Tournaments vs Cash Games

No matter what type of poker you like to play (Hold‚em, Omaha, 7 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw, etc.), you always have the option of playing a tournament or a cash game. Each can offer different challenges, and can severely affect how you play, and how others play. First, let’s look at the differences between the two.

A Cash Games (also known as a Ring Game) is poker the way it was originally meant to be played. A group of players gather at a table, establish rules that govern the game, such as blinds, antes, buy-in and type of poker, and proceed to play. Players are allowed to re-buy if they lose all their money, and they can walk away from the table at anytime with their money, called “cashing-out”.

The picture above is a pre-game conversation on the set of High Stakes Poker. Easily my favorite poker show on tv, it features many of the biggest names in poker, regardless of their affiliations with online gaming sites. Seen here (from left to right) are the Dealer, Johnny Chan, Freddy Deeb, Daniel Negreanu, not really sure, Eli Elezra and Doyle Brunson.

Players are also allowed to cash-out some of their money on the table, and play with what they have left. This is a great idea for someone who has just won a big pot, and wants to make sure they don’t lose it all right away. It allows you to make sure you walk away with a profit, but also minimizes the amount of money you can win in future hands.

For example, you bought into a cash game for $100, and after winning a few pots, you now have $300. You’re up $200, and want to make sure that you leave with a profit, so you cash out $150, leaving you with $150 on the table. This protects your investment, but now the most any player can give you in one hand is $150 instead of the $300 you could have earned.

Cash Games are flexible, allowing new players to enter if there’s room at the table, or even changing the game and rules on the fly. As long as the players at the table agree to the rules, pretty much anything goes, even to the point of adding wild cards and playing “dealers choice” where the rules of the game can alter every hand, depending on what the current dealer wants to play.

Tournaments are more rigid. As with most tournament structures, the end result of a poker tournament is to have one player stand alone, with everyone else’s chips. Once you’ve lost all your money, the game is over for you. There’s no option of walking away if you’ve made a tidy profit, or cashing out some of the money. Tournaments have a set buy-in (sometimes re-buys and add-ons are optional for a specific period of time), and have pre-set times where the blinds/antes raise, in order to force action. The longer the tournament goes, the higher the blinds/antes get.

For any multi-table tournament, there should be a Tournament Director. This person’s job is to ensure that rules and codes of conduct are followed. Probably the most important, and most difficult, job of a Tournament Director (TD) is to keep all tables as close as possible to the same size. For example, a tournament of 81 people would consist of nine tables of nine players each (a standard tournament table holds 9-10 players). When nine players are eliminated, the remaining 72 players would merge into 8 tables. Also, when one table quickly eliminates 2 players, the TD will take one player from another table and add that person to the table with the fewest people. It’s important to keep all tables evenly balanced.


A standard tournament has no maximum size. The 2007 WSOP (World Series of Poker) Championship Event had over 8700 entrants (as shown in the picture above), with a buy-in of $10,000. The event was so huge, that tournament organizers had to split the group into 3 different sections, and combine them into one smaller, more manageable group days after the start of the event. In general, to make money in a multitable tournament, you’ll have to finish in the top 10%-20%, but then the payout should be pretty significant.

So which format is best for you? I guess it’s a personal preference, and a matter of circumstance.

If you’re just having a few buddies over for a fun night, I’d suggest playing a low buyin cash game. It allows everyone to play the entire night, whereas in a tournament, there can be literally hours between when you’re eliminated from one game and another one starts. But if there’s going to be at least 8 or more players, then a tournament may be the best option, especially if you have more players than you can hold at one table.

Multi-table tournaments are a lot of fun, and when 4-5 players are eliminated, they can play a cash game until the tournament is over, allowing other players eliminated to join at any time, and ending when the tournament is done to start another tournament.