Tournament play vs Cash play

[Zybomb]

I think the DIFFERENCE between the these two types of poker games is huge, and is often overlooked by the majority of poker players.

It is generally said that players who focus on tournament play generally are not good cash game players, because they don't fully understand the virtue of patience, and solid play in cash games.

The issue is, I believe more players tend to be cash players a bit more than tournament players -- and a huge issue comes up...playing too tight and having a lack of aggression. Leaving yourself into vulnerable situations, getting around that 10 BB limit and then resorting to the all in preflop move, leaving your tournament life up to luck

Especially at the World Series, if you look at all of the top finishers (I really didn't see enough of Hachem to know for sure) most of them are extremely aggressive.

David Williams, Josh Arieh, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Sam Farha etc

Sure Dannennmann was tighter, and Harrington is a tight player (but one of the best in the world) -- but to put it simply tight solid play that is very effective in cash games, simply is not good enough (normally) to get you to the top money in a MTT. Your opening hands must be wider, you must play solid hands stronger than normal and you must be willing to take a gamble as long as YOU are the one doing the betting (semi bluffing and betting with outs is huge when combined witht he fold equity it has)

Look at this past years WSOP with Lane Flack and an opponent getting into a raise, reraise, re re raise, call PREFLOP war, with only 45s and 87o respectively.

Phil Ivey and Kevin Blacks preflop K5 vs A2, raise, reraise, re re raise, all in war.

The amount of chips gained in situations like this is crucial, especially when cards aren't coming, if you dont wanna be reduce to pushing with the first good hand you see preflop and leaving it up to luck.

Obviously reads play a big part in this, and online reads are different (if not less frequent) making things difficult.

Stack size plays such an important part in everything as well, with enough chips it allows you to take gambles with outs, to build a monster stack, take more stabs at pots, PLAY YOUR STACK not your cards, and see more flops with hidden hands.

I know TP is already in the Main Event this year and if I ever get my shit together, I'd like to make a serious attempt in the coming weeks to qualify, since I am going to be going down with my friend who qualified either way... so to him and others:

What are some of the different strategies you plan on using during this tournament and how does it change from your cash game play. (I realize that for LIMIT cash game players, the difference is HUGE). Do you agree or disagree with my above comments on the need for aggression in tournaments being severely under thought of? Also, when playing against an aggressive professional opponent at your table, how is the way you treat situations going to change (i.e are you going to value hands a bit more, set more traps, try and fake weakness with questionable bets, fold more and wait for them to bluff when you've got a monster etc)