If you search through the vastness of the World Wide Web for poker strategy articles you won't be disappointed. You will find a massive array of articles and documents, written by a host of players from world pokerstars to the average joe.        

One of the recurring themes, that is often left unexpanded, is the difference between playing a cash game and playing in a tournament. Many documents suggest that you should play differently but don't point out to the player what this actually means in practice.

Monday Night Poker

I play cash games predominantly, both live and on the net in roughly equal measure, however a couple of nights ago I was searching through the cash tables looking for a juicy prospect when a message flashed up alerting me to the fact that a tournament was due to start. As I was struggling to find what I consider to be a 'good' table, I decided to try my hand in a tourney - after all it had been a month or so since I last played in one. Hitting the tourney lobby I discovered it was a $30 freezeout with around 500 players, not exactly the world series but I sensed it would fun so dutifully paid my dough and took a seat.

The early levels whizzed by and our table started to take shape, with myself and the guy on my right getting deep stacked quickly, when a situation occurred that perfectly illustrates some of the differences between cash games and tournament play.

I had just over 13,000 chips against a tourney average of 7,000 when I was dealt J♦Q♦ under the gun. The blinds where at 100/200 and starting to become worth stealing, so as chip leader at our table and a decent drawing hand in front of me I raised it up, making it 800 to go. With most of the other players sitting below the average chip count, and a short stack on 1,500, I felt confident that they would only get involved with a monster and if the short stacked pushed then I would have no problems covering the extra 700 chips and taking my chances - after all a suited JQ is a playable hand.

The action folded around to the big blind, who was the other deep stack at the table, who quickly smooth called. He had a stack of just over 11,000, so he couldn't bust me out, but he could certainly send me reeling from a good position to a dire one. He had also played a tight game to this point, and I was concerned that to get involved against me after I had raised under the gun he must have something big. No real danger though, whilst I may have been going in as the underdog, I still had a decent hand and I wasn't in the hand to the point where I was going to struggle to get away from it.

The Flop

So far, this hasn't played out much different to a cash game, but here is where the difference is really highlighted. The flop came K♦10♠7♦.

Giving me an open ended straight draw as well as a second nut flush draw. Then, almost before I had a chance to spot how my hand stands, the big blind comes out firing with a sizable bet of 3000 chips, roughly double the size of the pot. Quickly counting my outs (assuming they where all live), things where looking good. By my reckoning I had at least any Ace, any Nine and any diamond to win, so 18 outs and that excludes the chance of hitting a queen or jack.

Turning it over in my mind I doubted that queen or jack alone would be strong enough to win (I had him on AK at this point) so I took them out of the equation. Without the queen or jack counting I am still favorite for the pot - 18 outs would give me a chance to win the hand of around 72%. Even if I trimmed off his Ace I was still 2:1 ahead.

If this was a cash game I would make the same play in this position every time. I would make a massive raise so quickly the chips would leave a scorch mark on the felt. After all, I think I am ahead and if I make this play every time then in the long run I get paid off. If I come out second best on any given day then that's Ok, I just dig into my pocket and rebuy - comforted by the knowledge that I have made the correct play.

But this isn't a cash game, it's a tourney. If I go out of it I can't rebuy, If I raise his bet as I usually would I get myself into a position where I am pot committed and if I lose I have to go and watch the TV for the rest of the evening and moan about yet another bad beat to an unsympathetic wife.

What To Do?

As my clock ticked down I had myself convinced that I had something like a 2:1 advantage in the hand, but I thought that the benefits of winning hand where outweighed by the disadvantages of losing it. If I go over the top, get called and win the hand I would have a commanding stack (which I could lose in 1 hand later on) but if I lost I would be crippled and down to looking for opportunities to double up.

I briefly thought about just calling his bet and seeing the next card - that would still leave me with about an average chip stack for the tourney, but quickly dismissed that idea as a weak play. If I missed then I would be in no position to play back if he bet the turn, and for my advantage to hold I would really need to see both cards.

As the timer dropped into single figures, I made a rather lame and painful prod towards the fold button and the hand was over. The next 10 card-dead minutes until the next break were spent re-running the hand in my mind, questioning myself over the decision. Weighing it up in my mind, two familiar phrases kept appearing:

'I couldn't have won the tournament with that hand, but I could certainly have lost it'

'You don't win tournaments without getting lucky, get your money in while you're ahead'

For the life in me I couldn't decide what was the right decision, so with a conscious effort I put it to one side, made a quick note on my PC to exam it later and got on with the game.

What this situation demonstrates is how different cash and tournament play can really be, when textbook hands become distorted by their context. Playing in tournaments you aren't just thinking about the current hand.

Who do you want to avoid playing against? Can you afford to see another blind before making your move? Could you sneak into the cash if you just fold down even though you are short? Are you in a strong enough position to bully low stacks on the bubble? The factors effecting your decision suddenly increase ten-fold, which means making the 'correct' decision so much more difficult than a simple pot-odds calculation.

The question is: What would you do in this position?

Until next time,

James 'English Jim' Kirk

P.S. - For the record, I went out just into the cash ($11 for 3 hours play hardly seems fair!) when my 1010 came second best to an AJ suited.