You clearly just need a tweak here and there in your game Tony (Don't we all) I really don't like the limp/call with J,9 UTG. Just fold and wait for the next hand. This is where multi tabling can be so much more profitable, when you have enough tables that you can cope with then you just fold hands like these without even thinking. Stops these horrible little spots.
Once you move up stakes you will not get away with limps like these, I would say a limp UTG is followed by a raise in the cut-off or button 90% of the time at 50nl and higher. Open with a raise if you are going to play some weird hands and then they are totally disguised.
Great replies by Penguin, Flashy, Dohhh, & Jamie, in particular, but good Posts by everyone, really.
Penguin's reply was awesome - he so knows where he is in his poker life, talking about the buzz he - we - get from Tourneys - & a great one liner by Dohhh - "once you get to to turn you stack off 100% every time".
Flashy put it well, too - by Multi-Tabling Cash, you just don't get into those tricky spots, you are too busy to be bothered with that limp-calling nonsense, & the Regs will slaughter you with betting as soon as they suss you are trying to serial-limp.
The truth is, I don't know how it would be measured, but the variance in Cash Poker is massively less than Tourney Poker, yet few seem to realise that.
Am LOVING this Thread, some terrific Posts in it, the Forum is getting better balance.
By the bye, if you enjoy watching the High-Rollers crash into each other, there were no less than THREE £5 £10 Tables on the go last time I looked, one player is on all three, & he's been busy on the bigger Tables all morning, or since I first looked, at about 8am.
He's a new name on Sky Poker, to me at any rate, but I did some detective work, & I discovered he's got a decent record in Live Tourneys. BIG player.
I was watching a couple of regular high rollers going at it heads up on Monday night. It does put what I am trying to do into perspective, doesnt it ?
Great to watch, there was 13k on the table going backwards and forwards. What sort of poker bankroll do these guys have to play this? To me six figures would not even be halfway there.
Just want to say thanks for all of the advice offered on here. Many, many names I respect with useful thought provoking stuff. And I am taking it all in.
""The truth is, I don't know how it would be measured, but the variance in Cash Poker is massively less than Tourney Poker, yet few seem to realise that.""
I hope Tony does well in cash and I know he has the pedigree to succeed in his quest. I also have been,and will be, keeping an eye on this thread to see how he progresses.
Not being a cash player myself, can Tikay (or someone else) explain the above sentence please. As I see it, if you are mainly a Tournament player you know EXACTLY how much you can win/lose at any one time due to knowing the buy in amount and prize pool fund. If however you are playing cash, how do you know how much you will win/lose until after a session has finished?
Like I say, I don't play cash ATM, but like a few (Greggygooner etc) have indicated, might have a dabble in the not too distant future but really need to learn more about this different 'mind set' that is needed.
I think you may be slightly on the wrong tack there, or, more likely, I am!
It's got nothing to do with knowing how you are running viz-a-viz your Bankroll.
The reality is, a competent cash player, playing, say, 6 Tables, will rarely lose on the night, & almost never over a week, or a month. In fact, if he/she is "competent", they will almost NEVER lose over say, 1 month periods, or, say, 5,000 or 10,000 hands.
But the best Tourney player on earth can go months without a single Cash. And then bink a big one, & come out ahead. That's assuming they are still around, & have not gone busto by then. You may have seen James Keys on Sunday's 865 Show, he just shipped $A1,100,000 in the Aussie Millions. Very nice - but he had to sell 60% of himself to be able to play it.
A good, or competent, cash player should never need staking, there is just no point, they are kidding themselves if they are staked. IMO, of course.
A large % of high-level Tourney players HAVE to be staked, as their rolls will not be adequate to handle Tourney variance. And some of them never get out of make-up, because, in Tourney poker, "the long run" is exactly that.
I made the switch from dyms / mtts solely to cash a few months back. I would class myself as experienced but still needed to change my game quite a bit when i changed!
I feel my game has developed a great deal - definitely more aggressive now. However, I have since struggled to adapt back when playing mtts - I found making decisions with the 'cash head' on where I'd be able to reload in cash whereas in the past i'd have passed and waited for a better spot in mtts. It's a fine balance but u are good enough to adjust to both.
