Higher Long-Term Variance: The graph of tournament players is rarely steady. With late registration, you can enjoy a little flexibility about start times, but for the most part, tournament players are prisoners of regular start times and irregular end times.

A deep run in a Sunday tournament might keep you up until commuting time on Monday. Inflexible Scheduling: Tournaments take time, and you don't get to choose when they end. PokerNews Freerolls Every Weekend on WPT Global Tournament CONS But tournament play comes with titles, player of the year points, and Hendon Mob flags. This can be a big factor in how fun the game feels, but it also means that less skilled players tend to stick around in tournament pools for longer than cash games.īragging Rights: There are no trophies for mopping up in a cash game. Unless, of course, you know where to find a regular pot-limit razz game.

This element of drama is missing from most cash games. For competitive players, cash games may feel unsatisfying or unmotivating.įewer All-In Thrills: The rising blinds of a tournament promote frantic all-in plays as standard. More Ambiguous Sense Of Competition: While winning a cash game hand can make you feel like a champion, tournaments have a clearer sense of competition, with an unambiguous first-place position to strive towards. With no-limit cash games, you can lose your original stake and every cent of profit you banked that session on the turn of a single card.įor this reason, cash games can be much harder on a player's nerves from hand to hand. Higher Short-Term Variance: While cash games offer lower variance in the medium-to-long-run, the short-term variance can be much higher. WPT Global: Six Vital Strategy Tips To Improve Your Online Poker Game Cash Games CONS This allows you more spots where your skill is a factor.īankroll Management: Cash games, with their lower volatility and greater control over buy-in sizes, give you more options when managing one's bankroll. More Room For Skill Play: Because of the deeper stacks and consistent blind sizes, cash games have fewer hands where your stack is all in, and the outcome is up to the cards. Winning cash game players who put in high volume can expect their income to be regular-ish over a much shorter long-term than tourney players. Lower Medium-Term Variance: The variance in cash games tends to be lower than in tournaments over the longer term, with cash games providing something much closer to a steady income than tournaments.

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