Tourney thoughts and questions

[Van_Broke]

I am mostly a cash game player but once in a while I play a tourney or SNG. I cannot see how good players have much of an advantage in these compared to cash games, maybe you guys could enlighten me. I will use Pokerstars for reference which is apparently one of the better structured sites.

So often I see tourneys where you catch absolutely nothing for the first two blind levels. Maybe you have limped in late position with a couple small pairs or connectors and missed and you have a stack around 1200. So lets say the blinds are at 25/50 and you look down at AK. You raise it up to 200, get two callers. Flop comes down AT5, looks pretty sweet, you bet out 400 into the pot and get one caller. You are committed to this hand as far as I can tell, you pretty much have to move in no matter what the next card is. So basically your whole tourney comes down to a hand where you have to go all the way with TPTK, and could be up against 2p, or a set, or get outdrawn. Whereas in a cash game you have plenty of room to get away from this hand if need be. Would you guys agree with that?

Second, I find late in tourneys are nothing but all-in fests. And I don't blame the players, christ the average stack is usally less then 20bb, and the median stack is even less than that. The majority of the players have an M (Harrington) of less then 10. Very rarely do I see any room for postflop play here except in the odd unraised pot. This part just seems like race, race, race, dominating once in a while, and try not to be dominated.

Third, how important are notes really given the above? To me it would seem that notes on how players play early in a tourney when you have a little breathing room would be useful in future tourneys, and later in a tourney having notes on a player about what he is capable of pushing and calling with would be useful in future tourneys, but I see no use of early tourney notes to be used later in that particular tourney. The play is just too different. So do you guys take notes to be used in future tourneys, or later in that particualr tourney, or both?

[badblood44]

Tournaments simply have a higher variance than cash games due to the structure and rising blind levels.

Good players will prevail.

But...it will take more samples to prove this point.

[nflchad]

Short blind levels lower your EV per tournament (assuming your good post flop) but at the same time also allow the fishies to take down a tournament every once in a while. For example, poor players would be far less likely to win a stars deepstack tourney(lots of chips, long blind levels) than they would be to win a Party Touney(Few chips, short blind levels).

As for you AK example, you would only have 600 chips left to put in the pot on the turn, so why not put it all in the flop. Put your opponent to a decision, show him that our commited to the hand and that your not going anywhere. Basically if 1/3+ of your chips are going into the pot on a raise you might as well put them all in and test your opponent.

Notes are fairly useless in tournaments since its not very likely that you'll keep running into those people.

[Zybomb]

This is a very interesting point. I agree that in cash games you can sit and be more patient, play tighter preflop, use your superior post flop play, pick your spots, and in the long run come out on top

In tournaments theoretically it should be the same, but the 'longrun' might be a little longer since there are more variables

- increased blinds force more action, thus you have to loosen up preflop, play more aggressively etc
- if you arent getting quality starting hands you have to begin to play trash, blind steal and bluff
- pot size and pot odds become less of an issue at times, since like you said, you can often committ yourself to a pot easily

And also yes late in tournies it does often become two card poker, especially tournaments with vicious blind structures.. in these situations its aggression which pays off most, and a lot of luck is involved (coin flip and 60 40 situations need to be won)...notes arent as effective during the FT of a tourny....its pretty much straight aggression and an occassional flop decision

[Danjiro]

I think the main difference between tourney play and cash games can be boiled down to:

Tourneys:
You can make a big mistake as long as your stack can handle it and quality short stack play can result in a come back. Tourneys are forgiving and you only lose what you put in.

Cash Games:
You can't make a big mistake at a cash game vs other players with significant stack sizes. If you come in with a bankroll of 1k and you're up for the night $5k after putting you're stack to the test and then you run into a huge hand that results in a crippling of your entire bankroll and winnings for the night you are going home broke.

Cheers,
Danjiro/BonusJunky