I do have sucess in tournaments then cash games. I've heard that you can make more. Then you can lose more to. You can lose your whole bankroll sometimes. I'm sure that there is plenty of people that play online tournaments for a living instead of live. So is tournaments one of the best ways to play for a living.

Not sure what your question is.

You can lose a whole lot more and a whole lot faster playing cash. You can usually win more playing cash, unless you bink a major tourney.

Most pro players are cash players, but there are still a large number who play MTTs professionally, and a larger number who play SNGs.

You're doing it wrong.

You can make money in any single one if you choose to focus and specialize in one or two specific type of games. You can also make or lose if you're multi-talented across all games.

You don't approach all games in the same fashion. You should have limits set and bankroll management in place depending on the type of game you are looking at. 10-20 max buyins for a cash table is standard, 100 buyins for an MTT is standard. If you're just taking shots at another level or maybe the occasional "big mtt", as long as it's not detrimental to your bankroll, that's fine. The main thing is making a plan and sticking to it within the games you feel you're most comfortable in (which takes experimenting to find).

Losing entire bankrolls falls into the catagory of poor bankroll management, not which games you play.

If you suck and are not a luckbox it doesn't matter what you play actully!
If you are decent and have normal swings cash games are better.
Tournaments are impossible to live on without lots of luck along with high skills!
Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington and other pros say to play cash for a living and play tournaments for fun and possibly one day hitting the jackpot!

Since tournaments often force you to make moves because of the escalating blinds, they are inherently more "luck" based.

I can't imagine even elite players making a living off of tournament play alone...

FYI - You might want to visit the Tournament Forums...

The majority of the players in that forum section don't play cash and only stick to tournaments?

That's a pretty crazy lifestyle. In cash games you can pick your spots and are never forced to let your stack dictate your play. That's not true in tournaments, though. Anyone who can stand up to that variance must be a baller =P

Tournaments are a whole different game. You might be good at tournaments even if you are not good at cash.

I suggest Ace on the River. The chapter on poker tournaments has discussion on your question. As the author points out, players who accumulate or lose a lot of chips quickly are naturals for tournaments. Cash players who do not finish (a tournament) in the money may feel like they've lost a day of work.

Yes.

Not really.

Sure, but this is like saying football is a safer sport than baseball because you never get hit by a 90 mile an hour fastball.

Your opponents have to stand in the batter's box too, you know...

You're way underestimating cash game variance and way overestimating tournament variance. Particularly when there are a zillion different flavours of tournaments.

You have to understand that the ones who play tournaments for a living still do a LOT of multi-tabling. Sadly, Pokerstars is the only site that has the activity level to play a large number of tournaments per day.

OK, I'm a nit...

Yes

If your stack sizes are not dictating your play in cash you are doing something wrong.

Can you give me an example of an instance when my stack size in a cash game should dictate my play?

And I'm not asking this to argue with you. I'm new and genuinely would like to know the answer so I can apply it to my own play.

of course you can make a living playing tournaments...many do but the daily/weekly variance is greater playing tournaments and you have to allow for that.

Playing cash for a living is far more reliable because you can play breakeven poker at NL100 and make $100k+ a year in rakeback. You'll never accumulate that sort of rakeback playing tournaments unless you're playing high stakes.

Short stacks favour 1-pair type hands like big Ax, big Kx and mid to large pocket pairs. With a short stack you are looking at getting it in pre flop or all in on a favourable flop. You have almost no implied odds and because you (and your opponent) will generally be pot committed on the flop have zero bluffing equity. This means small pocket pairs and suited connectors go right down in value.
Larger stacks provide much greater implied odds and you will get far more fold equity if you make a move. Thus not only do small pocket pairs and suited connectors become playable, position is worth far more with larger stacks.

it's not just your stack it's your opponents too....you might be happy to get it all in pre with small to medium pairs v a 40bb stack but not a 100bb stack...plus you won't set mine against or with a short stack.

I would setmine against anyone as long as they didn't have a ridiculously small stack. I read somewhere that I should be making sure that my bet (or call) should allow me to take 8x or 9x its amount in order to effectively setmine.

So if I am playing 50nl, mid pair, with a 1.50 raise in front of me I can be willing to call as long as my opponent has another $12-$13.50 to possibly give me. Which is pretty much always the case.

Is this not accurate?

Very inaccurate.. you want like 15-20x the bet.

Oh, ok thanks. I have to make sure I read better books then lol.

EDIT: Nvm

you're assuming he's going to stack off every time you hit.

Yeah that's very true. I'm guessing that's part of the reason Ice Wolf gave a much higher estimate.

I think the book I was reading was focusing more on the math rather than being practical.

*throws away book advice*

No, your odds of flopping a set are around the 8x mark. However you need implied odds of far more than that to account for the times you will hit your set and not get paid off or hit your set and still get beaten. So around the 15x mark is far better.

Edit: too slow

I've always wondered, when people are using the 15x-20x figure, are you talking about how much he has behind, or how much he likely is going to pay you on average?

The 15x is how much he has behind. The theory is that you need to occasionally win the entire 15x to make up for all the times you don't, on average you will win far less (actually you will just fold a large percentage of the time).

15x refers to this ratio: (effective stack) / (amount to call)

It's a quick rule of thumb that already factors in the average amount of the stack you're likely to get when you hit against regular opponents.

But different players are more/less likely to stack than others.

So if you have a good read on your opponent and factor in their chance of stacking yourself to get the real implied odds...

= (pot size + likely additional payoff when hit) / (amount to call)

...then aiming for figure of 10x would be fine.