I voted cash for obvious reasons; more social, player group typically stays longer, but I do have a heart for tournament play under the right circumstances.
Each of my two games I’ve run, spanning over 600 sessions total between the two chapters, have started with tournament play. Tournaments allowed for me to build a deep pool of poker enthusiasts and expose them to home games. As it became obvious who wanted to play regularly, the transition to cash began.
Because there is an appetite for intermittent tourney play, I initiated the Godfather Club Championship Series which was a tournament series intended to identify our club’s champion. This monthly offering, complete with Dr. Neau’s complicated points system (the best system BTW) was a great opportunity to mix up what we do here at GFC while looking to crown our champion. The series lost this opportunity when the location was hit with devastating parking problems due to road reconfiguration. With the change to shorter tables (mainly parking) and the outpouring of opinion toward the big bank the Executive Game had evolved into (resulting in the creation of the micro game), the decision to place the club series on hold and focus on Micro Night has taken precedent.
Because tournaments do serve a purpose beyond generating a deep player pool and identifying a club champion, we’ve developed a tourney structure that serves all aspects of poker night. It involves a deep stack format, non-sluggish blind timer, low entry fee with full stack rebuys the first hour and an add-on opportunities, and appreciable, non-handicapping rebuys and add-ons into subsequent hours. The rationale, which is completely counterintuitive in tourney play, is to keep players at the table a little longer.
Ours is now a social game, but as previously mentioned, has an appetite for occasional tourney play. Because we will roll these deep-stack events so infrequently (even Micro Night is now only 2 times a month with life and golf, which is life BTW) there is talk about creating "The People's Championship", a points-based series (Hello Dr. Neau) because who doesn’t like looking at a leaderboard…
Tourneys are good for:
Cultivating a player pool
Identifying a club champion
Offering a change of pace
Among other things I’m sure
They can be:
Grindy and less social
A short night for some
Void of the fun of reckless play
Cash games are for:
True degens
Those who like to mix playing styles
Providing intermittent rewards
Keeping players at the table
Promoting a social atmosphere
The can be:
Financially prohibitive
A little wild for some
Done properly, both entities can coexist in a groups orbit and when done brilliantly, a tournament can bring the best of all worlds together in a single serving.
Now everyone take a lap.
) in 12 years but my cash game has grown and become pretty regular.
