Why MTT and cash game ranges are different
Dara O'Kearney shares why MTTs and cash games are different beasts even when the stacks are the same.
A student asked me an interesting question this week which was, if the stacks are the same, should cash game ranges be identical to MTT ranges? If the start of a tournament is 100 big blinds, should the GTO ranges be the same as the GTO cash games?
The answer is no, they should be different, for a very important reason. First let's compare two ranges. This is a GTO approved Cutoff opening range in cash games with 100 big blinds effective:
Now this is a GTO approved Cutoff opening range with 100 big blinds effective for an MTT:
As you can see the MTT range is wider, I have highlighted in yellow the additioonal hands you can play. You would usually see an even more profound increase for the defending range of the Big Blind between cash and MTTs. This goes against the conventional wisdom some players have about MTTs being tighter than cash games.
This is all down to the effect of the ante in MTTs. If you were playing a cash game with antes the ranges would likely mirror the MTT ranges, if you played an MTT without antes the ranges would mirror the cash game ranges.
Antes drive the action in poker
Antes provide more money in the pot, making steals more profitable when they get through or when the defender check/folds the flop. Antes also make defending more profitable for the same reason. Opening sizes tend to be bigger in cash games because the ranges tend to be stronger because of a lack of antes and stealing the blinds is less of a priority, it's more about building the pot with big hands.
'Bomb pots' or straddles in cash games have the affect of widening the ranges like antes do in tournaments.
Only the best MTT players pay attention to the ante sizes in tournaments whereas most casual players ignore them. A good MTT player will notice when the blind level goes from 100/200 with a 25 ante to 150/300 with a 50 ante. In the first example the ante is 12.5% of a big blind and at a full table that puts an additional 1.125 big blinds on the table. In the second example the ante is 17% of a big blind and puts 1.5 extra big blinds on the table.
These might seem like small details but they are the sort of thing that might make QJo a fold one orbit but an open the following orbit.
Back in the day live poker tournaments started without antes and the correct strategy was to play very tight until they kicked in. That way you built a tight image which you could use to steal the bigger relative pots later. Like many modern realisations in poker, Phil Hellmuth was ahead of the curve here. His infamous late appearances in tournaments were actually less about showboating and more about coming in when the antes were in play.
If an MTT has no blinds or antes the correct strategy would be to literally play nothing except for Aces. They drive the action much more in poker than a lot of players realise.
Dara O'Kearney's new book Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book is out now.
