Greenstein - Good Article.
 

I like this article.


Adam

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

that was extremely interesting. barry is a badass. i was just asking in another post who the big 4 are in the big game. apparently it's the big 5... barry, chip, doyle, chau, and phil. i'll say they're all badass.

i must be wrong, but i always thought that tournament play required more skill than cash game play. i realize that barry is talking about a special breed of cash player.... but is it true in general that cash games players are the real studs? it just seems to me that tournament play requires two sets of skils, the poker skill and the tourney management skill. but maybe the tournament structure really negates the poker skill necessary to win.

i feel like i may be falling into the trap... buying what ESPN is selling me with daniel n., howard lederer, and other tourney players.

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

My first response too, he's badass. But you are falling into the "trap" if for one second you think tournaments take more skill than cash games. Cash games are the marathon and tournaments are the 20 ft dash.

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

explain. i don't think it's the media that made me think tournaments require more skill. if all you play are tournaments, and you play them all the time, how is that less of a marathon than playing cash games?

my other point... in a cash game you only have to beat 9 players under one set of conditions. in a tournament you have to beat hundreds or even thousands of players. and you have to deal with constantly changing conditions. in a cash game you can just get more chips if you bust... in a tournament you can't just get more chips.

what is it about a cash game that requires more skill?

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

[ QUOTE ]
what is it about a cash game that requires more skill?

[/ QUOTE ]


Its not so much to do with the struture, but the players.

Tournament players face far weaker players. People who arent great players.

In big cash games, the bad players are still very good players. They are just slightly worse than the best.


(FWIW, this is 100% from reading, and 0% from any first hand experience)

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

so that means i'm right. hypothetically....you take any group of players. what's the best way to decide who's the best? play a tournament and see who wins, or play cash games and then see who walks away with the most money? i think the bes tway to decide is to play a tournament.

playing in either situation better players are just plain better players. my point is that the structure of a tournament requires more skill.

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

He implies that a lot of the current "pros" are actually losing players. I'm really curious as to which pro's he's talking about here. It seems like the implication is people like phil helmuth, Negreanu, etc. Anyone know?

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

You are right, this is a good article. The following quote from the article, I found, says it all. [ QUOTE ]
There isn't any tournament player you're going to put in our game who's going to beat it. They'd be drawing dead. They'd be the live ones. We'd play 'til they're broke. But they already are broke, for the most part.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

In a cash game the blinds stay the same.

In later stages of a tourney, as the blinds rise, the players are forced to pick a spot and push with any two cards and the rest of the table knows this is happening.

Re: Greenstein - Good Article.
 

[ QUOTE ]
so that means i'm right. hypothetically....you take any group of players. what's the best way to decide who's the best? play a tournament and see who wins, or play cash games and then see who walks away with the most money? i think the bes tway to decide is to play a tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

I left off the other most important agrument. (after rereading my post, I dont know how I failed to mention this).


Late in tournaments, the blinds:stack ratio dictates your play. Basically, the decent, good and great players are making a lot of the same plays, simply because of the pot size and their stacks.

This tends to blur skill.


This is NOT true in cash games or early in tournaments. As such, cash games are far and away the better skill determinant.