tourney or cash game?

Tourneys are exciting, but is it more profitable to play ring games (on line)? Should i be looking to play limit, NL or touneys only, or a mixture?

[Jimbo]

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Tourneys are exciting, but is it more profitable to play ring games (on line)? Should i be looking to play limit, NL or touneys only, or a mixture?

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I enjoy eating pork chops because of their texture but is it more healthy to eat only salads? Or should I only eat fish, chicken and the ocassional choclate sundae?

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Tourneys are exciting, but is it more profitable to play ring games (on line)? Should i be looking to play limit, NL or touneys only, or a mixture?

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I enjoy eating pork chops because of their texture but is it more healthy to eat only salads? Or should I only eat fish, chicken and the ocassional choclate sundae?

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This is funny and right

[b33nz]

Well, I'm assuming your a low stakes player so here's my advice:
Don't play limit poker at all. From my experience, limit poker is alot more swingy in the short run than NL poker. It might be hard to believe at first, but I'm sure most would agree with me if they have played both. It's also harder to make money and you need a much bigger bankroll when compared to NL.
I would suggest starting to play the $10+$1 SNGs because you only need a minimum bankroll of about $330 ($400-$500 is good, though). They will also teach you alot about how to play in te NL cash games after you play quite a few tournaments.
Just remember that any low stakes game is not gonna bring you a fortune, so don't expect to be making a ton of money at first.

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From my experience, limit poker is alot more swingy in the short run than NL poker. It might be hard to believe at first, but I'm sure most would agree with me if they have played both. It's also harder to make money and you need a much bigger bankroll when compared to NL.


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Really? I don't know if I agree with this. The reason is that in limit you are only going to lose x amount of money on any single hand. In NL, you can lose your entire stack. I think you need a bigger bank-roll for NL than limit. If you are finding limit to be more swingy you may be playing either too aggressively or chasing draws with incorrect odds.

This has been discussed here repeatedly.
The math has been done. A good player will have much lower variance and higher win rate playing NL holdem vs. Limit holdem. A bad player can hang on to his $ longer at limit. This is both mathematically true AND logical. It's not open to debate.
It would be like debating whether Chess is easier than checkers. Some individuals may find the nuances of checkers to be quite difficult relative to chess, but for the general population checkers is by far the more difficult game to understand.

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Really? I don't know if I agree with this. The reason is that in limit you are only going to lose x amount of money on any single hand. In NL, you can lose your entire stack. I think you need a bigger bank-roll for NL than limit.

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I keep seeing this kind of post, but it's just not true. Your "stack" isn't your life savings, it's the the buy-in. If you play within your bankroll, you can lose your stack a number of times over the course of the session and still be a winner.

The problem people have in NL is playing at two high a level and assuming downswings are never gonna happen. I made this mistake myself.

One way to approach NL is to think of your stack as a bet in itself, and your action during the hands as microbets.

Once you find the proper level for the amount you're willing to risk, NL isn't so scary.

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From my experience, limit poker is alot more swingy in the short run than NL poker. It might be hard to believe at first, but I'm sure most would agree with me if they have played both. It's also harder to make money and you need a much bigger bankroll when compared to NL.


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Really? I don't know if I agree with this. The reason is that in limit you are only going to lose x amount of money on any single hand. In NL, you can lose your entire stack. I think you need a bigger bank-roll for NL than limit. If you are finding limit to be more swingy you may be playing either too aggressively or chasing draws with incorrect odds.

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Limit has some pretty big swings, especially short-handed low limit hold'em. Trust me. Especially, when you new to poker yourself.

Easy money to be made in limit once you get a feel though, and less pressure because of the fixed bets. If you play the way Sklansky says to in SSHE, you should make $$ at a full $0.50/$1.00 no problem, and this is a very unimaginative style of play.

Why choose one, all this stuff about stick to one game is nonsense. Get better at limit, and you will get better at SNG's. My advice is to dabble in many many forms of poker, and keep track through checkyourbets or something. You'll have more fun, learn more, and become more versatile.

As a side string, how many people are sick of people only wanting to play NL hold'em SNG's at home games. It's like the other games don't even exist. I think weak players favor NL hold'em for a single reason, it's easier to win occassionally when you absolutely suck.

Sit n Go and NL Cashgames in other words
tournament play vs cashgame play or two different types of games, and they are played differently. So if you want to learn NL play low stakes cash games(NL), want to improve in tournaments play them.

[Brash620]

Play whatever feels natural. You won't be able to understand all the concepts of a particular disipline at once, start out with whatever makes the most sense now, and if you want branch out latter.