Once again we're in for a few days of LPL LoL DFS goodies. Tonight has two sizable favorites, and I'm breaking it all down below with the best DraftKings LoL DFS picks. LPL Series Victory Five (V5) vs. DFS Cash games consist of two different types of contests, 50/50s (also known as double ups) and head-to-head tournaments. 50/50 contests require you to finish in the top half of the field, where you will be. Cash Games from the Profit Perspective. One of the biggest things most people are concerned about is the amount of money they can expect to make playing poker. This makes sense if you're looking to take up the game.
Tournaments
If you've ever seen PokerStars' live or online poker coverage, there's a strong chance that you've seen tournament play before. Events such as European Poker Tour (EPT), PokerStars Players' Championship (PSPC) and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) focus on tournaments with major prizes and glory going to the winner.
The biggest ever poker success story comes from a tournament in 2003 where Chris Moneymaker qualified to the WSOP Main Event for just $86 and went on to win the event for a cool $2.5 million.
Tournaments are scheduled with a stated buy-in, start time, prize structure and starting stack (the chips you can play with). Your buy-in will consist of a contribution towards the prize pool and a smaller fee towards the casino or poker site.
The objective of playing in a poker tournament is to be the last player remaining in the field, but once you lose your chips – and if there is no opportunity to rebuy – then your tournament is over.
At regular intervals, the compulsory blind levels will rise, which means the minimum bet-size escalates and players will have to continuously spin up their stack to be safe from elimination. These intervals are determined by the ‘speed' of the tournament. Furthermore, after a set number of blind levels, antes are introduced – this means every player starts to pay a fraction of the big blind towards the pot in every hand.
You may have heard of the popular Sit & Go and Spin & Go games, and they are also types of tournaments. These are not conventional tournaments as they start as soon as the predetermined number of players is reached, and in single table tournaments they will be over much quicker than a scheduled tournament. It remains that players will buy in for a certain amount and receive the same amount of chips to use to work their way through the competition.
There are certain nuances to poker tournament play that will see you adapt how you play. Here are some examples:
- Freezeout tournaments: You only have one buy-in, so make it count
- Rebuy tournaments: Everyone has at least one more chance to enter should you bust out, so players may be more aggressive from the start.
- Knockout tournaments: You receive a cash prize for eliminating other players, so look for those opportunities.
- Satellite tournaments: The prizes is an entry to a bigger tournament. If the top prize is the same for a number of players, focus less on being 1st and concentrate on surviving into those prize places.
Cashgames
Cash games are the purest form of poker. This is the game commonly seen in movies where the hero sits down at a game already underway and starts playing. This happens because unlike tournaments, cash games have no natural start or end time – if there's a seat open, you can play, and you can leave whenever you like. This is unlike tournaments as you don't have to wait for a certain number of players to buy-in, or for the start time to come around.
You can buy in for any amount between the lower and upper limits of the table. This is where the fiction of movies diverges from reality, you can't throw your car keys into the pot – you can only use what you have bought in and is sitting in front of you. Nor can you use stacks of cash – the cash you use to buy in is exchanged for chips worth the corresponding cash value.
Unlike tournaments, going bust in one hand isn't necessarily the end of your game. If you can afford it, you just pay for a new stack. Similarly, blind levels will not change from the level of the table you sit down at, and you'll be able to continue playing for however long you like, so long as you still have chips to play with.
Cash games come with their own different types of games also. Not as varied, because cash game is a standard that is difficult to disrupt, but for instance there are Zoom games on PokerStars which see you moved to a brand new table with a new starting hand as soon as you fold. There are also differences in sizes between the tables; you can play at tables with six players, tables with as many as 9 or 10 players, or heads-up against just one other player.
Which should you play?
This question is up to you. Which game sounds like the most fun to you? Better still, try out each of the games with play money on PokerStars and see which suits you better.
There are other bankroll and playing time considerations – which we will cover in What is the Best Poker Game For You? – but the most important aspect to deal with right now is making sure the game of poker is fun for those playing it.
Test your knowledge with our short quiz below
There are two different game formats in DFS, cash games and tournaments. They are both very different and require a different strategy when drafting your team. In this article we will go through both and help you understand the main differences between the two.
Cash Games
Cash games only pay out the top 50% of the field. They can consist of as little as 2 entries (known as head-to-head), to as big as tens of thousands of entries. Everybody who finishes in the top 50% gets paid the same amount, double their buy-in. Because of this, we don't care about finishing first, we just want to make sure we get into the top half of the field.
To do this, we need to make sure we pick a draft team with the highest floor possible. A floor is the lowest possible score we can expect from a player.
