Are Winning Side Game Players Better Than...

[Desdia72]

tournament pros? this subject for a thread came about after reading a comment by Barry Greenstein:

"If you take the winning side game players in most card rooms and finance their tournament schedule for a year, you would have a different set of idols".

if i'm right, i took this to mean that the best side game players across the country would best the regular tournament pros at their own game if they decided to focus on tournament play. who thinks this has some truth to it? before you answer, let's look at what some of the top cash game players i know have done this year.

1. i have read that Daniel Negreanu is a very good cash game player. #1 in Cardplayer rankings up to date:

9 final tables, 2 wins, made the top 5 in 5 of the final tables, WSOP bracelet, $1.5 million won.

2. Barry Greenstein- #3 in Cardplayer:

7 final tables, 3 wins, made top 5 in all but one final table which was 7th, WSOP bracelet, $2.063 million won.

3. Howard Lederer-#7 in Cradplayer rankings:

7 final tables, 2 wins, made top 5 in all but one final table appearance which was a 6th, $768K in winnings

4. Ted Forrest-#22 in Cardplayer rankings:

6 final tables, 3 wins, 4 top 5 finishes out of 6 final tables, 2 WSOP bracelets, $573K in winnings

Barry's comment made me think that if other top notch cash game players around the country chose to bumrush the tournament circuit, then the current tournament players that we idol so much would be replaced by these cash game barons. let the opinions fly.

[Desdia72]

heard that Kaseem "Freddy" Deeb is a regular high stakes player at the Bellagio-#43 in Cardplayer rankings:

3 final tables, 1 win, a 2nd & 3rd, $458K in winnings

[Desdia72]

her first WSOP in Stud 8 this year is a great, $75-$150 and higher Stud side game player in Atlantic City. then you have Jennifer Harmon, who plays with the big boys in Vegas. i hear Annie Duke is a good side game player, too.

[Desdia72]

competition day in and day out, give these elite side game players an edge (i.e. Phil Ivey)?

[ohgeetee]

You know theres a problem when...

the first 4 replies to a thread are you replying to yourself.

I don't think anyone questions how well the most successful side game players would fare if they decided to focus on tournaments. It's been said time and time again, that even the people playing games lower than $1k-$2k couldn't make their hourly wage playing tournaments, regardless of how well they do. Tournaments are there for the exposure and fame.

[Steve Giufre]

Cindy Violette is a big favorite in big stud games at the Taj. But she's also a degenerate gambler and from what I understand usually has to get put in when they play real high. As far as hold em goes I've played 50-100 with her a couple of times and she just barely holds her own.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Desdia,

I think there are several reasons why the best cash game players are better, on average, than the tourney idols.

In most tournaments, except in the early rounds, you're playing on shallow money. That means most of the money is usually going in pre-flop, or on the flop, and there's not a lot of room for post-flop maneuvering. By contrast, in the top cash games, the players are on deep money. Stacks of 500+ big blinds are not at all uncommon. So there's a lot more post-flop play.

That means there are a lot more decisions to make, and thus a greater edge to the skillful players. It's all but impossible for a weak player to sit at a cash game with tough players and come away a winner over any significant length of time. The tough players just have too many opportunities to force the weak players into expensive mistakes. And unlike in tournament play, if the weak player does hit a lucky outdraw to bust a tough player, the tough player can simply reload and take his money back in a later pot.

Second, the top cash game players are used to making high-stakes decisions. In a tournament, there aren't a lot of high stakes decisions until near the end, where the really big prize payouts are awarded. If you buy into a $2500 or $5000 tournament, you have to consider that money already spent. Unless it's a rebuy, you don't have anything more to lose than your initial investment. So it's not as if you lose cash money in a hand until you're fairly deep into the prize money, where winning this pot means jumping up to a significantly higher prize bracket than what you already have sewn up if you lose. Thus, unless you're regularly making final tables, you're not often facing significant financial decisions. You spent your entry fee, and while you'd rather not bust out, it's not as if you're going to lose more than your entry.

By contrast, in the top cash games, you're playing bottom-line poker on every pot. A $50,000 pot lost is $50,000 out of your bankroll, right now. And if that hand puts you on tilt and you lose another $200,000 in the next hour, that's a quarter million dollars out of your operating capital ... if you're smart enough to be playing with operating capital and not eating into your payroll....

