How did you get where you current are?
 

Hey guys,

I'd like to hear about how some of you got to your current place in your poker careers. Things like what you studied, things that helped you learn, bankroll management stuff, whatever you feel you can contribute, would be helpful.

If this has already been done, I'm sorry.

If not, this would be a great opportunity for me to learn something about you guys, get some ideas about how to plan my development as a player, and something to post a link to in the micros. Perhaps some of the players here would also benefit from this discussion... I'm not sure.

--Dave.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I got here in a funny way. My Culinary buddies all told me I was a natural NL player - tournies especially. Hell, even strangers would tell me I would/did make a great NL tourney player. So a little over a year ago I put some money on PP and started playing SNGs. Wasn't too long before I was $1400!!! in the red. So I quit poker. Then I started playing 3/6 live. I recorded 5/6 positive sessions and decided I had it down. So I go back to party and start playing more. I'm $2400 ($2400!!!!) in the red before I start making it up. I'm playing 2 50 sngs and 2 5/10 tables. Well, I notice that no matter how I am doing in the SNGs, I am winning in the limit. So I turn over to limit.

I work my way up to 10/20 and then I notice this guy. He is a super tag, my PT has him at 14/10 and I respect the hell out of his bets and his play. So I come up with a list of questions I want to ask him about limit and about poker, and I send him a buddy list message asking if he wouldn't mind talking to me for a minute. He replies, "DUDE I GOT 13 TABLES GOING RIGHT NOW. NOT A GOOD TIME!!!" I give him my AIM, and he messages me later on. He introduces me to 4+ tabling and to 2+2. On the tables, he notices donkish moves I make and corrects me. I owe that guy a lot.

I win a little tourney called the Sunday Stars 350K which helps me move up to 15/30 permenantly (I had been bouncing back and forth before). 3months later I'm making about twice as much per week in 10 hours of poker as I am in 40 hours of cooking. So I quit cooking in May. Now it is full time poker and my wallet couldn't thank me enough. I miss cooking terribly though. I am a happy person when I cook. I will go back to it after a while.

As far as books, sure I've read the usuals and they have helped a little, but mostly I learned from intuition, experience, these boards, and that guy. During my SNG days, I would write down all the "poker rules" I learned. This helped me think about what I was doing.

Anyway, if you find something in there that helps, that's awesome. It may just be me rambling.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

ha.

i tripped and fell. i arise in may. 2006.

Barron

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

i started playing a couple years ago at the club at my school.. break-even player at best... i would play 3-6 at hollywood park and i usually won by virtue of being the tighest player at the table... unfortunately, i've never had good bankroll management, but over summer i won about 25k in tournies and built up the br to play 20-40... i've read almost all 2+2 books and i'm a huuuge lurker on 2+2... i'm trying to post more because i know that'll help my game improve a lot.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

started going to casino right before my 19th birthday, played house games at first lots of blackjack and bacarat.

played home games with friends at home with pennies and dimes while drinking whiskey, and eventually started playing 4-8 live.

became a winning player, moved up to 10-20 live where i broke even. Then one fine day bought in $50 with my credit card online about 1 1/2 years ago and since then haven't looked back.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

Sounds like you're writing a book..........have a title yet?

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
have a title yet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Enjoy!

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
have a title yet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Enjoy!

[/ QUOTE ]

That has a nice ring to it...

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

Alright, the brief version. Start playing frosh year, $5 games. Quickly notice one guy never loses. See him play online. Move in with him soph year and start playing online on his poker.com (haaaaahahahaha) account, then UB. I win lots of little multis, buy pizza, life is good. Start running hot in limit, cash out a grand, leave 2k online to play 5/10. Lose all that, start grinding with the 1k left on my own accounts. This during the 3/6 heyday where if I keep that 2k I probably progress a lot faster. Anyway, eventually get to 5/10 6 max and have to cash out almost everything for "other reasons" in life. Get staked by roommate for 5/10 on party and UB. Run 3k on UB to -500, then take over a plo8 mtt I think and win it, give the guy 200 and take 500 to a 5/10 6 max table. win 1250 that night, start running the stake back up. I take a shot at the 30 on ub when all my 10/20 fish are in it with 10k, win like 5k? or something absurd, "never look back". Run it up to 60k, drop to 30k, cash out and we chop it up. I start playing 10/20 6 max, get second in the party sat 200k tourney two weekends in a row for 58k and all of the sudden have a real bankroll. Kinda stagnated ever since and been bouncing around in limit and whatnot.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

