SNGs Vs Cash Games Vs Tournaments
If you created a thread at every online poker forum asking which is the most profitable between cash games, SNGs and MTTs you would end up with a lot of conflicting information. Some players will say that cash games are far better than sitngos. They will show you their results as proof. The sitngo fans would do the exact same thing. MTT players would probably be the least vocal, but there are fanatics in each group. The cash game vs SNG vs MTT debate is not going to end with this post. All I will be doing is going over some things to find out which game is the best for the largest number of players. I won’t be publishing any fancy graphs or charts and my personal poker achievements are not all that spectacular.
To be honest I do not even consider myself to be an amazing SNG player. I learned the basic SNG strategies here, but I never put too much effort into it. If anything I’m only a decent cash game player and I have been known to get lucky and win the occasional MTT. I know a lot of poker guys scoff at the word “luck”, but when you win a tournament against a few thousand other people you have to get lucky a few hundred times in a row without being extremely unlucky once.
So I’m a:
- Decent cash game player
- Mediocre SNG player
- Average MTT player
That makes me a typical online poker player in my opinion. Perhaps the strengths and weaknesses can be mixed around but that doesn’t matter. I bring this all up to show that I am qualified to compare ring table games to tournaments to sitngos. Here are some points for and against each form of online poker.
Cash Game Pros & Cons:
Ring table players are winning and losing money in real time. I can sit down at a table and double my bankroll in just 5-10 minutes if I get lucky. SNG players will claim that 6-seat hyper-turbo sitngos allow them to win money just as quickly but it is not the same. I think skill is more important when playing cash games. Every hand has a direct impact on your bankroll. This can be a strength. If your time is limited or you are highly skilled I think cash games are the way to go, with turbo SNGs not too far behind. The downside is that you are more vulnerable to bad luck. People tend to sit with a larger percentage of their bankroll at ring tables than STT and MTTs. A bad run of luck could decimate your bankroll in a very short time.
SNG Pros & Cons:
I play SNGs less often than cash games or MTTs but I think that people who claim that sitngos are the best have some very valid points. You don’t have to invest hours into sitngos and there are extremely fast SNGs available. Other advantages to playing sitngo tournaments include earning frequent player points faster, especially at Pokerstars. You can profit thousands of dollars a month just by playing multiple turbo SNGs and breaking even. For instance, if you play in 5 hyper turbo SNGs at once for 3 hours a day and end up even at the end of the week you would have earned enough Pokerstars VPPs to actually be up a decent amount of money.
SNGs are also very popular everywhere you do so waiting for a game to start is not an issue. The 0nly downside is that you will likely face more skilled players than you would at cash games or MTTs.
Tournament Pros & Cons:
Tournaments enable a player who has been losing for months to win it all back and then some all at once. They are time consuming but this could be a strength. A $100 deposit could be gone very quickly if you are getting cold cards at a ring table or sitngo. I suppose the same could happen playing MTTs but it is unlikely. If you want to stretch out your money MTTs are the way to go. Playing in tournaments enables skilled players to truly benefit from their skills.
Conclusion
I think that average, everyday online poker players are best off playing sitngos.