[jbones]

I thought about putting this in the Online Poker section but decided against it- this seems like the most appropriate spot.

I haven't seen any threads like this here on CT, so let's get one rolling:

Describe your poker career, in whatever terms you feel most appropriate. I'd prefer that this thread not turn into comparing net gain from poker, but if that's the only way you can describe yourself, have at it.


I started playing poker freshman year of college 2 years ago (had played a few times since then but only because my friends were doing it, didn't even know hand rankings for sure so I don't count that) and knew right away I wanted to get serious about the game.

We played nightly $5 sng's in my dorm with 6-12 people with a horrible structure and dice chips, probably like most other people started. During the day between classes we started playing heads up freezeouts, and I really loved those and still play heads up tourneys more than anything else.

A friend of mine was also pretty serious about getting good, and we both deposited online. I put $50 on stars and started playing $5 HU sng's. I remember getting to somewhere between 100 and 150 pretty quickly before I moved up too fast and went broke. I waited a while, and instead of depositing again signed up with Royal Vegas Poker because they gave you $10 for free, and I played with that for a looong time, starting with $1 and $2 sng's. Eventually I moved up and went busto, again.

We kept playing live, and getting at least a little better. Then my buddies and I took our first trip to the casino- Turning Stone in upstate NY. I played the $100 max 1/2 NL with the serious friend, and realized that I love live cash games especially. Unfortunately I lost all my profits plus the money I brought at blackjack. I didn't even know optimal strategy, and was being an idiot.

We went back to school and played our regular nightly tournaments, and started occasionally going to bigger tourneys when we heard about them. The first one we played got broken up with like an $800 prize pool, and the second one I finished 2nd, my biggest score at the time.

I deposited again on Stars after that, and shortstacked 25NL. No idea what made me decide to do that, but it worked out great. I was cashing out a hundred bucks a week which at the time felt f'in awesome. This was towards the end of my 2nd year of college, and I didn't play at all during the summer.

I started up again this fall buying in full at 25NL, and was doing fine. I moved up to 50NL, which I'm definitely a winning player at, but went bustooo because I shouldn't have moved up until I made more (or just put more back on stars- I moved up with only 150 in my acct.) That's me today. I host a .25/.50 game, and play heads up tournaments whenever someone asks, but that's unfortunately it for now.

I've never had PokerTracker, which probably a lot of you find hilarious, but I also very rarely play more than 2 tables and like to think about my decisions and honestly I do just fine taking notes on players myself. I guess I'm stuck with this idea that relying on PT will detrimentally affect my live game, which is probably retarded, but I really don't see it helping.

NL hold em definitely isn't my favorite game, but I play it because it's what people want to play. I'd love to host a stud game but don't see that happening in the near future. I'll probably play online again but definitely not until I'm sure it's not going to stress me out at all. Maybe this means buckling down and getting PT, and it definitely means not playing without an adequate roll.

[imperial10]

OK I'll give it a try....List format


- Learned poker at 8 years old
- Was introduced into hold'em poker after the boom 15 years later
- Wanted to play more to get better so my girlfriend bought my very expensive suited 11.5 gram chip set, and aquired the foldout poker table top.
- After a year of home games, got a little confident knowing a little bit of odds, watching tv and by reading books by Greenstein and Doyle, made a trip to a local card room and my first live poker was 7 cards. Lost $20 in first hand.
-Went over to an indian casino and played hold em for the first time and lost $200 in 30 min.
- Learned a bunch from my losses and re-figured my tactics.
- Started playing online poker in combination with home games, trying new methods re-reading the books. Getting info from other successful friends.
- Went back to the casino a year later and actually started winning more.
- Checked out the mad scientists book on tells and advanced my game to a new level.
- Played my first tournament at the Tuscany and hit quad 10's on my first hand.
-Saw live pro poker being played with scotty and hoyt. (Pic below)
- Everyone now in my Family plays, so I needed to step up my home game arsenol......worst thing that could have happened to my wallet. Chiptalk.
- Been a member for a year and a half now and poker has been a lot better, people to chat with about poker and gear.
- Currently I've just been trying to focus on the zen part of poker, I've found myself going on tilt too much and need to calm down a bit, I don't want to be Helmuth all the time. So now my books aren't even in poker it's in philosphy, 48 laws of power and comic books.