Been playing for a little over a year. Started by ordering Internet Texas Hold Em by Matthew Hilger and went straight to 3/6 and 5/10 after only about a month of playing lower limits like .50/1 and 1/2. I ran up to about 12k in a couple months and then took a shot at the Party 15/30 and got lucky and ran good and made 15k in 1 week. From there I played a bunch of 5/10-15/30 short with mixed results (broke even for a couple months) until I gained more experiance and read books like Sklanskys Hold em for advanced players. After that I was able to run my 20k roll up to about 55k (which was when I got off from school for summer vacation, I'm a freshman in college). From there I went on Pokerstars and UB and played anywhere from 30/60 to 150/300, mostly playing 30/60-80/160 and taking occasional shots at 100/200 and 150/300. I also went to Turning Stone Casino (only option since I am 19) during a big tournament week and ran pretty good in the cash games there (made like 10% of my roll there that week). I did OK online and today I am sitting on 90k after my first year. Despite all of the higher limit cash games I've tried out and played since I started, they are really stressful (with huge swings, especially online) and I find myself more attracted to tournaments and learning how to become a strong tourny player (for which I'd suggest both of Harrington's books).

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I like to gamble, and poker is legal in my area. Fortunately I turned out to be good at it. I grew to like the lifestyle so I adopted it. The end.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I knew there was someone out there who was more successful than me.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

David,

For every paragraph that you give me on what you consider intelligent flop & turn play, I'll give you an honest, in-depth paragraph of my strugle to succeed at the game.

Best regards,
Ken

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

i got staked, but I grinded at microlimits for years

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
David,

For every paragraph that you give me on what you consider intelligent flop & turn play, I'll give you an honest, in-depth paragraph of my strugle to succeed at the game.

Best regards,
Ken

[/ QUOTE ]

Ken, this is funnier than you know.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

[/ QUOTE ]

True... also, the tourney thing keeps popping up. It must feel pretty awesome to take one of those babies down!

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I'm still in the micros, but I'll let you guys in on my beginnings. If you don't want to read this, I totally understand, as it's the long version of a really useless story, other than a few paragraphs:

Paragraphs that aren't boring are denoted by a '*'.

---

*At 10 years old, I played 5-card draw at the cottage for monopoly money. I loved it. We played 3 draws of 3, with sometimes up to 10 wild. We also played it no-limit or extremely high stretch limit. My strategy was to keep pairs in an effort to make full houses or better, fold to heavy betting if I had little, and to bet like hell if I made my hands. My friends' strategy was to call me whenever I bet. Needless to say, I won quite often.

*At 17 years old, I saq the WSOP on t.v. for the first time, watch it for 5 min or so, then got bored because they only have two cards. Logged onto yahoo games... damnit, same friggin game! Logged off.

21, do the same thing, but watch for longer, and decide to try it out on yahoo. "WTF? 2/5 limit, who the hell invented this crazy betting format... oh well, it's free, and I don't have to download a client, which will infect my computer with some weird casino disease..." I broke even for 400 hands (an eternity). I then read nofoldem hand strengths. I started playing the top 20 hands (5%ish-12%ish vpip), and improvising from the flop forwards. I still break even for the next 4k hands.

Eventually, I get my buddy to play NLHE HU SNGs with me for free. It took him a while to catch onto the whole two-cards thing.

I got fed up of weird 2/5 yahoo poker, so it's off to Empire to play play-money NLHE and STTs. Go to pokerfunclub to play play-money MTTs, have fun there. BTW I really recommend that site: best play-money games out there, if you have friends that want to learn to play. The players seem pretty serious and it's competitive for people starting to play poker.

I heard about paradise offering super-low buy in cash games and initial deposits. I bought in for $30 CDN after making a neteller account, play 0.02/0.04 LHE. Both my buddy and I were unemployed, with myself having some credit card debt... so it was important to me that I at least break even with this deposit.

I read the website for winning low limit holdem and started to play ace suited cards and SCs, small PPs, etc.

I lost a few bucks playing LHE, got frustrated, played NLHE and ran my way up from $20USD to $25, hopped in the $10 game, ran to $45, hop in the $25 game, ran it up to $120, into the $50 game, up to $260, and down to $2, stopping at each level on the way back, all the way down to the NLHE $2 game, and all the way down to a bankroll of $2. Yes, $2.

However, while I was winning, I had the wisdom to withdraw my original deposit as well as enough money to buy HPFAP, which I'd heard was a good book.

I struggled at the $2 nlhe table for maybe a few weeks, gave up, and deposit on empire to play in their loose $0.5/$1 games. Break even there for many months. HPFAP went way over my head at this time. Eventually I read SSHE, and started to win.

*Some months go by, and I move to find work. I find out about a local NLHE cash game (live)... some of the characters are interesting people with interesting criminal records. I learn the fine art of humility, repeatedly. But I make enough cash that I can pay off my debts and quit the tech support job I was working, in order to start to study more on holdem.

*The game started with buy-ins of $100, rake of $2, eventually grew to buy-ins of $200 and rake of 5% max $10. In maybe 3.5 months to 5 months of playing 3x weekly, the game breaks. The owner probably made 10-30k. Another game is started, this one with a rake of $2, but the damage is done and most of the players are gone.

