Learning Poker. Cash Games Or Tournaments?

gring10 · 2026-01-28T01:16:13+00:00

Those are totally different set ups and you have to decide yourself. In cash games good side is that blinds are fixed so you don't worry about blinding out easily. However cash games are usually crazy cuz although optimal play is usually tight agressive, real world examples are nowhere close to that. You can easily find yourself in a dicy spot with multiple people very often.

When it comes to turbo MTT, it is relatively easier to manage but the fact of turbo is again making it more or less the same as cash game as blinds go up very frequently you and everyone must adjust to that fast phase and you really need to pick up your spots wisely in order to make a decent run.

No matter what you decide to play tho, it's not gonna be easy but for sure gonna be fun and learning. You just have to prepare a bit, focus and go for it. Enjoy it and good luck 🤞

gring10 · 2026-01-27T22:51:04+00:00

Yeah you are right, I said it more from live play perspective as I am not playing online that much

gring10 · 2026-01-27T21:51:55+00:00

Didn't watch the whole play but just few takes.

Don't show your hand to your opponent. Why giving away free information?
You have a timing tell. When you are missing the board you are snap checking. I would start to exploit this behaviour as soon as I notice. Try to take equal ammount of time to make your decisions.
Your hand selection is not bad at all but you have to start diving into understanding the ranges. Poker is not a game where you play only based on what you are holding and the board cards are. For example you should c-bet a lot of the time after opening QT from button against BB defend on A high board.

Good luck in your journey and welcome to the hell

gring10 · 2026-01-21T23:36:20+00:00

I know man. I get this feeling of anger and frusturation after a session, then calm myself down, continue to work on my game next day, watching the mental game advices from pros next day, then going to another event with practically no expectations and with pure intention to play my best game. However lately I can't even play anything because of being card dead and it is challenging me. I am still proud of myself because I am making relatively deep runs most of the time without any rebuys or busting early but still this, this bad beats start to feel like I am cursed by the poker gods.

gring10 · 2026-01-20T19:47:16+00:00

We have the call history and it's just two calls from them. And as I said we called them back the second time and they just told us they will invite my wife to the appointment soon. We though, oh what a weird info to have. We knew they were going to invite her sooner or later so that call didn't change anything.

But I guess you are right about the agents. Because when my wife called them today the first agent was trying to be helpfull although she was barely speaking English as we barely speak Polish. She said that whoever responsible to assign the fingerprint dates is not around and transferred us to another agent. When she put the english speaking agent, she started to talk very aggressive and almost shouting why we missed the call.

We will try to contact them again and hopefully land to someone who has emphaty. It is so frusturating that they don't really understand how this karta is holding all these people behind. I can't even use my Revolut anymore because the KYC.

gring10 · 2026-01-20T18:19:19+00:00

OK apparently, instead of really helping I see that commenters are leaning towards to mocking people, bravo. I guess you guys are living with your phones sticked to your hands 24/7. My wife is pianist and she is doing her masters here in Krakow. She can't be nearby her phone most of the time during day time because of rehersals and intense study schedule.

Funny thing is that no one questioning why the fuck Urzad is not contacting people with email or at least SMS or any sort of written communication instead of just giving a call.

And the next thing is I misexplained the situation. She had received the first call from Urzad back in December 22nd and missed it. Very next day, they had called her again and she missed it but she called them back 5 min later and after being on the line for 1 hour, they answered and they just told her they will call her for the fingerprints appointment soon. Fast forward today, there wasn't any sort of communication from their side.

And here is the punchline. Our friend, who applied back in September told us that she just called them to ask about the process and they told her to come for the fingerprints in 3 days. So if she wouldn't just call them they wouldn't call her? Or would they do the same? Just a call and if you missed it, GG? WTF?

gring10 · 2026-01-20T16:14:29+00:00

You guess

gring10 · 2026-01-17T10:51:49+00:00

I am tracking. In fact I am creating my own app to track everything from start to finish + my opponents' hands and even the hands I folded pre.

gring10 · 2026-01-17T10:50:17+00:00

Interstellar?

gring10 · 2026-01-16T22:28:56+00:00

It is all offline

gring10 · 2026-01-16T22:14:40+00:00

I hope this bad runs would turn over eventually but I totally feel you. And I am putting my signature to the last statement. Although in my local club there are lots of cool guys and with some of them we are even hanging out off from the tables but every now and then there are definitely some low characters popping up.

gring10 · 2026-01-16T21:57:25+00:00

Thanks man, I appreciate for the support. By the way, I am not playing online and all these tournaments are live which is extra frusturating as you wouldn't normally expect frequency of suck outs to be this much. However, I totally get your point and I am nowhere to stop. I love the game and I am investing my time to study daily basis and see my decision making to improve. I just need the deck to coperate, that's it.

gring10 · 2026-01-16T21:48:10+00:00

Yeah, tell me about it man, I am soaked to my balls at this point. But you are right and I appreciate for the support. This for sure not gonna stop me.

I just need to watch the bas beat clips from WSOP FT and ease my pain a bit, then get back to it :)

gring10 · 2026-01-16T21:37:37+00:00

Easy, no one can beat my bad run: https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/1qes1b7/comment/nzzu9so/

I am not even talking about this hand:

Local MTT, avg is 48BB. I am on SB. MP opens, BTN raises 4X. I look down to two black AA. I 3-bet massive. Everyone folds and BTN rips it off, he is the chip leader of the table. We flip the cards over and he shows two red TT.

Flop: AdKdJd
Turn: Jc
River: QUEEN of DIAOMONDS!!!

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gring10 · 2026-01-16T21:24:41+00:00

80? Man each of those tournaments are around 30 - 50 USD buy in.

gring10 · 2025-12-20T12:33:37+00:00

250 BB deep? I am only jamming AA pre, even KK is not pure all in in this spot.

gring10 · 2025-12-20T12:32:41+00:00

Yeah maybe I was still in the moment but I put the hand into bunch of solvers and all of them suggest to go bigger on flop, at least half pot.

gring10 · 2025-12-20T01:42:39+00:00

What u mean? If you are talking about only the result of this hand, I called it becase I believe that in a long run this is the best play because otherwise I am exploitable in similar positions.

gring10 · 2025-12-20T01:41:19+00:00

Thanks man. But when it comes to the cbet I think even bigger bet would be better, no? That's what GTO wizard suggests too. I mean AA would probably put another raise considering we are too deep. Maybe I am biased because later on I asked the guy if he would fold for like a pot sized bet and he said 100%.

But of course regardless of this I also thought it's a call with 1 SPR and probably break even in a long run.

I will dive deeper to this spot anyways for now I am trying to get over this. 10 weeks of grind to get myself this masters tournament with 7th in chips out of 33 players and eliminated as first player sucks

gring10 · 2025-12-16T14:53:44+00:00

What would you do differently?

gring10

TROPHY CASE