Tourney v. Cash Games, Q for Paul, Barry, Greg, Annie, et. al.

[CrisBrown]

Hi All,

Paul wrote:

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I suck at cash games and I'm good at tournaments, but even in my moments of maximum self-delusion I can't convince myself that tournaments require more skill than cash games.

In a sense there are more factors that go into decisions during tournaments, but there are also many more automatic or nearly automatic decisions in tournaments than there are in cash games. It's a little bit like comparing holdem to omaha/8. In a sense omaha/8 gives you more to think about, but it's also vastly more straightforward to play well than holdem is.

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In a previous thread (the dreaded Scrabble debate), Paul wrote:

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In competitive scrabble most people don't even know the meaning of most of the words they use. It's too hard to learn all the definitions as well (and knowing them provides almost no value in the context of the game) so we just learn the legal letter combinations.

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I'm wondering -- and Paul, this is not an accusation or an invitation to a flame war -- whether the latter might offer some clue as to the differing skill sets for tournament vs. cash game poker?

As Paul and others have noted, there are many situations in tournament poker where the decisions are automatic, and having a "word list" of such situations is important to tournament play. People who excel at memorizing such lists will have an edge in tournament play over those who don't.

Conversely, (deep money) cash games might perhaps be more contextual. There are fewer automatic decisions, and the overall context has a greater impact on the best way to play a given hand in a given situation. Here, it's not so important to have a "word list" of correct plays as to see how the various elements of a situation interact, analogous to mastering meanings and usage rather than legal letter combinations.

This is not to say that Paul -- or any else with the requisite talent -- couldn't learn to be a top-notch cash game player. I'm sure he could, and will, if he wants to and attacks it with the same dedication he's shown in other areas of his life. I'm simply suggesting it might be one reason that certain kinds of players tend to do better in tournament play, long before they master cash game play.

Thoughts?

Cris