September: The month is over as far as I'm concerned. It's not a skill game.

Well everyone, I have now found the most wishy-washy profession on the planet. I have always said that being an actor is the worst profession in the world as all my friends who are aspiring actors/actresses are always out of work and broke. But nope, that's not the worst profession in terms of being unreliable. The worst profession is tournament poker player.

It boils down like this.

In a 30 day month, you are only going to make money between 5-8 days out of the entire month.

The rest of the time you are going to be losing since you will not cash in the majority of your tournaments.

You only make money if you're losing days are small and your winning days are big.

Also which tournaments you cash/final table in will make all the difference.

As usual, I have followed the same formula for the last few years and that is:

1. Play large tournament with small buyin and run really hot. Make final table. Get small payday.

2. Play large tournament with large buyin. Run really bad every time and never cash.

That's the way its always been and I have no reason to see why thats going to change.

For example:

My new favorite tournament in the world. Held every Sunday at noon my time.

$55+$5 $125K guaranteed.

Usually attracts close to 3K players, has a prize pool of close to 200K, and has a 1st place of 25K.

The last two times I have played, the exact same thing has happened.

Week 1:

I have 15K chips. Avg is 10K. I get all in preflop with a guy who has me covered. I have Aces. He has 9's. We all know the story.

Week 2: (Last week)

I have 10K chips. Avg is 8K. I get all in preflop with a guy who has 8K. I have Aces. He has fives. We all know the story. In this one though, I managed to climb all the way back and was within 300 players of the money.

I get A Q. I raise. Fish calls on the button. Flop A x x. Turn x. I get all in. He calls and has AK. Shocking. I'm out. I had an average stack and told myself to do nothing stupid and was folding my AQ to a re-raise. Of course the worst player on the table coolers me and of course I don't see it coming since he flats me preflop.

Here are my overall numbers for the month.

Tournaments played: 242
Cashes: 45
Cash percentage: 18.6%
Final Tables: 6
Winnings: $5678

These were my final tables. These 3 were in a four day period.

$30NL 9/693 $294
$20NL 3/180 $428
$10NL 5/3339 $1502

Then a whole two weeks pass with no Final Table finishes because I run bad. These 3 were also in 4 days.

$15NL 3/513 $769
$8NL 5/2358 $905
$38NL 6/180 $297

That's it. Pretty bad right? Only one cash of over $1000 is extremely disappointing. Only two final tables in 1000+ player tournaments. I don't really know how I feel about that since I had never final tabled one prior to this month. I still think I can expect to do better. Pathetic nonetheless in my mind.

No final tables in prestigious tournaments such as daily re-buys or any Sunday tourneys.

Overall, twice, I got down to the last several tables in the daily $3 rebuy. I ran horrible in $5 rebuys this month and don't really dabble much in the $10 rebuys since I don't really have the bankroll for it. Pathetic again. I should have gotten further in these tournaments more then just twice since these tournaments are the best part of my game and I consider myself an expert in them.

This is what I have deduced from poker. This is definitely not a skill game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding themselves. Anyone who says that everything balances out in the long run is also kidding themselves. Those of us who actually make money consistently only do so because the losers aren't as intellegent as the winners. They don't think things out thoroughly. They don't care. They don't want to be taught. Obviously, there are intellegent people who play the game who are losers but its because they either don't try or don't care.

This game is all timing. If there is any skill in this game, that is the only place it lies. After much experience, a little luck, and being smart enough to realize certain situations you can put your money in at the right time and have the right result.

I have played close to a million hands of poker and I don't see how the numbers add up. Either you need to do simulations for billions of hands to have a large enough sample or the numbers really don't add up.

Over the course of my life I have lost disproportionately in these situations. These are all in preflop situations. I obviously cannot speak for non all in hands since most hands don't make it too showdown.

AK vs. AQ. I probably win half the time if I am lucky.

AA vs. AK. I have now lost 8 times in the last couple months. You are only suppose to lose some 4-5 times out of every 100 but I have lost 8 times in the last 30 or so. An anomaly. Seems to be an anomaly when it only happens to me.

88 vs. AK. The classic coin-flip. I try very hard to not get all in with these types of coinflips. I lose these well over half the time whereas when I have the AK I win more then half the time. It probably balances out that way but you can tell by my logic which types of hands I would rather be all in with. I will take AK any day all in over a PP.

