For the purpose of this post and all future posts all games will be NO-LIMIT Holdem.
Whether you choose a one table Sit n Go tournament or big multi table tournament there are a lot of similarities. Be conservative in the early stages of a tournament until you get a good starting hand unless you are running low on chips and then get aggressive. The strategy for a tournament is to survive until the end or make it into the money. Most cash game players are not the best tournament players and vice versa. Why is this? In no limit tournament play you buy in for a specific amount and are given the same number of chips to start as everyone else. In tournament play building a stack is important but in the early stages you are risking a lot to gain a little. In cash games the amount you can lose is the total amount in your bankroll. Since every single chip has a value in cash games, you can lose money real fast and just keep buying more chips hoping to recover your losses. This is the category of cash game player that covers many players today. I have read that 90% of cash players are losers. They probably lose at tournament play as well but the total losses would be considerably less because of the fixed buy in.
Tournament players tend to play too aggressively and too often. Bluffing is a big part of tournament play that does not lend itself well to cash play. Tournament players can get aggressive and bluff profitably if they have accumulated a large stack and are able to push the short stackers into folding all but the best hands. In cash play the blinds are not constantly increasing in value so there in no real reason to bluff often. A good cash game player is a patient player. They tend to wait for a premium hand and trap poorer opponents into "donking" off their stacks with a losing hand.
I tend to play a tight aggressive style of cash game play. I usually wait for good hand and raise it. At an aggressive cash game table it may be better to toss hands that work at less aggressive tables and wait for the premium hand like AA or KK or AKs and try to make your money here. I don't treat AQos as a premium hand anymore because I have lost the most money with it. Even AA and KK can be played poorly and still have disastrous results. The saying that with AA and KK you will either win a small pot or lose a big one is very, very true. Too many players in cash games are willing to take a coin flips for their entire stack. I have been one of these players but on my road to recovery I have resigned myself to walking away from these situations unless I am relatively sure that the other player is bluffing. There will always come a better spot to get your money in the pot than a coin flip.
In tournament play it will be necessary to take coin flips on your road to the final table. It is not possible to survive in a big tournament without taking a big risk now and again. When players reach the "bubble" just before the money most players tend to slow down their aggression for fear of being knocked out of the money. This is an opportune time for the big stacks to pick up the blinds and add to their stacks.
The post has been a bit on the rambling side but this is how I write and these are my opinions and findings. So which is best tournament of cash game? The decision is entirely yours. My preference is a combination of Sit N Go's and cash games with the odd multi-table tournament here and there. It is easy to play a couple of cash games and a Sit n Go at the same time.
I have had extremely positive results playing $10 and $20 buy in Sit no Go tournaments at 6 max tables.
In September and October of 2010 I played 89 of these tournaments and finished in the money 54.3% of the time for a 43.9% ROI. I get good results here but my passion is cash games and I want to get better at cash games where my ROI is way too low.
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