as I can see so your comparison is unfair. You may be getting the correct result but it is based on flawed working.


Maynard!   United States. Oct 29 2010 00:42. Posts 4453

I feel sorry for tournament pros. I would rather have a joe schmo job than be forced to do the tournament grind. Playing 15 hours a day every day seems soul crushing.

One good thing about being a cash game player is I can wake up, take care of all my bills before lunch, and jerk around for the rest of the day.

Now I really am a busto. Thanks FTP. 

asdf2000   United States. Oct 29 2010 01:29. Posts 7708

huhu's gif won this thread

Grindin so hard, Im smashin pussies left and right. 

wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 29 2010 01:44. Posts 6540


  On October 28 2010 23:35 Funktion wrote:
Show nested quote +



But you have to apply that same principle to cash games as well. You can't weight and/or apply rules to one set of hands without applying those same bounds to the other set of hands. You haven't standardised the data as far as I can see so your comparison is unfair. You may be getting the correct result but it is based on flawed working.


Ur completely wrong here, please read what I wrote several times again.

The Last Laugh. 

Its Clayton   United States. Oct 29 2010 03:41. Posts 17

as the author of the comic strip I give my stamp of approval on the blog. it's obv correct.

the thing about tournaments is that the lack of a "long run" makes it more appealing for fish looking to hit the lottery, so the sklansky dollars are going to be absurd for anyone good that can grind them

furthermore you have a lot of nit random grinders who couldn't beat .5/1NL fullring for that $50/hourly but CAN beat mtts for $50/hour, so which one are they gonna pick, obv tournaments DERP.


wobbly_au   Australia. Oct 29 2010 05:36. Posts 6540


  On October 29 2010 02:41 Its Clayton wrote:
as the author of the comic strip I give my stamp of approval on the blog. it's obv correct.

the thing about tournaments is that the lack of a "long run" makes it more appealing for fish looking to hit the lottery, so the sklansky dollars are going to be absurd for anyone good that can grind them

furthermore you have a lot of nit random grinders who couldn't beat .5/1NL fullring for that $50/hourly but CAN beat mtts for $50/hour, so which one are they gonna pick, obv tournaments DERP.




loving the comic, do you have moar?

The Last Laugh. 

Sanity   United States. Oct 29 2010 06:35. Posts 1076

a lot of big tournament players=huge luckboxes imo

cash game takes much more skill obv, agree with baal


Surprise   United States. Oct 29 2010 08:55. Posts 275

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a rofl gif is worth an entire thread.

the games you own at, end up owning you 

Bejamin1   Canada. Oct 29 2010 11:24. Posts 7042

I wouldn't do it by any weird calculation of what hands they play are important.

It's harder to know long-term whether your a winner or loser in tournaments because it's hard to play enough of them. Even at 12,000 tournaments a year that's a pretty small sample size. If we're talking about live tournaments I don't think anyone can play enough of them in their life to know whether they're really that good or they just got lucky to notch a couple huge scores in the 30 or so live events they play per year. I'm not really sure how many live tournaments the average circuit grinder plays including smaller events leading up to main events but yeah still nowhere near enough to get past simple variance.

Sorry dude he Jason Bourned me. -Johnny Drama 

player999   Brasil. Oct 29 2010 14:02. Posts 7978


  On October 28 2010 15:04 SirBlotto wrote:
i like this argument.






how does the "tagging" part work on nude laser tag?

Browsing through your hand histories makes me wonder that you might not be aware these games are possibly play money. Have you ever tried to cash out? - Kapol 

The M Show   Canada. Oct 29 2010 18:26. Posts 278

that would make a great forever alone lol


Maynard!   United States. Oct 29 2010 19:02. Posts 4453


  On October 29 2010 17:26 The M Show wrote:
that would make a great forever alone lol



I made this one a while ago :D:

Now I really am a busto. Thanks FTP.Last edit: 29/10/2010 19:03

BigRed0000    United States. Oct 29 2010 19:30. Posts 3554

loooooooooool awesome cartoons. I completely agree with wobbly's OP.


Oddeye   Canada. Oct 30 2010 19:52. Posts 5107

haha this blog deliver great pics, do make more, way more!


 



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