Are Cash Games Tougher than Tournaments?

In poker, the debate over the toughest form of the game has been around for ages. On one hand you have cash game players stating that tournaments are easy, while tournament players maintain that they have the true skills. There is some validity to both sides of the argument, but one side is much more correct than the other. Without getting too far into this, cash games are, without a doubt, much tougher than tournaments. There are many reasons why ring games are more difficult than tournaments, and these will be discussed below.As a brief summary, the luck factor goes a long way towards determining which form of poker takes more skill. As the luck factor is diminished, the skill element takes on a higher degree of importance. In tournament poker, particularly in the short run, luck is the biggest factor involved. This is the reason why some very sub-par players manage to maintain a winning record in sustained tournament play. By the same token, next to no poor cash game player is ever able to consistently win. In the end, the better players end up with most of the money. Of course, there are deeper factors in play, all of which will be dissected.Luck’s Role in PokerIn tournament poker, your life is always on the line. Unless you are playing a rebuy tournament or something similar, as soon as you are knocked out of a tournament, you are forced to exit the table. This just isn’t the case in cash games. When you bust out at a ring game table, you are left with the option of rebuying back into the game. This will allow you to maintain your seat and potentially earn back the money that you lost. In theory, a cash game session could go on virtually forever. When you are in a tournament, however, your existence is always one hand away from destruction.Shouldn’t the better players generally outlast the weaker players in a tournament, even if your life is always on the line? In a perfect world this might be the case, but it is not how it works in practice. If the inferior player manages to squeeze out a handful of lucky wins, their stack is inevitably going to balloon, much more so than the skilled player who is eeking out a blind steal every couple of hands. In tournament poker, you need to get some good cards in order to win. If you take some bad risks and they fail, you are done. If you take some bad risks in a cash game, you can always get right back at it. In a tournament environment, players are always walking a very thin rope, and this rope is very prone to seeing deadly falls.Cooler type situations and general poor luck are the biggest advocates of lesser skilled players in tournament poker. If you watch the Main Event runs of some of the biggest winners in recent years, you will often notice that the players were either getting tremendous hands, getting very lucky, or both. It is very rare for a major tournament player to actually weave their way through the field solely on skillful play. In fact, even some of the talented Main Event winners have stated that much of their win needs to be credited to their tremendous luck.Think about it, one unfortunate flop, turn, or river card for Hachem, Moneymaker, Yang and others would have spelled the end of their tournament. Instead, they went on to become worldwide poker stars. This would never happen in cash games. If Phil Ivey had one hot session in his entire life where he won some big money, he wouldn’t be the star that he is. His reputation was built up after continuous winning sessions in many different games. The same can be said for noted cash game players like Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan. Cash game players win because of their remarkable consistency and superior skill sets, not a handful of lucky breaks.The Long RunIf a player is able to play a massive amount of tournaments, as in 10,000 or more, they should be able to fairly accurately determine what their true win rate is. An enormous sample is required in tournament play because of the extreme variance. You can win two out of ten tournaments (though unlikely), but you could also go 20 events without a single min-cash. This is the nature of tournament poker. Even with huge sample sizes, though, the luckier players will walk away with greater profits than those with equal skills.Good at BothThere are plenty of poker players who can hold their own in both primary forms of the game. For the most part, though, players are known for one game or the other. For example, Phil Hellmuth is known as a major donkament (sorry, tournament) winner, but he is also widely recognized as a major loser in cash games. If nothing else, this is a testament to his true poker skills. Move onto another Phil, however, and it is clear that some players are able to thrive in tournament and cash game poker. Phil Ivey has done it for years and with incredible consistency. Sure, the positive side of variance has probably hit him more than a few times, but his skills and talent are undeniable. Ivey proves that a truly great player can dominate in both areas of the game.