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I played in a poker tournament this weekend.

I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow, but it ended up with my being knocked out on the bubble.

I don’t blame the guy who, if it were a cash game, played poorly. The blinds were going up, we were both playing to get the last spot in the money, and 4-6 offsuit was perhaps as good as he was going to get. I went all in with my A-Qo, he called, and hit a 4 on the river. The board gave me no love at all. Such is life, and such are normal occurrences in tournaments.

Of course, I have been the recipient of good fortune from these forced bets as well. Last year, during the Hilton’s final Freeroll Tournament, I placed well in the money by winning 5 all-in hands in a row because I had no choice. In addition to the blinds, there was an ante, and I had to let any two cards ride just to stay alive.

This is where that “chip and a chair” cliché comes from. As long as you have a chip left, you can go on a lucky streak, and none of it requires skill.

Truth be told, I am not much of a tournament poker player for a number of reasons.

I typically don’t like the structure, because when the chips aren’t “real”, people spend them more readily. It’s kind of a credit card vs. cash mentality.

There is no way in hell that people would buy a Britney Spears CD with an actual $20 bill, but if all they have to do is swipe a card through a machine or enter a bunch of digits into a computer to get it, then hey … it’s not real, actual money out of their pocket. There is no way that someone with 4-6o will call a $1000 raise with CASH, but it’s not a problem with phony chips. At least that seems to be the psychology behind it.

The difference in tournament play and cash games in poker is so great, that personally, I consider them to be very different games.

My style of play makes me, quite frankly, a terrible tournament player.

I play for money, and I walk away when I double up. In a tournament, when I double up, I have to sit there and withstand shots from players for the rest of the game, and as blinds increase, I am forced to play hands that I would otherwise muck. I can never book my profits until the session is declared over. It’s out of my hands.

Late in a tournament with a stack that is getting eaten by every round of blinds, 10-J suited looks like Pocket A’s.

If you are low stacked and three deals away from the big blind, and there is 2 minutes left before the blinds are raised, statistically you probably won’t see a better hand before you blind out. Your hand is forced, and you will probably just push your stack in and cross your fingers.

In my opinion, there is much more luck in tournaments, and much less skill. At least toward the end.

Even the very “best” poker players in the world rarely win tournaments that are open to the public. Sure, they win almost every “invitational” event where mostly pros are invited … but that’s like a Los Angeles team winning a game where the matchup is the Lakers and the Clippers.

Would the fans really chant “LA is number 1!”?

Well, given the general IQ of Los Angeles, yes, but that’s not the point.

Since Internet poker became ubiquitous, “professional” poker players do not win tournaments against the general population at a rate that shows any kind of true dominance in the game.

Sure, they win sometimes, but so does the 19 year old kid down the street.

In my opinion the luck factor in tournaments becomes equal to skill, if not greater than skill toward the end of the game.

If you are down to 5 guys with reasonable stacks waiting to close out a tournament, it becomes a game of bingo. If the board matches your cards, you win. If they don’t, you lose.

There is no way that Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, or Phil Ivey will consistently beat a guy who simply has a great run of cards. There are only so many ways to play 8-3 offsuit against pocket Kings, and it doesn’t matter how much skill you have … the cards are the cards.

Unless you can change the cards through sheer mental power (now THAT would be skill), you are going to have your ass handed to you by the kid who learned the game last week.

As a matter of fact, I won the very first tournament I played.

It was a small $33 tournament at the Luxor four years ago, and I had just learned to play Texas Hold ‘Em a week before. I was making money left and right in 4/8 Limit, so after three days I switched to No Limit, and after three more days, I decided to go ESPN and hit a tournament.

I’ll never forget my first hand. 7-2 offsuit. I shit you not.

I called a raise simply because I didn’t want to fold my first tournament hand and it only cost me $33 to enter.

The flop came 7-2-7.

A bet came, I did my first “all-in!”, was called, and beat the guy with QQ.

Boy, was I skillful.

I figured myself somehow blessed by the gods with some kind of innate poker talent. In my very first tournament, I beat 30 other players for the top prize … and that was just proof of my sheer dominance of the game.

Of course, the reality was … I sucked.

I did, however, conclusively prove that any idiot with two cards can beat players with a thousand times more experience if the cards fall their way.

Especially in a tournament.

I went on to do very poorly in the next few tournaments after that as I witnessed other people making the same kind of plays that I had made before … while busting me out this time.

I began to play tournaments less frequently, and even today, I only play one or two tournaments a month. Sometimes I place in the money, but usually I don’t. Over the years, I have come to realize that I am much more of a cash game player.

I can play as long as I want in a cash game. As long as the blinds are low enough, I can wait all day for a monster hand. I don’t usually have that much patience, but I always know exactly what the blinds will be, and exactly what my options are. It’s the only way that I can make money at the game.

All of that being said, I still want to play in the World Series of Poker.

When you live in Las Vegas, and play poker … it’s a right of passage. It’s still the Super Bowl of the game, and most players I know here locally have their WSOP stories. Since I am still relatively new to the game (4-5 years), I have never made a serious bid to play in the game.

I will never plop down $10,000 to enter, but in 2009, I am going to take a shot at some of the small tournaments in an effort to win my way in.

Do you want to see Television history made?

Give me a seat in the WSOP at the same table as that Phil Helmuth guy. That would be an event to remember.

“Poker Brat” my aching ass.

I’ve watched many of his tirades on TV against other players, and have never figured out why nobody says anything back to the guy. He leaves himself wide open, and people don’t take the opportunity. I never understood it.

I really want to play at a table with him, because I would gladly engage him right back. The producers would have to sit there with their finger on the “cut” button throughout the session because I would probably go into a 5 minute monologue that would make his “outbursts” sound like frigging children’s bedtime stories.

And let’s face it … it couldn’t possibly be any worse than that current snoozefest that ESPN calls “WSOP coverage”.

So, these are my poker resolutions for 2009:

1. Better tournament play
2. A seat at the WSOP
3. A televised diatribe against the reining “poker brat”

I’ll probably accomplish none of those three goals, but hey, isn’t that what New Year’s Resolutions really are … a list of things that you will NEVER accomplish.

Why should mine be any different?

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