tourney poker much more skillful than cash poker

[sdplayerb]

I disagree..I think there is a huge edge since most players completely don't know how to play.
I'm talking about at the 3-6 to 5-10 level.
I don't think there is a game where your edge is bigger than O8.
I do agree with you that this should not be the case, as it is pretty straightforward to us that have a clue on how to play. But most people have absolutely no clue.

[TomCollins]

Could it possibly be that in a tournament, you have a set goal, and never give up on it, whereas a cash game, whats a few grand here and there? I would figure someone like yourself would have that problem. I also agree tournaments are less complex than cash games. I also doubt you "suck" at cash games, just you might be more easily outmatched.

[sdplayerb]

PL is superior to NL skillwise.
Is that really debatable?

[Bigwig]

[ QUOTE ]
PL is superior to NL skillwise.
Is that really debatable?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying it's not profitable or beatable. I'm saying the edge your good play attains in omaha/8 is much less than many other games.

[/ QUOTE ]

The edge between good players and crap players is tremendous. The edge between good players and great players isn't that great. That's my take on it.

[Paul Phillips]

[ QUOTE ]
PL is superior to NL skillwise.
Is that really debatable?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure it's debatable. I agree with you but it's not like there aren't arguments in both directions.

For instance, there are players out there who will call for their whole stack drawing nearly dead, even when there's almost nothing in the pot to chase. And there are certain players who are extremely good at quickly spotting that brand of sucker and inducing them to put their whole stack in under those unfavorable conditions.

What exactly is "skill", and what is a good poker player? When people sit around analyzing poker it often becomes too much about details of hands ("he didn't have the odds to call" or whatever) and not enough about getting the money. Who is more skillful, a guy who plays unimaginatively in a style we might unrigorously term "technically correct", or a guy who understands much less about poker but who has an incredible knack for the specific task of busting bad players for their whole stack? If you spoke with each of them for a while you might not doubt the first guy is more "skillful" -- but the second guy might be winning much more in his NL game than the first guy is in his PL game, against an identical caliber of opposition.

Or from another direction, would you rather back someone who played game-theoretically optimally, or an experienced no-limit player who played reasonably well overall but extremely well against bad players? It kind of depends on the lineup, don't you think?

So, to the original point: no-limit games allow people to make far more costly mistakes than pot-limit games do. It's entirely plausible, to me anyway, that there is more skill and more profit available in a game that allows people to make those gigantic errors.

This is theoretical; I'm just making one possible argument (there are others) that no-limit is the more "skillful" game. To tackle this question properly you have to define what you think "skillful" means. Shoot, even "limit poker, the red-headed stepchild" may or may not require more skill than PL/NL.

[sdplayerb]

We had a big discussion on this in the NL forum about a year ago (i can't find it, but I tried)..overwhelmingly we agreed it was PL..not that that makes it a definite, although I don't believe it is really even close.
Just a few quick reasons:
1. Manipulating the pot to make tough decisions for less money
2. Pot building with a big hand
3. Ability to play more hands since nearly impossible to be pushed out preflop with deep stacks, unless two raises
4. People can't do massive overbets with flush draws

I wish more PL tourneys were shown. The only one i saw, at the WSOP, few people had deep stakcs, so still little postflop play.
If everybody even had 15x+ the bb, you wouldn't see all those coinflips..you'd get to see real postflop play.

[sammysusar]

since most hands tend to be played with only two players with the stacks are medium sized relative to the blinds bluffing becomes a more plausible strategy. with somebody acting befind you in multiway pots as will happen in a deep money cash game bluffing becomes a less optimal strategy.

[sdplayerb]

Don’t want to nitpick, as overall you would easily win such a discussion on word choice, but I said is this really debatable, and not is this debatable?

I agree it is debatable, I can make an argument for both sides of almost any argument.
For example, what takes more skill NL where everybody has 100x the BB or 6x.

I could argue 6x has more skill as any decision is for all your chips. If you are wrong you are broke, thus it is more skillful.
I made a relatively decent argument..clearly I am wrong. So it is debatable.
But is it really debatable?
So I meant at the end of any debate, the clearly logical choice is PL. And you agree with this final PL being the right answer.

I agree a definition of skill is needed, and probably defined different by different people. Also there are many different skills in poker: hand selection, reading people, can you make big laydowns, can you make tough calls/pick off bluffs, etc.
For simplicity, I ask the question if I get to play at a cash game where I am the best player, what would I rather play? I would choose Pot Limit.
And if forced to play at a table where I am the worst player (this could be gone into deeper as per if they are better at NL or PL, but how far do we want to go, especially as overall we agree), I would choose No Limit and the main reason is there is more decisions to be made in big hands in PL and the more decisions the more skill, simplistically stated.

Yes, lineups are a consideration. If at a table where everybody will call allin with AT, I’d choose NL quickly.

I won’t reply on limit. That one actually almost can’t be debated.

I think a better debate may be where is the skill gap between PL and NL bigger, cash games or tournaments. I think I’d choose tournaments as it is tougher to take a very good players stack at PL, due to pot size manipulation. But I haven’t thought a ton about it.

[sdplayerb]

That is not true.
You seem many bluffs and semibluffs still.
Also bluffs can be far more skillful. For a super simple example, you can make a bluff that is for 20% of your stack which really is putting the other persons entire stack at risk. So if they are wrong they lose their whole stack, if they are right they win 20% of your stack. That is a skillful bluff.
A bluff doesn't mean you are allin.