Poker Tournaments A Coin Flip According To Alec Torelli

Alec “traheho” Torelli is a 25 year-old poker pro currently residing in Las Vegas with $1,473,962 in live tournament cashes, and a further $573,742 won online.
However, in spite of his $2,047,704 in tournament winnings, Alec Torelli earns his living from cash games, and made a $888,822 profit at Full Tilt’s cash tables alone, not to mention his untold live winnings.
Therefore, it was interesting reading Torelli’s personal take on the difference between cash games and tournaments recently, in which he concludes; “few tournament players can win at high-stakes cash games, whereas all high-stakes cash-game players can win at tournaments.”
For instance, Jonathan Duhamel was a cash game specialist when he won the 2010 WSOP Main Event, while Daniel Negreanu is 3rd on Poker’s All Time Money List with $14,929,636 in tournament winnings, but is by far the biggest loser across all seven seasons of GSN’s High Stakes Poker, with -$2,000,150 in losses. A distant second is Phil Galfond with -$431,500 in losses.
One explanation given between the two disciplines is the skill factors involved, which is far superior in cash games as there is more room for play and more decisions to be made on the river. Consequently, there is less variance and luck in cash games, whereas tournament superstars, he suggests, are benefactors of professional coin flipping. As he continues:
“If someone enters a coin-flipping contest with 10,000 people, eventually there will be one winner. ..This may be a bit dramatic, because it implies the analogy that a tournament, like coin flipping, requires no skill. While this isn’t true, the amount that exists is not enough to warrant many of the results.”
Therefore, cash games will always attract the best players in the world, many of whom prefer to avoid tournaments so as not to become too recognisable and kill their action.
Despite Alec “traheho” Torelli’s acknowledging that there is more money to be made in cash games, he does also admit that tournaments still hold a big attraction for him. He then goes on to express gratitude for the “exposure, sponsors and perhaps undeserved credibility” he received from his tournament successes, while saying he is often compelled to enter big tournaments anyway, especially after seeing some of the huge first place prizes on offer.
To check out the rest of Alec Torelli’s interesting article, follow this link..