Here at PokerPlayer weget quite a lot of emailsfrom inexperiencedplayers asking about thedifferences between tournamentsand cash games. And we often givethe same well-trodden answer abouthow in cash games the blinds don’tincrease, the stacks are usually deep,and each chip is worth an actualmonetary value rather than atournament value. But what wedon’t touch on is why you’d chooseto play one format over another orwhich suits each individual best.

Until now, that is. Because recentlyI got thinking about the two verydifferent formats of poker and whyI play one pretty well (tournaments,where I’ve probably won close to$35,000 in MTTs over the past twoyears) and one pretty bad (cashgames where I’ve probably lost closeto $35,000 in the… no, I’m onlyjoking, but you get the picture).

I would love to be able to play cashgames well and build my bankroll asquick as Brian ‘sbrugby’ Townsend,but it ain’t going to happen.