When that kind of money is changing hands on a single pot, as it commonly is in the highest cash games, every decision you make has more financial stress attached. Tilt is far, far more expensive, and maintaining emotional control is at an even higher premium than in tournament play. Thus, the top cash game players are, by necessity, people who can keep their cool and continue to play their best game, even when the cards turn ugly. And that's an edge they can and do take into any tournament they play.

Finally, the top cash game players will typically be in games against other very strong players. A few rich whales will sit down -- that's whose money the sharks are dividing up amongst themselves -- but your share of the whales' cash will come in proportion to how well you outplay the other sharks at the table. If you're better than the whales, but significantly weaker than the other sharks, you'll become the table "banker," holding the whales' money until one of the stronger sharks takes it away from you ... along with some of your own.

So yes, the top cash game players have to be able to swim with the strongest of the sharks, and keep pace, in order to get and keep their share of the whales' losses. So they are used to facing much tougher competition (on average) on a constant basis as compared to a typical tournament player.

Tommy Angelo describes tournament poker as trying to play your very best game and, if you do, and you're lucky, getting a seat at the toughest table in the room. The top cash players are always sitting at the toughest table in the room.

I'm sure others will suggest other reasons, but I think these three should tell you why the top cash game players are, indeed, better on average than the tournament idols.

Cris

[Dan Mezick]

D.Neagreanu's tourney stats are skewed because he plays more tourneys that almost anyone. Is his cash:entered ratio really larger than the average pro? I wonder.

For example Hansen plays fewer tourneys and is lower than Daniel in the CardPlayer rankings. Does that make him "less" of a player? What if his cashed:entered ratio is higher, does that make him "more" of a tourney player?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I think Barry's point is that all over the country, there are cash game pros playing 15/30 through 40/80 who have skills equal to or better than the "name" players. Guys like Dynasty and Clarkmeister who don't play tourneys because their hourly rate is better in side games.

For a good 30/60 player to justify playing in the WSOP, he'd have to think he'd finish in the money 2/3 of the time for the investment to make sense.

[West]

Barry G comment:

[ QUOTE ]
The problem I have posting on any of the newsgroups is that it is hard for me to be politically correct. People talk about losing players as if they were top players. (I'm not talking about Gus here. I'm talking about tournament players you may see him outplay.) If you take the winning side game players in most card rooms and finance their tournament schedule for a year, you would have a different group of idols.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to me that what Barry G is getting at is that there are certain players out there who have received a certain amount of adulation from the press (maybe for some success they have had in a tournament or two?), resulting in a reputation among the general poker playing public that maybe does not match their reputation among high stakes cash game players like Barry, who may know or believe these same players to be losing players on balance (or at least maybe losing players at a certain "level" of cash game).

I think it's clearly obvious that the amount of notoriety Gus Hansen has received for his television successess needles him just a little bit, particularly because he apparently has had to read, or has had to hear, results oriented commentary implying that he was outplayed by Gus, when in fact he apparently made excellent decisions against him over and over. He points out that Gus is not among the group mentioned in the above paragraph; it's just that, like those players, his public reputation from his tournament success exceeds his reputation among high stakes cash game players like Barry. He flat out stated, "He is a struggling player in our game."

Playing limit hold em in a cash game is a different game than playing NL hold em in a tournament. Maybe it's true that most of the best players in the world, such as Barry, Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, etc., are "world class" at both. In my personal humble opinion though, I think it's very possible for some players to be top of the heap in one game, and far short of it in the other. Stu Ungar is the classic example - but my opinion isn't based on his example. You're talking about two different games. I'm curious, maybe Barry could tell us if there are any other players who have had a long run of tournament success over the years who to his knowledge, haven't done close to as well in big cash games?

Today's environment has created a climate though that's obviously different from the past. Tournament poker is what is on TV. High stakes cash games aren't. Players can play tournaments online around the clock. I think it's a natural consequence that there will be players who might develop a very good NL tournament game, who might at the same time be essentially dead money in some cash games. Twenty years ago, could there have been players who tended to stick to playing tournaments?

