[TopTrotter]

I’m a very successful tournament player both live and online. Admittedly, the same things that make me successful in tournament play hinder me in money play. Such is not uncommon. From my perspective, I think it’s important to understand the basic nature of a tournament versus a ring-game before you can understand how to adapt your style to each.

A money game is more like an ongoing peacetime economy. It goes on and on. The administration tries to keep it going. It grows, it contracts, this happens and that happens. There is no beginning, or end. It just …. Goes on and on and on. Some people wind up more successful, others less. And so it goes on.

A NL Holdem tournament is more like a war. It will be won or lost. It has a finite life. It does not go on and on. It has specific strategies and battles. You must win certain key strategic battles in order to win the war. (In this regard, I recommend highly a book entitled TOURNAMENT POKER AND THE ART OF WAR by Apostolico, forward by Andy Bloch)

The object of money play is to … ummm… making money? Win more chips than you loose? It’s that simple. A tournament is all about striking a balance between survival and chip accumulation. Neither of those is relevant at all in a ring game. You aren’t interest in surviving. Stack dynamics don’t play much of a role as there really is no such thing as “having someone covered” because you cannot put someone all in (unless of course, the chips they have on the table represent all the money they have to their name). So it’s winning money that counts, not accumulating a “big stack” at the table.

Ring play is based on one basic theme. Keep playing according to the odds, making some adjustments for the types of players you are facing, vary your play just enough to keep people off balance, but basically keep playing the same mathematically sound way day in, day out and over the long run, you will make money.

There are 2 assumptions that are implicit to this. 1) Your chips are currency. Every $25 is worth $25 – period. At any point, you can turn your chips in for money. When you win a pot, you have won money. $1 now is the same as $1 an hour from now, 2 hours from now, 10 hours from now, 3 days from now, etc. etc. Which leads to the 2nd assumption implicit in sound money play: 2) if you continue to make wagers with favorable pot odds, then over the long run, you will win out. And, as such, because of #1, you are unconcerned about whether you win THIS pot. No pot is more or less than any other pot. TIMING of pots means nothing. So you don’t have to really change your style…. You just keep plodding along doing your thing (whatever it is) and making sound technical decisions and OVER THE LONG HAUL you hope (or expect) to win.

Now, tournament play is a totally different animal along both of these themes. 1) Your chips are NOT currency. They do NOT represent money. They represent tournament winning chances. You cannot walk out with them. When you take down a pot, you haven’t won a nickel. Furthermore, their value is constantly changing. Every minute that ticks away, as the blinds go up, each chip is worth less, and so you need more of them to have power. It is an INFLATIONARY ENVIRONMENT. As such, 2) a pot won now is NOT the same as a pot won an hour from now (as is the case in ring games). Remember, in ring games, it doesn’t matter WHEN you win pots. In tournaments, WHEN IS EVERYTHING. Accordingly, while you can make proper plays based pot odds in a ring game, pot odds are ALMOST ALWAYS IRRELEVANT in a tourney… why? Because the whole concept of pots is that that time doesn’t matter. If you are getting proper odds, then eventually you will win and a chip is a chip is currency. In a tourney time matters. There are key pots that you MUST WIN in order to win tournaments. And sometimes, you have to do things which … ummmm… for lack of a better word, are about testicles and not pot odds. There are some pots that you simply must recognize are key pots and regardless of the odds, you must take your shot to take these pots down even if the odds are against you.

In short, the ring game is about betting currency and having favorable odds over the long haul. The tourney is about betting chips and about winning NOW – this tourney.

As for styles? Well, basically, most good cash players are solid. They avoid taking insane risks. Virtually every move is justifiable according to pot odds. The only time they do something that is not justifiable in terms off odds is either to deceive or fool opponents, or, because they have a good read on their opponent and are tailoring their basic solid style to their opponent. And they do this and grind it out, hour by hour. Generally, you will find less bluffing and more slow playing also.

Tournament play however, you will find a wide variety of styles that work. Some very successful players are very aggressive in order to accumulate chips early, since chips are power. They are willing to bust out early in order to do this. Other very successful players (like Harrington) play much fewer hands and are tighter and more selective. Some are in the middle, like me. But regardless of your style, one thing I can tell you for sure. And this is the case with the loosest tourney players and the tightest. And it’s true for me too: I have never gotten to the final table of a large MTT either live, or online, without having my entire tournament life on the line, AT LEAST ONCE OR TWICE, in a hand where we are showing down, and I have the worst of it. Also, I can say that I have never gotten to the final table of a big MTT, either live, or online, without AT LEAST ONCE having all my chips in the pot and praying that I don’t get called…. you simply cannot win at a ring game doing this …. (which is why, by the way, I STINK in money games)… you simply have to make certain moves at certain key times in a tourney that would be absolute insanity and suicide in a cash game.

Furthermore, whatever your individual approach, tournament play requires being able to adapt and change.. to MORPH as the tourney progresses through various stages. Generally speaking, the higher the blinds get, the looser you have to get, the pots you need to be playing and the more aggressive you need to be.

So the summary I guess is that in ring play, you CAN be successful with one straightforward, technically sound approach consistently applied hand in, hand out, session in, session out, week after week, etc. And there is rarely any need to do anything crazy or nutty or take chances when you know the odds are against you, and there is nothing about the game forcing you to change your style.

Successful tournament play requires you to be able to SHIFT GEARS as the dynamics of the play dictate and to be willing to make much bolder, technically unjustifiable moves in order to win key pots and increase your tournament winning chances