The long winding road from poker cash games to poker tournaments

One of the best ways to make it big in online poker is to build up a bankroll via SNGs or cash games and then to start playing in high buy-in guaranteed prize-pool tournaments (run by pretty much all major poker sites every weekend). For that though you need to make the move from the cash game tables to the tournament ones. If you manage to work your way up to being able to play in such high buy-in tournaments every week, you’ve probably earned the right to consider yourself a successful cash game player. Does that mean you’ll be as successful in tournaments too? After all, the game is the same, played by the same rules, what could go wrong?

Lots of things actually. The few differences in rules between cash games and tournaments twist the game completely out of shape thus being a good cash game player won’t guarantee you anything at the tourney tables. You’ll be forced to rethink the whole essence of your approach and basically learn to play again.
The biggest difference between cash games and tournaments stems from the nature of the stacks available to players. In a cash game, your stack is infinite (assuming of course that you can afford to re-deposit every time you hit rock bottom). This means that taking advantage of marginal EV+ situations not only makes perfect sense, it’s a must.

Regardless of the short-term luck-induced bankroll swings, in the long run you will always see a profit provided you only get your money into the middle on EV+ situations. In a tournament, things aren’t quite as simple. Given the finite nature of your stack, getting it all into the middle on a marginal EV hand is quite foolish. In cash games, your stack is a weapon that you use to make money. In a tournament, besides being a weapon, your stack also represents your lifeblood. In order to be able to use it to forward your cause, you first need to protect it. If you’re faced with a marginal EV+ situation, you’re therefore better off just letting it go, so you can shove your chips into the middle on a much better opportunity later. Tournament poker means that you need to walk away from certain EV+ situations, regardless of what your gut tells you to do.

Another thing about tournaments is that the blinds increase at set intervals with the express goal of placing more pressure on players all the time, in order to force the outcome.

The ever increasing blinds mean that you need to keep chipping up in order to maintain your stack-size on an optimal level, and for that, you need to adapt your strategy to your changing blinds/stack-size ratio. Being able to play optimal poker when your stack size is large will not be enough for tournament success. You’ll have to learn to handle different stack sizes, and you’ll have to be aware of the optimal way to play in every situation. Stealing blinds is something that happens in cash games too, but in tournaments, past a certain stage, its importance will sky-rocket. Without proper blinds-stealing skills, you will not make it past the most critical stage of the tournament.
During the later stages, when the blinds become truly significant compared to everyone’s stacks, you’ll have to make moves that you shouldn’t even dream about during the early stages. When you’re down to your last few chips, taking a coin-flip is the best bet you can make under the given circumstances. This is where the fold equity comes into play: being the aggressor (the player doing the shoving) instead of the caller is extremely important when it comes to securing the best possible odds.

If cash games are about playing the same type of poker to perfection, tournament poker is about flexibility and adaptability. In order to be a successful poker tournament player, you need to be a complete player, mastering every aspect of the game.