Alas poor Gman, I knew him well (I hope I didn't offend poor Yorick there.) Sorry for the dramatic flair, my title had me in a bit of a Shakespeare vain and I just couldn't resist. First things first, an update on last nights activities. It was a slow tourney night, I managed a 97th place finish out of 675 runners in the AP 2.5k GTD nightly 1r Turbo. I love that tourney, it is a pretty simple affair to play. The general play is pretty horrid and you can very easily navigate quite deep without really hasving to risk yourself in there. I got it in good AJ vs. J4 BvB, just didn't happen to avoid the 4. Oh well moving on. So on to the question of the day, to cash or not to cash. What do I mean. The question is how much does cash play serve as a viable practice arena for tournament players to develop significant post flop skills without the pressure of blinds/antes, dwindling stacks and players coming and going at the table. First let me say that I am not naive enough to think that 100% of the cash game translates to tournament poker and vice versa. I understand that there are things with image and constant deep stack that allow you to do more with deception that tournament poker just does not afford. But on the other hand I think there is really good opportunity at the mid levels of cash play to learn, develop and practice post flop play. I am primarily talking about the .25/.50 and .50/1.00 type arenas where players are smart enough to understand applying pressure and savvy enough to play back at you, forcing you to think, apply ranges, take creative lines and develop rapid analytical skills and solid poker reflexes. I am currently experiementing with a 1 night a week "practice" session with two tables of full ring 50nl on various sites and seem to be enjoying the breakup to the routine. The other nice benefit is that I am starting to see the influence in my tournament game. No longer and I feeling afraid of what is happening after the cards come. I am learning and developing the ability to float more, work scare cards to my advantage and ramp down my willingness to go to the felt with TP/TK in favor of managing pot sizes, manipulating opponents and in general trying to out think thier maneuvers and letting them play face up. We shall see how the experiment continues to go, but for now, I seem to be getting some consistent deep runs happening and I feel comfortable attributing it to the fact that I am doing a better job of extracting the maximum amount of value in each hand I am in. Stay tuned and I will continue to update. This is the Gman signing out. May all your flushes be royal!
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