In NBA, Steph Curry has a remarkable high floor, as he generally never scores below 40 FPS. By creating a team with a high floor, this should mean that we are guaranteed enough points to get into the top 50%, even if we are no where near the top of the leaderboard. There is no need to take risks in cash games, so steer clear of players who are unpredictable.
Tournaments
Tournament strategy is quite the opposite to that of cash games. Tournaments are usually very top heavy in the pay scale, meaning to get a good amount of winnings you need to finish in the top 1-5% of the field. To do this, you generally have to take some risks. Unlike in cash games where we are looking for players with high floors, in tournaments we need players with high ceilings.
A high ceiling is the highest possible score we can expect from a player. Of course, as we want to score as highly as possible, we need to create a team with the highest ceiling as possible. Again, a player like Steph Curry has a high ceiling too, as he can score upwards of 70 FPS a night.
Cash Game Vs Tournament Rules
Generally players with high ceilings are the highest priced players, but not always. Some players, known as 'boom or bust', can have high ceilings but very low floors, meaning you don't know what to expect from them. They are needed in your teams, but of course make the amount of points you will score very unpredictable.
Cashgames
Cash games are the purest form of poker. This is the game commonly seen in movies where the hero sits down at a game already underway and starts playing. This happens because unlike tournaments, cash games have no natural start or end time – if there's a seat open, you can play, and you can leave whenever you like. This is unlike tournaments as you don't have to wait for a certain number of players to buy-in, or for the start time to come around.
You can buy in for any amount between the lower and upper limits of the table. This is where the fiction of movies diverges from reality, you can't throw your car keys into the pot – you can only use what you have bought in and is sitting in front of you. Nor can you use stacks of cash – the cash you use to buy in is exchanged for chips worth the corresponding cash value.
Unlike tournaments, going bust in one hand isn't necessarily the end of your game. If you can afford it, you just pay for a new stack. Similarly, blind levels will not change from the level of the table you sit down at, and you'll be able to continue playing for however long you like, so long as you still have chips to play with.
Cash games come with their own different types of games also. Not as varied, because cash game is a standard that is difficult to disrupt, but for instance there are Zoom games on PokerStars which see you moved to a brand new table with a new starting hand as soon as you fold. There are also differences in sizes between the tables; you can play at tables with six players, tables with as many as 9 or 10 players, or heads-up against just one other player.
Which should you play?
This question is up to you. Which game sounds like the most fun to you? Better still, try out each of the games with play money on PokerStars and see which suits you better.
There are other bankroll and playing time considerations – which we will cover in What is the Best Poker Game For You? – but the most important aspect to deal with right now is making sure the game of poker is fun for those playing it.
Test your knowledge with our short quiz below
There are two different game formats in DFS, cash games and tournaments. They are both very different and require a different strategy when drafting your team. In this article we will go through both and help you understand the main differences between the two.
Cash Games
Cash games only pay out the top 50% of the field. They can consist of as little as 2 entries (known as head-to-head), to as big as tens of thousands of entries. Everybody who finishes in the top 50% gets paid the same amount, double their buy-in. Because of this, we don't care about finishing first, we just want to make sure we get into the top half of the field.
To do this, we need to make sure we pick a draft team with the highest floor possible. A floor is the lowest possible score we can expect from a player.
In NBA, Steph Curry has a remarkable high floor, as he generally never scores below 40 FPS. By creating a team with a high floor, this should mean that we are guaranteed enough points to get into the top 50%, even if we are no where near the top of the leaderboard. There is no need to take risks in cash games, so steer clear of players who are unpredictable.
Tournaments
Tournament strategy is quite the opposite to that of cash games. Tournaments are usually very top heavy in the pay scale, meaning to get a good amount of winnings you need to finish in the top 1-5% of the field. To do this, you generally have to take some risks. Unlike in cash games where we are looking for players with high floors, in tournaments we need players with high ceilings.
A high ceiling is the highest possible score we can expect from a player. Of course, as we want to score as highly as possible, we need to create a team with the highest ceiling as possible. Again, a player like Steph Curry has a high ceiling too, as he can score upwards of 70 FPS a night.
Cash Game Vs Tournament Rules
Generally players with high ceilings are the highest priced players, but not always. Some players, known as 'boom or bust', can have high ceilings but very low floors, meaning you don't know what to expect from them. They are needed in your teams, but of course make the amount of points you will score very unpredictable.
Cash Game Or Tournament Poker
As well as finding players with high ceilings, another strategy is to make contrarian plays, or 'plays against the grain'. This means going for players who most other DFS players may dismiss, for a number of reasons. By doing this, you are differentiating your team from many of the field, which means if that player has a great game, you will find yourself shooting up the leaderboard.
Cash Game Tournament Difference
Hopefully this article will help you to identify the differences between cash games and tournaments and the need to change your lineups depending on which type you are playing.