My advise would be to play a cash amount (br permitting) which 'means something'. By nature, ur concentration level is higher, for example in Primo to a £2 mtt, purely from a money standpoint. The same is definitely true to cash. .15/.30 is a great stake to learn cash with decent players (generally) but also for a meaningful amount.
It seems strange that I am very unsure of playing cash because of the, how I see it anyway, high losses that could occur if running bad. In MTT's I am getter better at understanding variance/down swings and somehow I am still in profit overall like Tony is. Cash poker fills me with fear ATM due to the possibility of going broke while starting out/learning this particular version of on line poker.
Yes, Thank you Tikay. It seems strange that I am very unsure of playing cash because of the, how I see it anyway, high losses that could occur if running bad. In MTT's I am getter better at understanding variance/down swings and somehow I am still in profit overall like Tony is. Cash poker fills me with fear ATM due to the possibility of going broke while starting out/learning this particular version of on line poker. Posted by MAXALLY
With that "nit bankroll" mindset, Alan, you would never go broke at cash. You could, though, go busto in Tourneys, as the variance is so massive.
In fact, having watched you play, I think you'd do very well as a cash player.
Bankroll rules? ajs4385 put it superbly on last Saturday's Show. He starts every Monday with "30 Buy-Ins" & the next Monday morning, he withdraws or deposits back to that. Simple.
In Tourneys, you cannot do it that way - the payback can take months.
As long as you bankroll properly in cash, there should be no chance of going bust (if your a winning player). Having a 10+ buyins downswing very rarely happens so if you have say 30 buyins, it wouldnt affect you too much. If you did lose 10 buyins there is always the option of moving down stakes and rebuilding. The key thing is to stay positive and confident in your own game.
Very good read this. Best of luck Tony. I made the switch from dyms / mtts solely to cash a few months back. I would class myself as experienced but still needed to change my game quite a bit when i changed! I feel my game has developed a great deal - definitely more aggressive now. However, I have since struggled to adapt back when playing mtts - I found making decisions with the 'cash head' on where I'd be able to reload in cash whereas in the past i'd have passed and waited for a better spot in mtts. It's a fine balance but u are good enough to adjust to both. My advise would be to play a cash amount (br permitting) which 'means something'. By nature, ur concentration level is higher, for example in Primo to a £2 mtt, purely from a money standpoint. The same is definitely true to cash. .15/.30 is a great stake to learn cash with decent players (generally) but also for a meaningful amount. Posted by phil12uk
Now this is interesting ! So cash has made you more aggressive ? Maybe this is the mental jump I need to make. When on top tournament form I would say my style is pretty aggressive.
If I have 3 or 4 tables open for an hour or so, I feel confident in my ability to edge my stacks upwards across them. But I always have the fear of stacking off on one of them and all that effort going to waste (as happened last night!). So a lot of the time I think I am not as aggressive as I am at MTT, and too tight. I suppose the key must be picking the right spots for aggression.
Your point about needing to play for a meaningful amount to maintain concentration is also very relevant. I am probably overbankrolled to be playing 15/30, a bad outcome like last night was not that important. I drew a blank in tournies too and that cost me a bit more ! But I will stay here and relish the challenge of beating this level before thinking of moving up.
I dont want playing cash to affect my tournament play. I think I can always spot the cash guys in tournies, they do have a different style (not saying its better or worse !!). But it does highlight the need to develop a cash head separate to my tourny head.
Yes, Thank you Tikay. It seems strange that I am very unsure of playing cash because of the, how I see it anyway, high losses that could occur if running bad. In MTT's I am getter better at understanding variance/down swings and somehow I am still in profit overall like Tony is. Cash poker fills me with fear ATM due to the possibility of going broke while starting out/learning this particular version of on line poker. Posted by MAXALLY
The best way to ensure this doesn't happen is play at a level well within your bankroll and set a limit to how many buyins you would lose in a session before quitting.
So say you started at 2p/4p and the max buyin is £4,set a limit of only losing two or three buyins at that ammount before logging off for the day. Tbh though that should rarely happen, especially if you're multi tabling.