I don't doubt for one second though that there are players who have had some success in big tournaments who, in the long run, may actually be far less successful as tournament players, and/or cash players, than many would think. I think when Barry says something like,

[ QUOTE ]
You guys think it's neat that Doyle can still compete. Reality: Doyle still plays better than the tournament people you idolize.

[/ QUOTE ]

he really should qualify statements like that, because he's really projecting an opinion that he may have seen expressed here or there (maybe not even on this forum) on everyone reading. And you'd be lucky to get people to agree on the shape of the earth, let alone on how good Doyle Brunson still is, or just who it is we "idolize".

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Desdia,

I think there are several reasons why the best cash game players are better, on average, than the tourney idols.

In most tournaments, except in the early rounds, you're playing on shallow money. That means most of the money is usually going in pre-flop, or on the flop, and there's not a lot of room for post-flop maneuvering. By contrast, in the top cash games, the players are on deep money. Stacks of 500+ big blinds are not at all uncommon. So there's a lot more post-flop play.

That means there are a lot more decisions to make, and thus a greater edge to the skillful players. It's all but impossible for a weak player to sit at a cash game with tough players and come away a winner over any significant length of time. The tough players just have too many opportunities to force the weak players into expensive mistakes. And unlike in tournament play, if the weak player does hit a lucky outdraw to bust a tough player, the tough player can simply reload and take his money back in a later pot.

Second, the top cash game players are used to making high-stakes decisions. In a tournament, there aren't a lot of high stakes decisions until near the end, where the really big prize payouts are awarded. If you buy into a $2500 or $5000 tournament, you have to consider that money already spent. Unless it's a rebuy, you don't have anything more to lose than your initial investment. So it's not as if you lose cash money in a hand until you're fairly deep into the prize money, where winning this pot means jumping up to a significantly higher prize bracket than what you already have sewn up if you lose. Thus, unless you're regularly making final tables, you're not often facing significant financial decisions. You spent your entry fee, and while you'd rather not bust out, it's not as if you're going to lose more than your entry.

By contrast, in the top cash games, you're playing bottom-line poker on every pot. A $50,000 pot lost is $50,000 out of your bankroll, right now. And if that hand puts you on tilt and you lose another $200,000 in the next hour, that's a quarter million dollars out of your operating capital ... if you're smart enough to be playing with operating capital and not eating into your payroll....

When that kind of money is changing hands on a single pot, as it commonly is in the highest cash games, every decision you make has more financial stress attached. Tilt is far, far more expensive, and maintaining emotional control is at an even higher premium than in tournament play. Thus, the top cash game players are, by necessity, people who can keep their cool and continue to play their best game, even when the cards turn ugly. And that's an edge they can and do take into any tournament they play.

Finally, the top cash game players will typically be in games against other very strong players. A few rich whales will sit down -- that's whose money the sharks are dividing up amongst themselves -- but your share of the whales' cash will come in proportion to how well you outplay the other sharks at the table. If you're better than the whales, but significantly weaker than the other sharks, you'll become the table "banker," holding the whales' money until one of the stronger sharks takes it away from you ... along with some of your own.

So yes, the top cash game players have to be able to swim with the strongest of the sharks, and keep pace, in order to get and keep their share of the whales' losses. So they are used to facing much tougher competition (on average) on a constant basis as compared to a typical tournament player.

Tommy Angelo describes tournament poker as trying to play your very best game and, if you do, and you're lucky, getting a seat at the toughest table in the room. The top cash players are always sitting at the toughest table in the room.

I'm sure others will suggest other reasons, but I think these three should tell you why the top cash game players are, indeed, better on average than the tournament idols.

Cris

[/ QUOTE ]

loved it. kind of makes me think this is why Phil Ivey is so good, especially at a final table. he's always exposed to the strongest players on the planet in these big cash games so a tourney final table is like jellybeans to a brazil nut.

[Desdia72]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Barry's point is that all over the country, there are cash game pros playing 15/30 through 40/80 who have skills equal to or better than the "name" players. Guys like Dynasty and Clarkmeister who don't play tourneys because their hourly rate is better in side games.

