I play in a monthly tournament with some friends and online poker, but just for play money. I see too many suckouts to believe it's totally legit, but that could be because more people chase straights and flushes in online poker than they would in real life.
I love poker, but not enough where I would want to lose a lot of money. So I keep it small. The monthly tournament is a $20 buy-in with one rebuy/add-on if you want. There's usually about 20 of us. Been running bad lately though. The last two tournaments, I've been eliminated holding AQ suited. Two tourneys ago, I was up against pocket kings, hit an ace on the flop, and then the guy with kings hit runner runner. Last tournament, I was up against A9 offsuit when I went all-in preflop, and my opponent hit a nine on the flop.
My biggest win would have been about $300 at one of these monthly tournaments.
I have a reputation for being a very tight player, but I play a lot of hands and bluff quite often and get paid because people think I mostly play premium hands. It's a weird combination. Once, a guy raised four or five times the blinds preflop, and there were a few callers. I had J3 suited, and decided to call. Flop came something like J73 rainbow. The preflop raiser went all-in, it came to me. I put him on QQ, so I called. I was right, and won. After the hand, a few people were saying things like "I never would have put you on J3."
One thing I think never gets mentioned enough is how much luck is involved in poker. Yes, being a great player can mitigate some of that luck. But even watching the WSOP main event, the final winner usually had a hand or two where his tournament was on the line and he sucked out to stay in the tourney. There was one of my own tournaments where we were three-handed and I was getting a lot of horrible hands and was being blinded out. One guy was a massive chip leader. He put the other guy all-in when the chip leader flopped a set. The other guy called and hit a straight on the river. The very next hand, I had T3 of diamonds while in small blind, and I moved all-in to try to steal a pot and change my luck. The guy who just lost the previous hand called with KK. I hit a 10 on the flop and another 10 on the turn to crack kings. The chip leader went from $500 to $6 in two hands. I won that tournament.