Whats worse: cash or tourneys?

Tourney poker: well I used to be the first to say; “it’s poker without the skill so than any fool has a chance”. However, lately I have discovered that there is an element of skill, and I’m guessing that the higher up the stakes you go the larger this element becomes.

But other than skill there’s another important factor: the buzz. I was speaking to a regular tourney player at the Western Club the other night and he explained to me that the only time you get a real sense of achievement from poker is through tourneys – and I sort of agree with him. Our poker soc messiah, Minty, was spot on when he told me, “poker can either make you feel quite good, or really bad.” And over the years I have learnt that this is completely true. When you have a brilliant run in the cash games, you feel pretty pleased with yourself, but when that 7 buy-ins in a night downswing comes along you feel really fukin’ low. But a tourney is different; anyone can sit down at $10/$20 and is guaranteed a bit of a rush, but the idea of playing for that sort of cash, but with only a $30 buy-in is almost magical.

However, after the bullshit, I have to say, I still don’t know how tourney pros avoid suicide. The problem for me is that skill rarely prevails in a tourney, and if it’s some idiots lucky night – they’re gonna sail to the final table as you dodge every bullet that flies your way and still fall way short. It’s killing me! I play the $25k gtds on Stars and FT every night and am not even breaking even. I keep running KK into AA or AK into AA or I get it in ahead and there’s a miracle for the moron who has never got his chips in ahead and probably never will but will make the final table no probs. Or you run pretty average and then get into a coin flip situation and it’s all over. A bad night at cash you sit there feeling that you’ve lost lots of money and that generally makes you feel sick, but getting deep in a tourney and going broke is like writing an essay and then having your hard drive crash. They both hurt, but in very different ways.

What I’m saying is, by deciding to focus on tourneys for a while, have I chosen the easy option? Or have I just chosen a few months of near misses? At the moment I’m not all that sure....

I have, however, learnt that I can beat the average home game now. Took a bit of a tour of SNG home games in Cheltenham (three to be exact) and managed two firsts and one second – and I came second after being 5 outered early on for a triple stack size pot and, 6 outered for a massive pot 3 handed and then 9 outered for almost the tourney win whilst heads-up. So can’t complain about the result really. lol

In other news: I crashed my car last night whilst driving into central London to pick up some friends. My insurance policy has a £650 excess. So what have I learnt? Nice guys finish last, and normally go broke on the way!!!

Anyways – hope you all have a good Christmas, and as always – gl at the tables