Poker: Each to Their Own

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 Cash games or tournaments: opposing strategies.

In poker it is necessary to differentiate between two different activities: the cash game and the tournament. In cash games players have chips, used to represent money; these chips come in different values, ranging from 2-1000. It is equally possible to play directly, using notes or bills in place of the chips, but this type of cash game is being practiced less and less, especially in Europe. Cash games are principally those which are played at tables in casinos and other authorised premises across the world. You sit yourself down at a poker table with whatever sum of money you wish and exchange this for chips. Therefore, you can not be eliminated from a cash game of poker so long as you still have the necessary funds to play… On the contrary, in a tournament situation, you must pay for an entry ticket, which is equivalent to buying the right to a place at the table. Each player pays the same amount for the entry fee, which added together, forms a kitty which will be distributed in the form of a pyramid among the first ten per-cents of winners, with the winner getting the most. For the price of entry, the tournament host will provide each contestant with an equal amount of chips in order to play. Once you have lost all your chips you will be eliminated, the winner is the player who at the end of the tournament has managed to garner all the other players’ chips. As you may suspect, the different nature of these types of poker will mean that you will have to adopt different behaviours around the poker table, depending on which one you are playing.

Here is some advice to help you make the right choice for you:

1. The cash game can bring you huge rewards, at the same time it can also lead to huge losses. Like all casino games, people have a tendency to buy more chips when their stash runs out, making this form of play more likely to lead to gambling problems. And because as players you are never free from the possibility of a run of bad luck, you can very quickly spend all your cash.

2. A player in a tournament situation needs to be a lot more vigilant in his game than a player in a cash game situation. It is important for a tournament player to concentrate for much longer periods of time in order to stay in the tournament for any substantial length of time, there are no second chances. When all the chips are gone you will definitely be out of the game.

3. A player in a cash game must always be ready to play in to the upper limits of his cash allowance. If you sit at a table where the minimum bet is £30 (blind £2), you must be prepared to have at least £150-£200 available to play with. If you play above your means, it is very likely that you will go bankrupt.

4. In cash games, no one is equal in regards to money: the player who has £5000 in his pocket can play as long as he wants; if you have only £100, you must be very careful in selecting the hands you wish to play. In a tournament, there are no differences, everyone is equal.

5. It is important to know when to stop when playing cash games; from the moment that you become very tired, that an opponent seems too strong, that you have judged that you have won enough, you should stop. Otherwise you risk losing all your winnings very quickly, faster than you won them anyway!

6. Between friends, the best solution is to organise small rounds of ‘sit n go’, tournaments at a table. Each player puts in a sum of money to enter into the game, everyone parts with 1000 chips, with blinds of 10-20, which double every ten minutes. The first touch will be 30, the second 20, the third 10. The whole game will last around 45 minutes and you can replay several games, if you wish to carry on playing. 7. When playing both cash games and tournaments, you are allowed to leave the table (even if you have chips in play). During the time you are absent from the table, all your hands will be lost and the blinds taken automatically in tournaments or not taken at all in cash games. 8. In the cash games, the croupier is only paid through tips, whereas the casino takes 4%-6% of your profit. This is true in both Europe and the United States. In tournaments, the croupier is paid around 5% of the profits of any winner.

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