I have been playing a few months now, still only at 7000 hands or so. Should i concentrate on micro cash or MTT's? I seem to do better (over this small sample) at cash (200NL). What would you suggest a bank roll should be for 200NL? If MTT, what buy in? $1/2? Too low, too high?

Is mixing cash and MTT's a bad idea?

Apologies for multiple Q's.

I take it you mean 2NL.

stick to one format you enjoy.

Alot of players start with cash because :
A: mtt's takes alot more time up.
B: cash you get to play alot more hands and learn the game (fundamentals) alot better.
C: variance can be crazy in mtt's

nothing to say you cant play cash and play the odd mtt now and again.

best of luck in what ever you decide.

Thanks

I'm just finding it hard to find cash tables where there arent 10 or so regs multitabling on all the tables i'm on. I wonder why

games are tough nowadays, what can you do

Thats my MTT thinking. Multitble 4-6 $1-2 game rather than the same with tight regs?

improve

I'm confused. You keep mentioning 200nl and $1/$2 and in the next few words talk about micro cash games. I'd assume if you're new you mean 2nl and 1c/2c but of course you could have bought in for more and be playing 200nl (which is $200 max buyin on table usually).

How much of a bankroll? Well, depends. From "I don't care if I lose it all" and "semi-serious" you'd be looking at 20BI up to 50BI for the stakes you are playing for NLHE (6-max).

As for how much of a BR for MTT's that would depend to a degree on field size. The size of the field should effect the BR you'd want to play them due to variance being higher more often than not. I did re-post a post off another forum on a guide to MTT/SnG buyin's but if you need it I could post again here I guess.

Don't play mtts

sorry, playing 0.25/0.5 NL, so thats 25NL right?

I'd appreciate that, ty

That's 50NL which is without a doubt significantly too tough for you to beat long-term at the moment.

Strange advice.

What sort of variance can you expect with MTT's? What is an acceptable losing streak?

You might hear of very solid winners having a 1000 tournament losing streak, or sometimes much more. Variance is high in cash, too - solid winners can easily have 100,000 hand breakeven stretches.

Cash seems lower variance, and less of a coin flip EVERY session. No matter how nitty you play seems to come down to that at some point..

Tournament poker is like the toy game version of cash. Its easier to learn. Study ICM, play for the win.

But ultimately, I dont think tournament poker is worth playing once you get past a certain skill level/bankroll size, especially live. There will always be good value in online donkaments though. Also, focus on HU SNGs at some point. I dont think you can ever become a great player without playing a lot of HU (goes for cash and donkaments)

Just to clarify since it seems you're a little confused on cash formats:

$.01/.02 = $2NL
$.02/.05 = $5NL
$.05/.10 = $10NL
$.10/.25 = $25NL
$.25/.50 = $50NL
$.50/1.00 = $100NL
$1.00/2.00 = $200 NL

Hope this helps you, my suggestion would be to learn cash before switching to MTT's. Cash has less variance for the most part as well.

Cash gives you a better understanding of how to play deep, i.e. 100+ bb's. You will play more post flop and therefore learn how to play different board textures. MTT's are great, but when you're deep in a tournament cash game experience will help you out significantly imo, unless it's a turbo or hyper in which a lot of the time you're basically hoping to win flips.

If you are just starting out, this.

Thanks for the advice. I'm finding cash games MUCH easier to at least have winning sessions. Low buy in tournaments seems to involve people playing any 2 cards and shoving from the first hand

Well, yeah, but that doesn't bear much reflection on whether you're going to be a long-term winner (indeed, if you're complaining about people shoving ATC then I doubt you can beat any online games).

If you don't like to be put to tough decisions, follow this guy's lead and stay away from tournament poker.

no no no. I love tough decisions, working out a villians range, making the right (or wrong) call. Its that i'll get shoved by 104o and get hit by a set of 4's, when 104o UTG is in nobodies range? Learner poker theories seems to assume everyone makes good decisions and follows (generally) defined ranges. Just saying that the lower MTT levels, this seems to go out of the window?

The core element of how to play good poker is to play such a way that you maximise expectation, given how your opponents play. This doesn't change when your opponents are terrible.

True. Point taken

Just make good decisions and the rest will take care of itself. It can take a lot longer to recoup your expected value in tournaments though and reach your true ROI.

I felt more comfortable playing tournaments initially because of icm, cash seemed to put a higher amount of pressure knowing i could get stacked.