I am a 20 y/o college student taking the semester off and am working a full time job right now. I am a tournament player, and you will rarely see me sit down for a cash game. I play the $22 sit n go's up to the $55 sit n go's. I also play in the big multi-player tournaments. Ironically I have better results at the $55 tables then I do the at $22 and $33 tables, mainly because there aren't as many donks drawing out on me. I don't play the $55 tables full time, because I can't handle the variance.

Although I am not a very high stakes player I am a winning player and make more money playing poker then I do at my job. No I'm not quitting my job as I think it would be the dumbest thing for me to do, and I have no aspiration to be a full time professional. I make about $1300 a month at my job and Ive made $2500 this month playing live and online.

In the last month Ive made made 4 final tables in big multi-player tournaments. 3 were on empire, and 1 was live. I took 1st, 6th, and 6th in the tournaments, and took 2nd in the live tournament. My tournament winnings totaled $2800.00

As of late, I have been getting my ass kicked at the sit n go's. I have had my downswings, but this is ridiculous. Normally you could say that Im running bad but I dont think thats the case. This week Ive lost close to $800. This same week Ive placed 12th in a $10,000 guarantee re-buy tournament and placed 6th in the $5000 guarantee. At the same time though I have placed 4th and out of the money at almost every sit n go I've played in and the beats have been horrible. Last night, I basically had it and decided to do an experiment. I had about $300 sitting in my account from when I made my last final table. Now I do not have any problems with tilting. No matter how bad things get I never just throw it all away. I dont let it get to me and I just continue to play my game. My experiment was that I was willing to lose the $300 I had sitting in my empire account. I played in enough sit n go's to lose the $300. I would say I played in about 12-15 tournaments. I have had bad luck in sit n go's as of late but I wanted to see if the trend would continue. Heres what happened.

In the last week the following has happened. Be aware that this is only happening in the sit n go's and not the multi's.

This week, Ive lost 90% of my coinflips, and I have lost all but 2 situations where I have had AK and the other guy had a lower Ace. I placed 4th many times because of that.

In the last 8 tournaments I played in the last 2 hours. I placed 4th in 5 of those and placed 3rd in one other. The other two were worse then 4th. Every 4th came as a result of a bad beat.

I ran into AA 5 times. Believe it or not, I actually laid down KK on the first hand of a $50 Sit n go because I was convinced that of the two players that were already all in that one of them was holding Aces. I was right and the two players had AA and QQ with the Aces holding up.

AA lost to JJ and QQ... both were all in's and the Q and J hit the river. This almost made me vomit, because I had the hands simultaneously. I was multi-tabling and looked down and saw pocket Aces on two different tables. I lost both at the same time.

QQ and KK lost to A x about 6 times with x being lower then a Q... so I kept losing to the 3 outer.

All of the above were all in situations pre-flop so its not like I was stubborn when the flop came and wouldnt make the lay down.

I'm not trying to cry about bad beats, but rather trying to make a point. On the other side of things, I gave maybe 1 bad beat out of all of this, which happened to be my AK drawing out on pocket 7's which isnt that terrible of a beat.

I know everyone runs bad from time to time, but this is ludicrous.

So yes I blew through the $300, and my account with my empire has been closed.

I don't know if its a coincidence, but this downtrend in the sit n go's started right after the party split. I'm not going to say its fixed, but something doesnt seem right the way the cards have fallen.

As I said, in the tournaments where you have to play straight poker for several hours I have done well, but in the sit n go's forget about it. Thats why I dont think this is just a terrible downswing.

Heres the letter I sent to them last night.

To: Empire Poker
From: Otherside61

I have really had it with your site. I am a tournament player that primarily plays sit n go's and major tournaments that the site holds. I think the format of your sit n go tournaments is horrible. It doesnt matter how well I play, someone always outdraws me. The vast majority of the time I am all in with the best hand I get outdrawn. It doesnt matter if I have a 4:1 advantage over my opponent, i still end up losing.

The format of your sit n go tournaments really needs to change. It takes absolutely no skill whatsoever to do well in those. All you have to do is wait till the blinds become so large that every hand is an all in.

You can say that I am a bad player, but I have made 4 final tables this month in big tournaments, three of which occurred on your site. This included a win in the $5000 guarantee tournament.

With all that said, please close my account. I dont even care about the $16 in my account, I dont want to have anything to do with your site. I will be taking my game in the near future to Poker Stars where I have heard nothing but good things. The site is also endorsed by some of the worlds best poker players which only adds to the legitimacy of the site. The fact that I never see any commercials, never see any professionals plugging your site, and see that party poker has completley cut you off forces me to question the validity of your site.

Good luck surving in the world of online poker.

Please feel free to make any comments.