To sum up my career, I don't think I'll ever get to a professional level of poker or even to an ameture level, I'll play tournaments at casinos with cash games as well, no problem. My game is at home with good people and great chips. Plus poker is an early grave, too much stress. If my bank roll gets bigger I might reconsider, but right now I'm pretty happy with my position....plus poker and chips is not everything

Here is my girlfriend, me and scotty last year at the bicycle club

[legend]

first word ever spoken was poker. can't remember ever losing money in a dealers choice game through high school and college. couldn't get a game any more, so started playing gin. Was untouchable for about 2 years and could name the last 20 cards in the discard pile. Sat down with my best friend's 80 year old grandfather who whipped my arse for about 8 hours one afternoon and said " I thought you were supposed to be good ? " Went back to playing poker. but the competition was a little tougher than before. Lost all my money on a seven stud hand with quad Jacks (3 of them in the hole) vs quad queens. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was gonna break him with his full house, except he didn't have a full house. Quit poker completely. Started playing hold'em about 5 years ago and still stink. Played one seven stud tourney in 2003 and finished 4th out of 70. I still wonder why I even bother playing hold'em. My reads aren't that bad, but i play well about 1 out of 10 times I play. It's pretty sad. Maybe 5 card draw and 7 stud will make a comeback and I can get back to my former winning ways. I have a feeling that ship has sailed though and am destined to continue to donate. I still have the best chips on my block , which is better than nothing.....

[hachkc]

Live
Poker has been in the family forever. Remember wandering around my grandfather's monthly poker game when I was like 3 or so. I've actually played regularly with some of the same folks that frequented his game. I currently have the poker table that my great grandfather built way back when (1920's). Been playing with the family forever. Started playing with a regular group in my earlier 20's like 1-2 times a month. It fell apart after a couple of years and poker was pretty much hit or miss (few times a year outside the family). Starting playing regularly again about 4-5yrs back and have been playing at least once a month ever since and rarely 3 times a month. Generally I don't do very well at live tournaments especially NLHE ones, I tend to get bored in them which ends up leading to bad decisions. I tend to do quite well at cash games though and play a mixture of limit (stud, he, omaha, others) and NL/PL games (he, omaha). I have only played poker in casinos a few times (a few times in MI, one trip to LV).

Online
Started in 2005 at UB, ran $50 upto $300 quickly and lost that just as quick. Put a few hundred more in and lost that over a few months. Got frustrated, put in $200 and focused on a single game (PLO8 ) and ran it up to almost $3k in 3mos. Kept jumping up limits whenever a I had like 4-5 buyins (BR mgmt? what's that?). Eventually ran into the other end of variance and lost about the remaining $1k (had cashed out $2k). Put in $500 near end of 2005, early 2006 and have never had to redeposit since though I've made numerous cashouts and some deposits for bonus purposes. On my 3rd cycle of playing microlimits to build my BR, getting BR up and playing higher limits, cashing out to buy a new toy, starting over at micros. Currently been hovering about break even for last 4months (up one month, down the next) after taking about 3mos off.

[jamby]

Career? What career?

It has only been about three years that I've even been familiar with poker and learne the hand rankings. My initiation was watching re-runs of the WSOP 2003 ME in 2004. I actually was somewhat familiar with 7-card stud and draw poker from college because the guys in my dorm played it quite a bit. I never played it with them though and my family wasn't given to card play either. My fascination with poker is very recent and my fascination with poker chips is even more recent - just two years now.

I'm still learning the ropes and still learning tons from my mistakes. I much prefer live to online play and NLHE is by far my favorite game to play. Also prefer cash games to tournaments. I'm a winning live game player and still a losing online player where I tend to get too reckless.

[Big Mike]

Started playing in the Moneymaker boom, though poker had always been interesting to me.
Deposited $50 on Stars after looking at the internets for some basic strategy. Lost a couple of buyins at $2 NL. Read Phil Hellmuth's book Play Poker Like the Pros, tried limit poker. Did pretty good (even though that book is not very good, it's enough to beat .5/.10 limit.) Moved up to .25/50. Found out about PSO, did the Party Poker instant bankroll promo in late 2005 and built that $100 up to a decent bankroll.
I've always had the problem of needing cash from my bankroll for expenses, so it's never gotten real big (max of about 2K). This year I've made the transition to playing almost exclusively 6max games since the full ring limit games have dried up or are full of rocks for the most part post-UIGEA.
It's going pretty good so far, I play different stakes from .25/50 to 1/2 depending on which site I'm playing. No Neteller to easily transfer from one to another makes me treat each site more like a separate bankroll of it's own.

[Button Potato]

Hmmm....

Seems like I've been playing forever - probably around 30 years. Grew up playing anaconda, 5-card, 7 card, and omaha. I consider myself a very good cash game player (LA & Vegas) and a true tournament player donk. The "poker boom" allows me to host large games at home without having to spend days at Commerce and The Bike (LA) and The Bellagio (Vegas) - although Mrs. BP says I spend way too much time in Vegas - about 20 weeks a year.

[pokertvstar]

Wow. What a great thread!

Been playing poker for about 10 years, but only seriously (as in a lot), since the Moneymaker win in 2003. When I played before that, it was 3-5 times a year, mostly playing dealers choice games. Nothing more than .25 limit "poverty" poker.

POST-Moneymaker, I turned to hold 'em. I watched everything I could on TV (still do truth be told). From WSOP coverage to WPT to PPA to Poker Superstars...PAD....all of it. Used my DVR to record old WSOP coverage (before the hole cams were introduced to the coverage)--and challenged myself to read the opponent before a showdown. Books, DVD's, magazine subscriptions, and of course the intarweb have also provided me information to dump into my cavernous skull.

