Equating CG and Tournament difficulty

[Invigilator]

I had been focussing on tournament play for the last few months and am shifting back to cash games. It got me thinking about how buy-ins affect the average level of play one will see and how that tends to compare between cash game and tournament play.

Granted, there are some limiting factors to this comparison:

-tournament and cash game strategies / skill sets are different
-short handed vs full ring strategies / skill sets are different

However, lets assume that we can work around some of these considerations.

The 2 basic questions are: Based on your own experiences

a. What buy-in for an open tournament best equates to the level of play you run into at the following cash game limits?

b. is there a level, where this breaks down? in some cases, I imagine we are dealing with comparitive ranges

0.05/0.10 1-4 dollar buy-in? -levels I have dealt with
0.10/0.25 5-10 dollar buy-in?
0.25/0.50
0.50/1.00
1/2
2/4
5/10
10/20
25/50
50/100

[Wes]

If you are talking about live tourneys comparable to online cash games, 3/6+ is prolly harder than any 10k buyin tourney or lower equatable skill wise IMO. Live, probably 10/20 if it is a normal vegas game not during the WSOP = 10k buyin.

I don't play online tourneys so no comment on them.

[Invigilator]

Very good point, and another important consideration. I am primarily looking at equating online No Loimit Hold'em as there is a much wider variety (particularly on the low end) of limits and buy-ins.

[Invigilator]

Bump. No more thoughts on this from anyone?

[Talking Poker]

I have thought about this in the past and again now, and I don't have a good answer for you, honestly.

I know the players in the cash games I play are (on average) much better than the players I play in donkaments - at all levels. But I don't think I can blindly make a statement linking specific cash game stakes to specific tourney buy in levels.

IMO, the $1500 WSOP events play softer than online $200 events which play softer than your average 2/4 (or probably even 1/2) NL table. Go figure.