In Response to Re: So lets have a go at this cash game! : The best way to ensure this doesn't happen is play at a level well within your bankroll and set a limit to how many buyins you would lose in a session before quitting. So say you started at 2p/4p and the max buyin is £4,set a limit of only losing two or three buyins at that ammount before logging off for the day. Tbh though that should rarely happen, especially if you're multi tabling. Posted by AcidMan27
In Response to Re: So lets have a go at this cash game! : The best way to ensure this doesn't happen is play at a level well within your bankroll and set a limit to how many buyins you would lose in a session before quitting. So say you started at 2p/4p and the max buyin is £4,set a limit of only losing two or three buyins at that ammount before logging off for the day. Tbh though that should rarely happen, especially if you're multi tabling. Posted by AcidMan27
3 and 4 buyin swings happen all the time. Stop playing when this happens is not recommended imo. If you feel your playing fine and just been unlucky I wouldnt stop playing, if there are bad players at the table that you can easily get your money back off, I wouldnt stop playing. However, If I felt I was tilting, or making bad plays, playing bad, whatever, I would stop playing.
Mr Stroud! Great thread, great stuff. I have a fairly good idea how you play, & I think you'll make a nice steady income if you concentrate on cash games. I'm not quite so sure that you should mix cash, & Tourneys much, though, as the two are very different, & require a completely different mindset. The "Big Boys" tend to take the following line - grind it out on the Cash Tables, nick a few bob regularly, & if they have a good week, treat themselves to a nice Tourney or two, for fun & relaxation. I know hundreds of winning cash-game players. I know a dozen or so winning Tourney players. Largely speaking, one's for money, the other is for fun. See you in Luton, March 12th. Come up on the Friday evening if you can, it'll be a good Friday Night Tourney. Posted by Tikay10
I have met Tony at a few SPT events and come across him many times on the tables. I have great respect for his game and feel sure that he will make a success from the "cash" game as he does from the "tourny" game and I will watch this thread with great interest.
I used to dabble on the cash tables, I have to say very badly. I had a long chat with GliterBabe about cash in Blackpool and decided to have a serious go at it. I started at the beginning of November and have had some ups and downs as may be expected. Like Alan (Maxally) I had the fear of going busto if I had an extended bad run. The reality has been that, in almost 4 months, I have played about 350 tables at £8nl, £10nl and £20nl, allowing myself a br of 10 buy ins (ie £200). I play on 3/4 tables at a time (I hate mini view) and have found that even if I have a bad time on one table, the others tend to make up for it. I lost 23 buy ins in Nov/Dec, 13 in Jan (never more than 1 in any session), but I have not lost any in Feb. So I have lost my buy in at 10% of the tables I have played. That does not sound very good and it probably isn't. However, I must be learning something as whilst I lost money over Nov/Dec, I have turned that round since January and feel confident that I can make progress going forward and I am no longer in fear of losing my br "in a hurry".
In Response to Re: So lets have a go at this cash game! : 3 and 4 buyin swings happen all the time. Stop playing when this happens is not recommended imo. If you feel your playing fine and just been unlucky I wouldnt stop playing, if there are bad players at the table that you can easily get your money back off, I wouldnt stop playing. However, If I felt I was tilting, or making bad plays, playing bad, whatever, I would stop playing. Posted by 5toneFace
So if you lost three buyins due to bad beats it wouldn't put you on tilt ? I know it does for me so I go and have a break.
Comments
Once you move up stakes you will not get away with limps like these, I would say a limp UTG is followed by a raise in the cut-off or button 90% of the time at 50nl and higher. Open with a raise if you are going to play some weird hands and then they are totally disguised.
Goodluck and see you @ Luton
Great replies by Penguin, Flashy, Dohhh, & Jamie, in particular, but good Posts by everyone, really.
Penguin's reply was awesome - he so knows where he is in his poker life, talking about the buzz he - we - get from Tourneys - & a great one liner by Dohhh - "once you get to to turn you stack off 100% every time".
Flashy put it well, too - by Multi-Tabling Cash, you just don't get into those tricky spots, you are too busy to be bothered with that limp-calling nonsense, & the Regs will slaughter you with betting as soon as they suss you are trying to serial-limp.
