Tourney vs. Cash Success

[braveboat27]

So what makes one successful at tourneys, but not so much in cash games, generally?

[DeadBabySoup]

it's a totally different mentality. in tournaments, your thinking basically is survive early and don't take any unnecessary risks. you want to grind away, staying at or above average chip count until you make the money. after you're in the money, you can take more risks to build your stack and position yourself for the win. once you're on the final table, you get progressively more aggressive as the table gets smaller. in cash games, one hand is just as important as the rest. so someone who plays strictly tournaments may have a hard time adjusting to this. they may play too passive, as they would early in a tournament. or too aggressive as they would later in a tournament.

personally, i do well in tournament play. my ROI is around 45%. i'm profitable in the few cash games i've played. but i've found myself being too aggressive at times and busting out. so i mostly stick to tournaments. the one exception is sometimes i'll sit with $10 in a $.25/$.50 heads up against someone with a big stack. i've done it a few times, usually, i'll bust out. but once, i took $300 off some guy. he was sitting at 6 tables, so i didn't have his full attention. he would call all in with garbage like Q 10 and kept doubling me up. i picked this up from a friend. I watched him take $800 off some guy with $20 once.

[nighthawk1210]

Both two different game styles. Tourney Play to survive. cash is chose when we act in order to inscrase your stack and u can get up any time and sit some where else with same u started but it is more risky in cah games if you dont have any back up.

[thegrizz1111]

hands like AQ and AK which can be played agressively as the blinds get up there in tournaments are the very same hands that can loose you alot of money in cash games and have u leaving the cash game thinking "i cant believe that donkey did that" when in fact you are the one that played incorrectly.

[braveboat27]

Well, another month has closed, and once again, I've shown a large loss in the cash games. I started out in December committed to improving my cash game: playing, reading, posting... I've had fairly modest, but positive, results playing tourneys, but I really wanted to pick up cash skills to subsidize my tourney play. No such luck, so far, at least...

So, for April I've decided to place my focus back on tourneys, while continuing to grind it out at cash, albeit playing fewer hands. UB is running a Steps promotion to the WSOP in Vegas, and although I have no real expectation of qualifying, playing and replaying each Step is excellent SNG practice. (I salvaged my bankroll with a 4th place finish in a 3k GTD Sniper tourney for $215 late in the month.)

I think what's important is that I don't quit on the cash games. I need to re-evaluate, and to redouble my efforts, but I can't quit altogether. I am encouraged by my tourney results, so far, though. I've played five qualifying Step SNGs, and have two second place finishes, and one third. I am on currently on Step 4, playing my second time at this level.

Perhaps I've been looking at this all wrong? Maybe it's my Tourney winnings that should subsidize my cash game play? LOL