Cash games are my game of choice in poker. Occasionally I will play in a tournament, but mainly I will be playing cash games. There are two main reasons for that. Cash games give you more freedom and they have less variance than tournaments. Therefore I think it is easier to make a living as a cash game poker player then as a tournament player.
Freedom
One of the big reasons I want to become a professional poker player is the freedom it gives you. Set your own working hours and make your own decisions on where you are going to work.
If you live in a place like Las Vegas, you can play poker 24/7 in more then 30 different casino’s. You decide when and where and against who you want to play. If you happen to have made the wrong choice or the table dynamics are not good, you can change seats or just pick up your chips and go to a different table or casino. Within 30 minutes you can be sitting in a different casino in a totally different poker game.
Waking up early is not my favourite thing, I usually wake up around noon or even later. My daily schedule would be to wake up around noon, eat breakfast, relax, do some errants, eat lunch and then play poker from about 18:00 to 04:00. Playing cash games gives me the freedom to do that.If I feel tired or I am not focused for some reason, I can take a break or just call it quits for the day.
Now let’s compare that to playing tournaments.
The restraints of tournament poker.
Playing tournaments is very different. First, it is hard to find a good tournament. You don’t want to play in a $50 turbo tournament that most tourists play. That is just gambling.
If you want to play poker professionally you should play in tournaments with buy ins of $500 or more that have a good blind structure and favour skill instead of chance.
The problem is there are not many of these tournaments so you don't have much choice of where and when you want to play. Once you decided on the tournament you want to play in, you have to be there at certain time. If you are not there, the tournament will start without you.
When you enter the tournament, you don't have any choice of where to sit, when you can go on a break or when the tournament will be over for the day. If you sit next to an obnoxious or smelly player, that is just though luck. If you are feeling tired or the table is very slow, too bad, you will have to sit through it.
If you bust early, there is a big chance you will have to wait for the next day to enter in another tournament. Tournaments restrict you in your freedom of table selection and your freedom of when and where you want to play.
But that is not all. Tournaments also have much more variance than cash games.
Variance
Because the blinds are increasing every level in tournaments there inevitably comes a time that you will have to go all inn. And to make it far into the tournament so you will make some profit, this will have too happen 10 or more times during the tournament. Only to get into the money and win something. Too get to the final table and win the big money you might have to win these all inn situations 25 times during the tournament.
Let’s say you are a good player and only call an all inn or go all inn yourself when you are a huge favourite, like 6 to 1. Which means that on average you will win 6 out of every 7 all inn’s.
Do you see the problem here? Even if you are a good player and always get your chips in as a huge favourite, you are still very likely too lose, because for you too get too the winning stage of a tournament you will have too win at least 10 out of 10 times. The changes of doing this are 0,2%. Just to get into the money.
Let me give you some play examples of what happens a lot during the early and middle stages of a tournament.
Close to the money, you get AA, blinds are 150/300 50 ante and you have 7.339 or about 24 big blinds. You make a small raise to 750 hoping to trap a player. You do, the player behind you goes all inn and another player calls and is also all inn. This is your change too get a ticket to the final table so you also call. You are up against AJ and AJ, you are a huge favourite to triple up, 93% change to win this pot. But the board runs out 7 8 10 9 5. They make a straight and you are out of the tournament, no money.
Another example. The blinds are 100/200 and you are on the sb with JJ and 3500 or 17 big blinds. It is folded to the button who just calls, thats a sign of weakness and you decide to go all inn and steal this pot. The idiot on the button decides to gamble his whole stack with K5 of spades. Against your JJ he has only 32% change to win. Of course he hits a K and you are out of the tournament because some idiot decides to gamble his whole stack with K5 and it really doesn’t matter that they where suited.
Last one. Early on in the tournament, you have 33 on the bb. And 75 big blinds. A late position player bets 60 and you call. You put your opponent on something like AK AQ or a pocket pair. The flop is 245, you check and your opponent c-bets to 97 you put in a semi bluff, either your 33 are good against AK and AQ kind of hands or you have 8 outs to the straight if he has a bigger pocket pair then you. You make it 280 and he calls. This most likely means he has an AK or AQ kind of hand and calls hoping he will hit an A or a 3 on the turn/river. Unfortunately for him I have 2 of his outs. I think if he would have had a big pair he would have not called, but shoved all inn on me. The turn is a J. There is a slight chance he has AJ or a pocket pair, but I think it is most likely he has AK or AQ so I bet 300 with no intention to fold if he raises me. Of course he goes all inn and I call. He shows AK and I have a 88,6% chance to double up. The river is a K and I am out of the tournament early.
