Here's the thing about poker for the uninitiated. It's a zero sum game. That is, the casino or house has no edge over you, there is no built in probabilities to help you lose your money, like other casino games.
The above statement is not 100% true as casinos and some private poker games will have a commission or 'rake' that goes towards the running of the game, but it's a nominal amount and not the same as the house edge.
Because it's a zero sum game, it's you versus the other players. Over time, if you are a good or better than good player, you will make money. You may have heard the saying 'If you sit at at a poker table, and cannot spot the chump, it's probably you'.
So far so good, all you have to do, is study the best players in the world, read a lot of poker books, play thousands of hands and bingo! It's all gravy. Now we get to the bad news.
When I say over time, this could mean literally millions of hands before the probabilities kick in. All regular poker players, will at some time or another, suffer from a disease called short term variation.
Let me give you an example. I read a true story on the Internet, about a Vegas poker pro, during a World Series of Poker event from a few years ago.
It's about the middle of the main event and our hero is in position where he needs to play to at least maintain his chip stack, but is not under enough pressure to move all in yet, he has about average chips.
After the deal he looks down and sees the best possible two cards you can start a hold 'em hand with, ace ace. The bullets, American Airlines. The odds of drawing AA are 220-1. This is also the odds of drawing any two specific cards., because it is 4 in 52 for your first card times 3 in 51 for the second card.
Anyway, needless to say our hero suffers a beat, which is when an unlikely hand ends up beating a better hand. The odds of AA beating any other hand with one opponent are about 1-4 or the AA will win 80% of the time.
However, our story is only just getting warmed up. Our hero curses his luck, but even though the beat dented his total chips, it's not the end of the world, he has enough to get back into the game. The very next hand he gets, can you guess? AA again. Now the odds of this happening are 220-1 times 220-1 = 1 in 484,400.
This was a day when it looks like lady luck has deserted our hero because he now loses the pot again. Now there are not many chips left and he really has to move all in with any hand he is dealt next.
With a philosophical shrug, he checks the cards after the deal. He is dealt AA!!! As I am sure you are aware, the odds of this happening are 220-1 times 220-1 times 220-1 = 1 in 1,0648,000, and even more unbelievable, he loses with AA again and crashes out of the tournament.
Although this is an extreme example of short term variation, it illustrates how even when you do everything right, and have the right cards it can all go wrong.
In my own poker career, I caught the STV disease (sounds worse abbreviated!) about the middle of 2004. I had already fluked a seat in the 2002 WSOP and had made a profit in tournaments for the next couple of years. Once my bankroll had got to $2000 I decided to make a run at the online $1-$2 no limit cash game. The maximum buy in for any one table at these stakes is $200, which means I would have to lose my whole buy in 10 times in a row to bust.
The type of personality you need to be a successful cash game player is called tight-aggressive. That is you don't play a lot of hands, but when you do, you play them strong. I pride myself at being a machine at the table, I don't tilt when I hit a beat, and I am not there for the gambling 'action' but only, purely to win money. Boring as it sometimes is, I can play like this for hours, days even.
It took me about six months to lose the whole bankroll. I rarely hit playable starting hands, when I did they got beat, strategic late position steal moves always got called, or only made very small pots. Anytime I got all in with the best hand I got outdrawn. I did make some errors in my play, I'm only human. but the variance killed me. To this day, I rarely play cash games, certainly not for significant stakes.I think poker broke me, during those months.
The upside was, I was playing with money won from poker, so at least the kids still got to eat!
I still play tournaments when I get the time, and do OK, I'd like to play bigger buy ins, but who has the spare cash theses days?
I think it was in Jesse Mays book 'Shut up and deal' where he says 'Poker is not really about mastering strategy, probability, body language etc. it's about mastering the luck, if you know how to play through that, that's a winning player'