any reason that..

I can do well in sit n go and mtt tourneys, but suck at ring games?

In the sit n goes i have played I've placed: 1 2 2 1 3 3 4 5 7 9 4 3 out of 9. The one MTT i've played was out of 1879, and I placed 6th (sadly, it was a freeroll. yay $3!!). I've just started out online and this has been bothering me big time. I just dump all my winnings from SnGs into live game player's hands.

because its two totally different styles of play.

Yeah i have the problem that i'm good at ring games, but suck at MTTs, i'm decent at sngs though.

Patience and post flop play are more important that online tournies.

There's not hurry to do anything but set up and wait.

-'rilla

Maybe you should specialise in the tournaments. If you can make money there but struggle in the ring games perhaps you should concentrate your efforts and your bank roll in the SnGs and MTTs. You could always work on your ring game strategy at a later date, maybe when you've earnt enough to cover the learning curve.

MTTs/SnGs and ring are two different beasts requiring different abilities.

If you are doing well in SnGs, why would you want to change to a game that you can't do as well at? Stick to what you can do well. Making money is fun.

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

Patience and post flop play are more important that online tournies.

There's not hurry to do anything but set up and wait.

-'rilla

yep, i have no patience, i can do well in sngs because the end is always in sight. In mtts you are trying to survive while gathering chips, and i will always make one stupid move in either an attempt to gather chips or surivive.

I know it was briefly mentioned but can anyone lay out the stark differences they see between playing ring games vs tourney? I'm trying to figure out what exactly it is that prevents me from doing well in ring games. I wouldn't bother trying to fix the problem right away, but many of the home games around here are ring style.

Maybe it's social interaction man, I know a lot of people that play well online because they don't have to deal with people, less distraction, less worry about tells? There's more of an act in ring games with trying to suck people in when you have the monster... I find a big difference in that

nah, I suck at online ring as well. I need to gather more stats on poker tracker to see how far from my normal starting hand requirements I stray when I play ring, as opposed to tourneys.

i play much more LAG in ring games because you can always buy back in, losing one buyin is nothing, but in a tournament i play very TAG because once you are out you are out.

bear with me on this but i think it's like crosswords. i found that once you got into the head of the person setting the crossword you were set but try switching to a similar level of difficulty in a different newspaper and it was a whole different matter.

i found ring and tourney to work like that - you get into a specific mindset. i started playing SNG's and MTT's and got pretty good at it. then i dabbled with ring games and just pissed away all of the profits i'd made. it was a couple of things for me:

fear - with a tourney you have usually limited your losses to a certain amount from the off - there is a certain security about knowing the total amount you can lose (or there was for me).

attrition - with an SNG or a MTT you can more often than not get a decent way into the thing by just playing very tight and being aggressive with premium hands. at that point you can then use that image (specifically in SNG's where the players are constant) to steal and make moves in the later stages as the blinds go up.

however, the big point here is that the longer you stay in (however you do it) the closer you are to the money. with ring if you play the same way you will likely be categorized by those paying attention as a rock and get minimal action from your good hands when they arrive or just get unlucky and be called by someone with an equally good hand that hits or a weaker hand that hits - the thing is, because you've been sat waiting for those cards for potentially a long time it gets much easier for other players to put you on a hand and much harder for you to put them down when you're beat and before you know it you've played two hands in the last hour and lost your buyin...

the only thing i can say is use poker tracker (i found the game time feature very useful during sessions too) to see where your losses are and plug the holes mercilessly to begin with. also play games that are within your bank roll - play the micro limits to start with and then when you have found the leaks and stopped losing you can think about loosening up your game a little.

just work on playing tag to start with, play good cards in position. be patient and disciplined and trust your instincts.

hope that makes some sense.

good luck.