“To everything there is a season...
A time to seek, and a time to lose
A time to keep,
and a time 🍌 to throw away...”
-- Ecclesiastes
Even 2300 years ago, Ecclesiastes knew
there was "a time to Hold'em, and a time to fold'em." 🍌 But there is another poker lesson
to get from reading Ecclesiastes.
An incredibly silly controversy that rages in poker
circles is 🍌 the issue of tournament versus ring game play. I couldn’t care less about
who is "best" in poker. I’m only 🍌 concerned with getting the money -- playing winning
poker, in whatever your circumstances.
Tournaments are different than ring games. They
require 🍌 different strategies. Some players who win in one lose in the other because
they don’t see and adapt to the 🍌 differences. A very successful ring game player once
told me he plays Stud8 exactly the same in a tournament as 🍌 in a ring game. If ever
there was a game that should be played differently in the two forms, it 🍌 is Stud8. (See
Tournament Seven Card Stud High Low) But he played them the same -- and won big in 🍌 the
ring games and stunk in tournaments. This inability to adapt is what keeps a lot of
winning ring game 🍌 players from winning in tournaments.
One bedrock principle of winning
ring game play is that you need to be properly bankrolled. 🍌 If you have the bankroll,
correct play will win out in the long run (barring super-extreme bad luck). But nobody
🍌 is ever adequately bankrolled in a tournament. You should not play like you do have an
adequate bankroll. You have 🍌 to adjust. Adapt, or die.
At the same time, some winning
tournament players lose in ring games... often because they can’t 🍌 stand to lose a pot.
In the critical stages of tournaments, you have to win a high percentage of your 🍌 pots.
You have to try really, really hard to win many of the pots you are in. But in ring
🍌 games, the ability to sensibly surrender pots is a great skill.
Ring game poker versus
tournament poker is the difference between 🍌 dedication and inspiration. Ring game play
values steadiness, repetition, an even keel, consistently making the mathematically
correct play, showing up 🍌 day after day and playing better than your opponents.
Tournaments value "seizing the day." The ability to inspirationally find a 🍌 successful
play in critical situations is far more valuable in a tournament. The General you want
running your army during 🍌 peacetime will not necessarily be the best General in the heat
of battle. The best movie director of a love 🍌 scene may not be the best to blow up Mars.
Different skills are required.
To think that a person who excels 🍌 in one arena is
"better" than a person who excels in another is hopelessly missing the point of the
game. 🍌 Who is "better": Michael Johnson (a sprinter) or Lasse Viren (a distance runner)?
Is winning a gold medal in the 🍌 100-yard dash "better" (or worse) than winning a gold
medal in the marathon? The whole notion is just nonsense.
Truly outstanding 🍌 players
will adapt to whatever circumstance they play in. Great players can win tournaments and
win in ring game play 🍌 by understanding the differences and adapting.
The majority of
successful tournament players are successful ring game players who put in more 🍌 hours at
ring games than tournaments (though less time in ring games than professional ring game
players.) Many players who 🍌 play primarily in ring games are very successful when they
do play tournaments. The idea is to play good, play 🍌 correctly, any time you play poker.
But sometimes the correct play will be very different depending on whether you are 🍌 in a
tournament or in a ring game.
Winners in ring games win most days. Winners in
tournaments lose 75% (or 🍌 so) of the time. A definite tournament skill that many ring
game players simply can't master is the ability to 🍌 lose most days. They can't see the
long run of tournaments, so they avoid them. But there is just as 🍌 much of a long run in
tournament poker as there is in ring game poker. It merely takes different
psychological 🍌 attitudes to excel at each. There is no reason that one person cannot
succeed at both. You just have to 🍌 see the differences, understand and accept the
different ways money comes in, and then play correctly in the different situations.
The
🍌 secret to winning tournaments and at ring games is simple: play good. Just don't always
play the same. To everything 🍌 there is a season.
More on ring games versus tournaments
and switching gears
