Presenting... better know a pogger

[diebitter]

aww, hell, go on then....

First Name: Mark
Age: 41
Hometown / Current Residence: South London / Leicester
Occupation: Web/Windows Development
Marital / SO Status: Married
Children: 3
Education: BSc (hons) Ecology (1st), PhD Ecology/AI
Hobbies (other than poker): Movies
Main Game: $30-$1 MTTs (NL holdem only), $30-$5 STTs
Useless(ful) Trivia About Me: I hate sleep, and love keeping my hair short. And I get jittery if 10 minutes without fiddling with my Treo. I actually signed 'diebitter' on a business cheque recently.

[ChrisV]

You know what's striking me so far? The number of us here who are involved (some heavily) in sports or other physical activities.

What's going on here? Is the traditional gamer nerd who never leaves the house stereotype just totally wrong? (I doubt that, because I know some people like that). Are poker players different? Is it because we're super-competitive? Are POG gamers just flat-out cooler than most other gamers? Well, obviously yes. But why?

[dankhank]

my name is matt, i'm 26 and i live in cambridge, massachusetts. for the past year i've made a living as a poker pro, and it has gone better than i hoped so far. to be honest my life was a downward spiral before poker came along, but in the last three years i am seeing things go in the other direction. progress is still slow due to my various bad habits and tendencies, but i am optimistic and pretty happy.

i grew up in rural michigan, outside of ann arbor. i moved to missouri for college to study journalism, and was a clear nerd in college. i basically spent all my time working for newspapers and playing computer games, but still did well in school. once i graduated i decided i didn't want to be a reporter. too much dealing with other people, and the stress of suddenly having to deal with a breaking story on your day off wasn't my cup of tea. then i tried to run a website from home. i have always had this goal of wanting to work from home. but not until poker was it realized.

after various starts and stops i moved to boston for graduate school. this time it was to study fiction not journalism. see if i was making stuff up, i could do it at home and wouldn't have to rely on other people. i am currently on hiatus from school but want to go back in the fall to finish up. in the last two years i've seen my parents get divorced and my brother go to jail temporarily. however all this happened in another state, while i was here working on my poker game and growing my bankroll. so in a way i've seen my old life crumble while simultaneously building a life of my own that i can depend on.

i live a simple life but am trying to expand my possibilties. my apartment is on a quiet little street, right next to a park. usually a preschool class or other group of kids starts playing there around noon each day, waking me up. so on one side of the wall there are kids playing, and on the other side there i am taking bong hits, listening to howard stern, playing poker. but at night it's dark in all directions and sitting on my back porch it doesn't feel like i'm in a city at all. if i stay up real late playing poker i can hear the birds start communicating to each other around 5:00am. i used to think all birds went south for the winter, but apprently this is not the case, as i have been able to recognize one bluejay who toughed out the entire winter in my shared backyard, and still flies around from time to time while i observe him through my window. or at least i choose to think it is the same bluejay. when i'm not busy deluding myself, i enjoy golf and reading books.

i have been single for awhile now, but see that changing fairly soon. i am trying to improve myself. i'm becoming a better cook, and thinking about traveling, and basically now that i have a job i love, i can finally start focusing on the other aspects of life that make it go. at some point i'll get to where i want to share it with someone else. when i discovered werewolf it seemed like a really cool game, and i do enjoy playing it with all you interesting people, although sometimes i get too involved in the games and frustrated when things don't work out.

[ESKiMO-SiCKNE5S]

[ QUOTE ]
You know what's striking me so far? The number of us here who are involved (some heavily) in sports or other physical activities.

What's going on here? Is the traditional gamer nerd who never leaves the house stereotype just totally wrong? (I doubt that, because I know some people like that). Are poker players different? Is it because we're super-competitive? Are POG gamers just flat-out cooler than most other gamers? Well, obviously yes. But why?

[/ QUOTE ]

maybe the people that dont play sport are the ones not responding... or just posting some cop out like 'im a gimmick account'... i dunno =/

[Hornacek]

dankhank, MI -> MA FTW!!

[chuckleslovakian]

Well it seems like everyone else is doing it so here we go. My name is Charley (big surprise). I am 20 years old and have lived in Lexington, KY my whole life. Right now I currently attend the University of Kentucky where I am majoring in math.

I’ve always been gifted in math and logic type stuff (not so much in English). In 8th grade I finished ninth in the nation in a math competition. The only sad part about that is few years later ESPN started broadcasting that competition, so I missed my chance to be on ESPN by a few years. Also in middle school I won the state middle school championship twice in a row.

In my free time I really enjoy watching movies. I have a wide taste in what movies I like as you can tell from my top movie list http://www.ymdb.com/chuckleslovakian...836_ukuk.html. I also love playing video games. Unfotunately, no real good games out over the summer. Also my internet connection can’t really handle playing Counterstrike online. But once good games start coming out again my amount of WW will cut down drastically. I tried playing FFXII with a translation wiki, but decided to wait. Once the Wii comes out I plan to pick that up as soon as possible. Also living in Lexington my whole life I am a diehard UK basketball fan. March Madness is without a doubt the best month of the year.

In terms of sports, I am actually not a big player. I always had a tendency to not be a team player which is why I ended up getting into chess real big in grade school. This isn’t to say I’m not physically active. This summer I am working at a landscaping place. Also last semester I took a racquetball class, and the semester before that an Ultimate Frisbee class.

Pokerwise, I don’t play online, but I do play a home game every week. More donks and no rake.

I guess that’s about it for now.

[kyro]

chuckles,

This bio of you is basically exactly how I pictured you. Whether that's a good thing, or a bad thing, who knows.

[ChrisV]

I second that.

btw kyro:

[ QUOTE ]
My name is Kirk. I'm a 22-year old kid on Lexapro

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm fascinated by the way you introduced that. I didn't say "I'm a 26 year old poker player" or "I'm a 26 year old beer drinker" but you introduced the Lexapro as an integral part of yourself. My impression is that the fact that you take an SSRI is a big deal for you. True? Do you have any bad side effects from Lexapro?

I'm aware that it's none of my business. Just say the word, and I can make the armchiar psychology stop [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Chris

[kyro]

Chris,

I don't mind the question at all. You may have noticed, I am relatively forthcoming about my life on here, which may be a problem in of itself...

I don't know if subconsciously I see a stigma attached to people who are on medicine for whatever reason. When I grew up, I never had any sorts of problems with anxiety/depression/etc. Over the past couple of years, though, my life has really taken a 180 degree turn. The anxiety medicine (of which has really been a great help. I have fingernails now!) is completely new to me. So I think to help ease the novelty of taking medicine, I joke about it. I've always tried using dark humor to get by. Saying I'm a 22-year old kid on Lexapro is my way of joking about the fact that I am on some sort of medicine.

[amplify]

I'm on Celexa if we're bring forthcoming about our medications. Yeah, it helps a lot.