Big difference you don't have to be as good a poker player if you have a good tourney strategy ,tourneys are about survival and advance you lose all your chips your gone(past re buy if your not in a freeze out)you just reload at a cash table.In a tourney you will sometimes you will get paid for folding by making it in the money,you'll never get paid for folding at a cash table.Due to the blind structure pots get huge toward the end of a tourney,and the pots always stay the same at cash table.