When you make certain calls or certain laydowns will determine whether or not you lose. Holding up once in a million chip pot is not a skill. It's luck.

Example.

The $8 tournament I final tabled had a similar situation happen. Something that has never ever happened to me and will probably never happen again happened.

I won 8 straight all in confrontations with 60/40's and 65/35s.

For those who don't know the numbers: That is K J against A Q and J 10 against A K type of hands.

Whether or not I was favored pre-flop, I won every time. I sucked out when I needed too and I held up when I needed too. Of course that happens in the $8 buy-in. There was one that I would have lost but I had the skill to make the appropriate lay down and let someone else call the all in and lose. Had I called, I would have been the favorite against both players and would have finished with the worst hand.

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I am also going through one of the worst strings of cards I have ever seen.

The following is happening.

I am getting knocked out of every tournament via bad beat or cooler. I have had KK vs AA 7 times in the last two days to end tournaments. Several of which I was doing really well in and getting knocked out came out of nowhere.

I am losing over 80% of my all ins where I am the favorite.

When I suck out on the flop. I am getting re-sucked out on the turn or river about 90% of the time. Right now I am the king of the suckout followed by the re-suckout.

When I get sucked out, I come back about once out of every 20 times.

Half the time I get all in with a coinflip and I actually hit my over... About 30-40% of the time, they are catching there set on the turn or river.

The poker gods then think that because of all the crap I take, that I deserve to give one god-awful bad beat. They assume it makes up for 10 straight tournaments out of the money and a loss as a result of a bad beat.

This happened last night.

Limped pot. BB=400.

I have 6 3 in the SB.

Flop 10 6 3.

All in. All in.

Villain 10 10

Hero 6 3

Turn 3

River 3

That little 15K chip pot obviously makes up for the $300 I dropped in about 12 tournaments prior to that hand.

Oh, but wait. 10 minutes later I was out of the tournament because of AK vs. AQ. I guess not.

Here's the end result.

My stars bankroll was at $300 to start the month.

As of right now I am sitting on $1761. On Saturday I had $2760 and was rolling. After my 20th straight shitty weekend I have lost almost half my stars roll. The weekends are obviously a huge leak in my game. I have only had two winning weekends my entire time playing online since April and the weekends are traditionally when poker players make most of there money. Playing against even more bad players and getting jewed even harder. Skill game? HA!

My sportsbetting account started at $430 and now sits at $530.

Two big recent losses are the reason for the low number in the sportsbook.

I thought taking the #1 college football team in the country against an anemic Oregon State team was a good idea. $200 later, I realized how wrong I was.

Then tonight I bet big on the under in the Monday night football game. The two teams playing literally don't know how to score points. With only 17 minutes left in regulation all I have to do is not have 18 points scored and I win $200. 30+ points randomly get scored to end the game and I lose. Oh well, there's variance in sports too.

Overall, I am up $1560 for the month which is my worst month since I started playing online.

On the one hand, I did achieve gold star status on pokerstars which is very good for me.

I was able to reach gold because I started playing multi-table turbo SNG's which are really fun and kind of keep things a little stable.

At this point, I don't know how much more of this crap I can take. I know I have said this in the past but I can't last much longer if its going to be like this. I need a 5K to 10K score soon to keep the faith. As of right now, I am also doubting my live tournament aspirations since I think it will be a waste of time since I pretty much never ever do well in the tournaments you want to do well in.

Obviously, if something crazy happens tomorrow to end the month then I'll update the numbers. But with the last few KK against AA, I don't think anything is going to change between now and tomorrow.

Oh and lastly, my biggest argument about this not being a skill game.

Unless something changes tomorrow I am going to finish 359th on the pokerstars TLB list which is in the top 2% on all of pokerstars. I was as high as 293 and will finish the month with 3639 points. The guy who finished 100th and gets his name on the list for the world to see has 4321 points.

Basically, if I finish in the top 3 of any tournament tomorrow thats worth playing in.... ie 1st is between 5K-7K then I will crack the list.

I would assume that at least being close to the top 100 puts me among the top players on the site. Yet I find myself losing my shirt most the time and am barely making enough money to make ends meet. (which is why I work a job) Skill game? HA!

OCTOBER? Please one time.