All this studying away from the table led me to online play. I stuck money everywhere (Party, P*, Full Tilt, True Poker), before finally deciding on UB primarily, and playing primarily tournaments. I prefer tourneys to cash games. I prefer the feeling of "these are all you got--no reloads". I like that kind of competitive pressure. Highest online tourney finish-2nd a handful of times. Those cashes did my bankroll proud. The greed and lust of trying to turn it into more cost me all of it, playing low limit PL omaha will do that to you. Since the UIGEA, I haven't reloaded any of my accounts (still have UB and Full Tilt active), but miss the days of pre-UIGEA life on Party. While Party hlod em games suck, their 7-stud games were softer than a pillow. My accounts running low? $25 buy in at the .50/$1 stud table on Party would be sufficient to reload all the accounts I needed. Could roll up $100 bucks in an hour at stud there, without breaking a sweat. I hate our government sometimes.

Anyway, after playing online for some time, I was invited to a poker tourney (a Halloween tourney come to think of it, lol), and made the 30 minute drive to attend. I finished 4th (in a field of 27 or something), and cashed, albeit small). I was hooked on live tourneys after that. First Vegas tourney was a $40 buy-in with rebuys at the Orleans. Made it to the final 24 players with top 16 getting paid. Have played in 2 WSOP events ($1K buy ins), and hope to return to the WSOP next summer. Skipped it in favor of hanging out with friends, and had my best week of tourney poker, playing in 8 tournaments, making 5 final tables, and cashing in 3 (with 2 second place finishes). Back home, I play in a league (1 event per month at various locations), and picked up a win in league play this season.

Oh, and I have a poker blog (doesn't everyone?) also. My poker career is very young, and has a lifetime to grow. My goal is to earn at least one WSOP bracelet before I fold for the final time. A lot of work to do to get there, and I am willing to put the time in.

For those that are interested: ncrounder.blogspot.com

[the3rd]

Several years ago, I was in Houston. I ran into a guy named Andy Beal. I relieved his of several tens of millions of dollars. He said I was too tough and was going to Vegas to play heads up at the Bellagio against some softer competition. I've retired from poker.

[BlondWidow]

My first exposure to poker was when I was probably around 8 years old. The youngest of my brothers taught me how to play 5-Card Draw and 7-Card No-Peek (if that's even a real poker game, I'm not sure). I think he was bored babysitting me that summer while my parents were at work. (He also taught me how to make smoke bombs and we shot BB guns inside the house. Yes we got in trouble for that. ) My family had always played various card games while I was growing up, but that's about the extent of what I played with them.

Enter Harlequin. I had never even heard of Texas Hold Em until I met him. We were watching tv one day and he flipped on some old WSOP reruns. I get sucked into absolutely anything on tv somehow, so I watched as he explained the game. He started playing in a home tournament every Sunday and after a few months of watching it on tv, he convinced me to try it out too. I think that was the winter of 2004. I didn't do so great, but I was learning and it was fun. I started reading "Play Poker Like the Pros" by Phil Hellmuth, and sort of got some basic strategy out of it, but never finished reading it. We started playing the Catholic festival "circuit" during that summer. That was pretty bad. I can't remember for sure what the game was, but I think it was $2/5 Limit. With a ginormous rake. We went to one around town every Friday and Saturday night. I don't think I had a single winning session and was getting pretty discouraged. We finally ditched the festival poker. Or, maybe it ditched us when the season ended.

We made a couple trips to Vegas in the following year, where I was nervous to play in my first real casino NL cash game at the Tropicana. I did alright with it once I got over my nervousness. Then we started playing all over Vegas whenever we would visit. The only place we haven't gotten to play yet is Bellagio – maybe next trip.

Eventually Argosy Casino, which is about 20 minutes from us, opened a poker room. It is a whole different game than the ones in Vegas. This is where I first found out how bad my game really was. It's been over a year since we've been playing there and the majority of my sessions there have been losing ones, unfortunately. We also play in a weekly home cash game. The same is true of that one though, I started realizing how bad I was. Eek. A few months back I saw people recommending on here Sklansky's "No Limit Hold Em Theory and Practice." I bought it and started reading it and almost immediately started seeing my game improve. I feel like I need to read it again to really absorb it, but it's been very helpful so far.

I've tried the online thing. I played mostly low buy-in SNGs or micro-stakes NL games. It's okay as a time filler, but I much prefer live casino play. I hope to improve both my cash game skills and my tourney skills to the point where I'm overall a winning player. It just takes lots of hours of practice and experience. I'd like to be able to have poker as a sort of second income, where I'm winning enough to buy some fun stuff or something like that. I guess that's my goal with it. I doubt I'll ever go pro unless I have some huge streak of luck.