Hey everyone, Happy 2011!
After a really fun weekend in London celebrating New Years Eve with friends I'm 100% ready to get back to the tournament grind fresher than ever. The last couple of weeks I've taken off have me more hungry than ever for success and hopefully 2011 will be a big year for me, and for all my readers I hope 2011 is a massive year for you too, be it poker or whatever your passion.
I've taken this blog to discuss something I've been considering a long time, cash games or tournaments? I genuinely admire live players who make serious bank from both tournaments and cash games. From my time in the Dublin poker scene theses rare cash game/tournament hybrids are few and far between.
Cash games in Dublin are generally €1-€2-€5 or 50c-€1-€3. These games generally play pretty similar to each other with the average amount at the table being €100-€150 per player when a game is in full flight. The variance in these games is MASSIVE! I started out playing cash and went on a sick rush of multi buy-in gains per session simply by playing tight ABC poker and set mining. I thought it would never end, but I soon realised my big hands had been holding for me and this couldn't last forever. It didn't. After getting it all in numerous times being a massive favorite and losing a few sessions I was mega steamed and I began to question my cash game. I came to the conclusion that to beat variance and a pretty massive rake, a serious amount of volume was needed to make a nice living. This is when I began to play tournaments for fun more so than anything.
Tournaments then became a massive area of interest for me. I quickly learned a winning strategy for these things. I was once a sick sit n go degenerate online so I know how to play shallow average stacks as well as anyone I know. This was massive for me. I began to realise that the RoI for these things were huge. Its so easy to gain a reputation as a good tournament player too. After a period of success I was playing a tournament in a Dublin casino and was seated beside this nice man I had never played before, he asked my name and I replied 'Carl Morrissey' and shook his hand. He replied, 'Carl Morrissey? Someone just told me you're the best player in this place!'. With a rep like that people do not want to mess with you and give you respect for a hand everytime. Its pretty cool. Unlike rake, reg fees for me are easily beatable. Avg reg fee is usually €5-€10 whereas rake is 5% capped at €20 in the cash game at my home club.
The reason i'm so impressed with successful players in both cash and tourneys is all the cash game players think the tournaments are too small and a waste of time and the tournament players think the cash games are just places to get bad beats to blow their bankroll. Its a difficult adjustment.
I know if I was to give cash games an extended run and put in the hours I would be a winning player, I know for a fact I study the game more and have better strategic poker thinking than 90% of the cash game players out there, I just really don't want to.
I love tournaments, everything about them. I love the adjustments as the tournament proceeds, I love the money bubble, I love final tables and I love winning titles/tournaments more than anything. I feel so lucky to be making money at something I have such passion for and long may it continue.
Run Good in 2011 Everyone - Carl.
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