The thing is if you want to get far in a tournament you will have to take risks. And even if you take calculated risks where you go all inn as a huge favourite, some of them will go wrong. There is a lot that has to go right, a lot of luck is needed to get far into a tournament.
Same hands in a cash game
Now lets do the same for cash games. I would love to sit at a cash game and playing the same three hands that got me kicked out of the tournament, because it means this is a good game where my opponents are willing too gamble. Yes, sometimes they get lucky and win. But they only win about once every 7 times. In tournaments once every seven times means you are out of the tournament, but in cash games it means you win a lot of money. Lets say the all inn pots are $600, so I win $300 if I win and loose $300 if I loose. If we play 7 hands, I win $1800 and loose $300. On average I should win $1500 if players are willing too call me with these weak hands. Thats why cash games are so much better then tournaments.
Playing poker for a living?
Because of the huge variance it is hard to win money consistently in a tournament. An average to good poker player might cash in only 2 out of 10 tournaments. Also tournaments take a lot of time. Too be able too make money playing poker, you need to beat the variance in the long run. This is a lot easier in cash games because there is less variance and a cash game session takes up less time than a tournament. Therefore the long run in cash games is a lot shorter then in tournaments and it is easier to make money consistently in cash games then in tournaments.
Lets crunch some numbers to really get to understand the difference.
Basically, good tournaments cost on average $1500, the chance of winning $1.000.000 or more in a tournament if you are a great player is maybe about 1/1000. Cashing a bit lower for $100.000 is maybe 1/100 and cashing $10.000 about 1/10. So lets say you play 1000 tournaments of $1500. This will cost you $1.500.000. If you are a great player and not too unlucky you might win something like $3.000.000 on average every 1000 tournaments (1 x 1.000.000 + 10 x 100.000 + 100 x 10.000).You need too pay taxes also, but as a professional poker player you can deduct your costs first. Tournament buy in is $1.500, plus 4 day hotel $400, plus plain ticket $200, plus food $200, makes the costs around $2300 for each tournament. So your costs for 1000 tournaments is $2.300.000 giving you a $700.000 profit. After taxes you are left with about $500.000 profit. Not bad I would say.
But how long does it take you too play a 1000 tournaments? On average a whole tournament will take 4 days with 14 hours of play including breaks. But that is if you get to the end which will not happen very often. Lets say you are a great player and make it into day two, two out of three tournaments. That means about 18.500 hours of play. The other tournaments you are out in day one. About another 4.500 hours. So that is about 23.000 hours of play for most tournaments. But 1/100 tournaments you make it till day 3, another 1400 hours. And 1/10 you make it till the end, another 140 hours. So you need to play a 1000 tournaments, or 24.500 hours to win $500.000. That is about $20 an hour after expenses and tax.
Because a tournament takes a lot of time and good $1500 tournaments are hard too find (except during the WSOP). You can maybe only play 2 to 4 tournaments a week, or 100 to 200 tournaments a year. So it will take you 5 to 10 years to play these 1000 tournaments. Which means you will make at best $100.000 a year. For some this is a very good income, but it is hard work and you are never sure of a pay check at the end of the month.
That is if we talk about average, in a period of 10 years, which isn’t even close to the statistically long run for tournaments. You could get lucky and win that $1.000.000 on your first tournament. Or if you are the unluckiest player in the world, in the first 5 years you will never win that $1.000.000 price and end up losing $500.000.
Now compare this to cash games.
If you are a decent player at the 5/10 cash games you can easily make $40 an hour. You can play as often as you want. So let’s say you play 6 days a week for 10 hours a day, for 50 weeks a year. Or 3000 hours a year. That means you win on average about $120.000 a year. You also have less expenses because you don’t have to travel a lot. If you live in Las Vegas for example, you don’t have to travel at all if you don’t want too. After taxes you still have about $80.000 left or a net income of about $26 an hour. That is more then $6.000 a month! That is a nice income for just playing poker all day. And with less uncertainty compared to playing tournaments.
To be fair, if you don’t consider the costs of travel, with tournaments, in the long run, after taxes, you could make on average maybe $40 an hour, if you are a great player that is! But is that $14 more worth all the travel, the uncertainty and giving up on all that freedom that cash games give you?
Too sum up, why I prefer cash games above tournaments.
-More freedom to play where and when you want.
-Freedom to choose against who you want to play and against who you don’t.
-Less variance, therefore less frustration.
-Shorter statistical long run, therefore more steady income.
Why I still play a tournament once in a while.
So while I mostly will be playing the cash games to make a living, once a year I will take a chance in 1 or 2 tournaments during the WSOP, hoping to win some big money to boost my bankroll.
