tourney poker much more skillful than cash poker

[Easy E]

Sounds more like a no-brainer situation to me, if we're talking about tournaments. A chance to bust someone with little risk to your stack? What's there to think about?

I don't see that as "skillful"

[CrisBrown]

Hiya sd,

Ahhh ... the old PL/NL discussion. I look at two factors: (a) how many decision-points there are; and, (b) the cost of mistakes. Assuming decisions of roughly equal subtlety, the more decision-points there are, the greater the edge to the more skillful decision-maker. The greater the cost of an average mistake, the greater the premium on mistake-free play.

On very shallow money, I don't think there's all that much difference between PL and NL play. Even in PL, most of the money can go in the pot very early in a hand, so there are not many more decision-points than in NL play. In either game, a single mistake can cost your entire stack.

On modest stacks -- say, 75-200xBB -- I think PL gives the better balance. There are more decision-points because the betting extends over more streets, but a single misplayed hand can still empty a stack.

On very deep stacks, I think the balance shifts to NL. In most cases, players won't simply shove their chips in early on very deep money, so you'll still see multiple decision-points in an average pot. But where it might be difficult if not impossible to get an opponent's entire stack in PL, you still can in NL.

Given the typical online stack -- 75-200xBB -- I prefer to play PL when I can. Given very deep money, I prefer NL.

Cris