Poker Tournaments Versus Cash Games

Video Transcript

"There are some key differences between a cash game and a tournament game. And the biggest difference is that in a cash game is that you can lose all your chips and then buy in again. In a tournament, most tournaments are played in whats called freeze out style. There are rebuy tournaments. But the rebuy periods are only gonna last so long. So actually all tournaments in the long run are freeze out. Because of this and because tournaments are structured such that in a cash game the betting structure never changes. If I buy into a two for cash game that is ultimately no limit the blinds are two and four and then I can play the rest of my stack and if I lose it I can buy more. In a tournament the blinds might start out at two and four but after a while they will go up to four and eight, ten and twenty, twenty and forty, fifty and a hundred, and then antes will come in. And once more I can only lose what's in front of me on the table. Once it's gone I am out of the tournament. Because of that difference, because of those differences that I just mentioned you need to open your game up usually a little bit over time in a tournament. Early on, you will play a tournament the same way you would a cash game. Play kind of tight. Hold out if your hands are like this, your premium hands, your aces, your kings, queens, jacks, ace king suited, but you know what, as time goes on your gonna wanna play ace ten, the right situations you'll play jack ten suited. What we're gonna do now is discuss how to know when to do that and other elements of tournament play."