The truth is, I don't know how it would be measured, but the variance in Cash Poker is massively less than Tourney Poker, yet few seem to realise that.
Am LOVING this Thread, some terrific Posts in it, the Forum is getting better balance.
By the bye, if you enjoy watching the High-Rollers crash into each other, there were no less than THREE £5 £10 Tables on the go last time I looked, one player is on all three, & he's been busy on the bigger Tables all morning, or since I first looked, at about 8am.
He's a new name on Sky Poker, to me at any rate, but I did some detective work, & I discovered he's got a decent record in Live Tourneys. BIG player.
Great to watch, there was 13k on the table going backwards and forwards. What sort of poker bankroll do these guys have to play this? To me six figures would not even be halfway there.
Just want to say thanks for all of the advice offered on here. Many, many names I respect with useful thought provoking stuff. And I am taking it all in.
Alan,
I think you may be slightly on the wrong tack there, or, more likely, I am!
It's got nothing to do with knowing how you are running viz-a-viz your Bankroll.
The reality is, a competent cash player, playing, say, 6 Tables, will rarely lose on the night, & almost never over a week, or a month. In fact, if he/she is "competent", they will almost NEVER lose over say, 1 month periods, or, say, 5,000 or 10,000 hands.
But the best Tourney player on earth can go months without a single Cash. And then bink a big one, & come out ahead. That's assuming they are still around, & have not gone busto by then. You may have seen James Keys on Sunday's 865 Show, he just shipped $A1,100,000 in the Aussie Millions. Very nice - but he had to sell 60% of himself to be able to play it.
A good, or competent, cash player should never need staking, there is just no point, they are kidding themselves if they are staked. IMO, of course.
A large % of high-level Tourney players HAVE to be staked, as their rolls will not be adequate to handle Tourney variance. And some of them never get out of make-up, because, in Tourney poker, "the long run" is exactly that.
Does that explain it better?
In fact, having watched you play, I think you'd do very well as a cash player.
Bankroll rules? ajs4385 put it superbly on last Saturday's Show. He starts every Monday with "30 Buy-Ins" & the next Monday morning, he withdraws or deposits back to that. Simple.
In Tourneys, you cannot do it that way - the payback can take months.
If I have 3 or 4 tables open for an hour or so, I feel confident in my ability to edge my stacks upwards across them. But I always have the fear of stacking off on one of them and all that effort going to waste (as happened last night!). So a lot of the time I think I am not as aggressive as I am at MTT, and too tight. I suppose the key must be picking the right spots for aggression.
Your point about needing to play for a meaningful amount to maintain concentration is also very relevant. I am probably overbankrolled to be playing 15/30, a bad outcome like last night was not that important. I drew a blank in tournies too and that cost me a bit more !
But I will stay here and relish the challenge of beating this level before thinking of moving up.
I dont want playing cash to affect my tournament play. I think I can always spot the cash guys in tournies, they do have a different style (not saying its better or worse !!). But it does highlight the need to develop a cash head separate to my tourny head.
Thanks Phil, see you at Luton !
So say you started at 2p/4p and the max buyin is £4,set a limit of only losing two or three buyins at that ammount before logging off for the day. Tbh though that should rarely happen, especially if you're multi tabling.
Misclick pre, or mean to limp utg w/j9h?
I used to dabble on the cash tables, I have to say very badly. I had a long chat with GliterBabe about cash in Blackpool and decided to have a serious go at it. I started at the beginning of November and have had some ups and downs as may be expected. Like Alan (Maxally) I had the fear of going busto if I had an extended bad run. The reality has been that, in almost 4 months, I have played about 350 tables at £8nl, £10nl and £20nl, allowing myself a br of 10 buy ins (ie £200). I play on 3/4 tables at a time (I hate mini view) and have found that even if I have a bad time on one table, the others tend to make up for it. I lost 23 buy ins in Nov/Dec, 13 in Jan (never more than 1 in any session), but I have not lost any in Feb. So I have lost my buy in at 10% of the tables I have played. That does not sound very good and it probably isn't. However, I must be learning something as whilst I lost money over Nov/Dec, I have turned that round since January and feel confident that I can make progress going forward and I am no longer in fear of losing my br "in a hurry".