Ring games and Tournament games are different ways of betting and playing a poker game. There are many types of poker games: Seven Card Stud, Omaha, Five Card, Texas Hold’em are some popular ones…My favourite is Hold’em and it is the only one I know how to play with any measured success.

Admittedly though, a truly rounded poker player will eventually spend the time to learn to play well in the many different variations of poker games, because playing poker in its different variations actually will improve how you play all poker.

Today I'm going to just focus on Texas Holdem Poker and the two different ways you can play it.

RING GAMES

In Ring Cash games, players sit down at the table against each other with exactly how much they are willing to gamble with. So if you put $200 cash on the table, you will get an equivalent $200 in chips to play with. A typical table set up is anywhere from 6 to 10 players at a single table.

The blinds (a forced bet) in a cash game are always the same throughout the time you are playing. They never increase or decrease. Also, players don’t necessarily sit down with the same amount of chips. Players decide how much money they want to sit down and gamble with within a minimum and maximum allowed range.

In a ring game, you can also play for as short or as long a period of time as you like. If you sit down with $200, and you have lost $30, you can leave with your remaining $170. Likewise, if you win you can leave with your winnings whenever you want to. This is not the same for tournament games.

TOURNAMENT GAMES

In Tournament Games, everyone buys in for the same dollar amount and receives the same chip amount for that particular tournament. The combined buy-in amount of the players makes up the pool of money available to be won by the top finishers of the game.

So for example, if the buy-in for each player in the tournament was $100 and it was a tournament with a maximum of 10 players, the pool of money to be won would no more than $1000.

A 10 player tournament like this often has the last 3 players (1st, 2nd, & 3rd places) winning the pool of money in amounts like 1st ($500), 2nd ($300), & 3rd ($200), but the distribution can really be anyway the host wants to distribute the pool of money. The game is finished only when there is one person left standing who has won everyone else’s chips. Quite often a long game can be as long as 4-5 hours...on the quick end, it could be around an hour.

During the game, the blinds eventually increase as the rounds progress. If your chip stack is getting smaller, the increasing blinds will make your chip stack get smaller even faster.

THE STRATEGY AND PAY-OFF IS DIFFERENT FOR EACH GAME TYPE

In a ring game, your knowledge of poker hand statistical odds and the ability to read your opponents betting patterns, can earn you a steady amount of cash.

With patience and a solid tight (very selective card playing) and aggressive (strong betting patterns) play, you will come out ahead of your opponents. The game of poker is a combination of skill and luck. YOu will come out ahead if you can learn to make less mistakes than your opponents (ie. knowing when to check, bet, push, or fold at the right moments)

You can also limit your losses on days you don’t feel your playing your “A” game and just simply get up from the table and not play.

In tournament play, you still have to play disciplined poker, as described in the previous paragraph, but you have to also take more risks at appropriate times to maintain and build your chip stack.

Tournament Poker play is about building your chip stack and survival. If you play too tight (not enough hands played) you will eventually be “blinded” away (the forced betting and ever increasing betting amounts will eat away at your chips until there is nothing left to survive). As the tournament gets into the later stages, it is even more important to be aware of how many chips you have, how many your opponents have, and how many players are left in the game who you have to outlast to be “in the money” (win part of the pool of money).

The payoff with ring games is steady building cash with patience. The payoff with tournaments is a small investment of money for a huge cash return. If you are a good poker player, sometimes you may buy-in with several tournaments before you place and see a significant return. The money won in tournaments is a more fluctuating cash flow.

Which way do you think you’d like to play?

All-In!