For a good 30/60 player to justify playing in the WSOP, he'd have to think he'd finish in the money 2/3 of the time for the investment to make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

good point. that's probably why these same players wait until the stakes and prize pools are bigger (i.e the big 10K
buy-in events that pay $500K-$1Mil + for 1st or the 25K Bellagio event)to justify playing.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Look at it from an hourly rate perspective. If you play 30/60 and make 1.5bb/hr, that's $90/hr. In the WSOP, you're likely to have to invest a minimum of 60 hours playing. That amount of time at your normal game would give you $5,400 of earnings, thus you would have to hit the money at the WSOP much more than half the time to justify playing.

I think a large number of professional 30/60 and up players would consider entering the WSOP as the equivalent of buying a $10,000 lottery ticket.

[SmileyEH]

[ QUOTE ]
Look at it from an hourly rate perspective. If you play 30/60 and make 1.5bb/hr, that's $90/hr. In the WSOP, you're likely to have to invest a minimum of 60 hours playing. That amount of time at your normal game would give you $5,400 of earnings, thus you would have to hit the money at the WSOP much more than half the time to justify playing.

I think a large number of professional 30/60 and up players would consider entering the WSOP as the equivalent of buying a $10,000 lottery ticket.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dissagree with the math here. On average a 30/60 player will not last 60 hours, therefore his lost equity isn't as great. If he is a good tournament player his ROI should be around 100% (random but reasonable number) given the great structure of the WSOP. So every time he plays in the main event he "makes" $10000. I'm sure he would average less than 100 hours of play per WSOP therefore it is a +EV situation for him.

-SmileyEH

[MMMMMM]

"he is a good tournament player his ROI should be around 100% (random but reasonable number) given the great structure of the WSOP."


I am just curious on what basis you consider this to be a "random but reasonable" ROI. Sounds too high to me.

[whiskeytown]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ted Forrest IS a side game player and high stakes player who would have lost money playing tourneys because of the time he wasn't playing high stakes -

but now the fields are bigger, so it's a bit more profitable for him, and he does it more often - or so that's what Felicia Lee told me - Jenn H. is the same way - her tourney wins aren't that significant compared to those huge ring games she plays... - in fact, I can't think of anything big in the tourney world she's done that would make her stand out, but her rep. (partially built up by Daniel N.) as being one of the best cash game players in the game is what she's remembered for.

RB

[FeliciaLee]

I think Ted wanted to beat his own record. That was along the lines of something he told me. I'm sure that the large fields, with bigger prize pools had a lot to do with it, too, lol.

Felicia /images/graemlins/smile.gif
www.felicialee.net (http://www.felicialee.net)

[ohgeetee]

While your post makes sense, I think that when barry speaks of high stakes players, he is talking at minimum $2k-$4k, and I have a feeling he might mean even higher, like $30k-$60k.

All that does is furhter illusrate the point of hourly rate in tournaments though, which is, it doesn't stack up to what htese guys make in cash games. its for the fame and notoriety.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
While your post makes sense, I think that when barry speaks of high stakes players, he is talking at minimum $2k-$4k, and I have a feeling he might mean even higher, like $30k-$60k.

All that does is furhter illusrate the point of hourly rate in tournaments though, which is, it doesn't stack up to what htese guys make in cash games. its for the fame and notoriety.

[/ QUOTE ]

Doing some basic math, figure Barry plays 30 hours per week, 50 weeks a year, and makes 2xbb/hr. That puts him playing 200-400. Figure if he's a millionaire he plays a bit less than 50 weeks a year, maybe he's playing 1k-2k, which i've heard is the big game at Bellagio.

I have a hard time seeing him play 30k-60k without a backer as a 300BB swing would be about $18MM. Maybe Barry's got enough dough stocked away to weather a swing like that, but its seems more likely he's at in the 1k-2k range.

g

[bobby rooney]

Elite side game players are in fact better than top tourney players---at winning money in side games. Top tourney players are better at tourneys than most top sidegame players. A few people, like Greenstein, Ivey and some others are successful at both. They really are two different games, and I'm very impressed by those who can do both.

[bulletspoker]

What kind of games do high stakes cash games player normally play? High stakes limit or no limit??

[ohgeetee]

The regular games are limit, but I doubt they shy away from sitting down at a $5-$5 or higher NL table and tearing it up there as well. The Big Game at the bellagio that everyone talks about is limit poker, mixed game.