Eventually I 8-table the $0.5/1 game for a profit of something like $12/hr with bonuses/rb (and maybe more if you count a winrate higher than $2). I do this for a few months, then go to the $2/4 table, get beat down, back to the $0.5/1, and finally up to the $2/4 game for a few months.

Which brings me to today, asking you guys where you got your knowledge/skill/cash/emotional control. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

short story. growing up I played alot of chess and backgammon. When i college i studied abroad and started playing some relatively high-stakes backgammon. Did rather well and some friends convinced me to give poker a chance. I had never played much cards except for gin, which I always won at.

Started playing pot limit omaha, i liked the math aspect of it. Played well enough to support me for a summer. Then when internet poker started, I started playing limit holdem and stud-8. I had a tourney phase of my career, however, they quickly bored me except for headsup tourneys.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I'm the exception to both.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

[/ QUOTE ]

Then I'm the exception to both.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me too, but I'm not a high limit player (yet). 10/20 with occasional forays into 15/30.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

[/ QUOTE ]

last summer i was dead broke... bankroll = $0. i borrowed $600 from a friend and $600 from my brother and started playing 2/4. within a week or two i had paid them back. then climbed the ladder, 3/6, 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 30/60

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

My story is a bit long but I try to keep it brief.

When I was 18 or 19 I worked at a charity casino in Toronto as a dealer. I would see the same faces day in and day out and that's when I knew poker was a game of skill. At the time I thought these B&M pros who played for a living at 5/10 lead a very pathetic existance.

It changed when I started playing poker, I was terrible at first but picked up the game really quick and built a pretty good reputation for myself at the undground card clubs. I've always been very good at math and just gambling in general and figured things out like bankroll management, variance etc on my own.

I was making good money but I was there day in and day out, I did pretty much nothing else. I then quit poker for a few years because I almost got kicked out of my university because I found school was really boring. Added to the fact that I met up with some new friends who I partied with.

I remember for a few years, my weekends were just a blur. I experimented with drugs and was high every weekend. I would come to school or work high a lot of the times but was having a blast. I met the love of my life and poker was definately out of my life at that time (and for several years later) although we did play home games with my friends at the casino I worked for.

During one of these games someone told me he played poker at paradisepoker and was winning a lot of money. That was my first indication that online poker was legit but I didn't really try it out until much later.

I started playing 5/10 at paradise and sometimes took shots at the 20/40. I remembered getting my ass handed to me on one of the sessions and one of the players laughing. Now that I think about it I really need to thank him as I became obbsessed to better myself.

I found 2+2 and jumped ship to party. Ran really hot there when I started at the 5/10. The games where ridiculously easy a year and a half ago. I won some pretty big tournaments in NL holdem and Omaha/hi lo. So from there just kept moving up.

I now currently multitable the 100/200 and the 50/100 if I can't get a table. I've just PM'ed BK asking for his advice on moving to some of the bigger games like 300/600 and eventually beyond. I've put some serious thought into getting coaching as well lately.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits. And everybody has been lucky in the beginning..

[/ QUOTE ]

last summer i was dead broke... bankroll = $0. i borrowed $600 from a friend and $600 from my brother and started playing 2/4. within a week or two i had paid them back. then climbed the ladder, 3/6, 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 30/60

[/ QUOTE ]

For some reason, I thought that you were an NLHE player...

I'm also curious about how the hell you became broke, but that's not really any of my business. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

How long did it take you to climb the ladder?

IIRC, I determined that I'd need to spend about two weeks to a month on a limit if I was beating it at 2bb/100 and wanted a 300bb roll for each limit. This doesn't take into account minor shifts in bet-size though (3/6 -> 5/10).

(Notice I said bet size, not talking about game quality.)

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

November 03. Losing Player. 2/4, 3/6
Stop.
February 04. Losing Player. 2/4, 3/6

June 04. Find 2+2 thanks to a table coach with an interesting name. thanks nepenthe!

After losing close to 5k slowly. And developing an obsession with this game, I deposited $200 into Empirepoker on August 4th 2004. Hit a lucky streak, took shots at 15/30 when the games were at its best. Built a roll. Kept building. Been steadily at mid-high limit since the summer.

I'm completely out of debt, and finally have a savings account.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I started a 2 years ago watching a friend play who is very solid. He showed me the basics and I began to read a few books and playing 25NL. I began to build a bankroll and decided to try limit, eventhough my friends all played NL. I played the 5/10 6 max games when they were just great. I won a seat in a tourney that following summer in Europe and won the tourney (Austrian Masters). I then had a real bankroll and played 5/10 6 max before moving up to the juicy party 15/30 games. I play from 15/30 to 100/200 on lots of sites now...just about table selection.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

Yeah sfer me too...Started at .5-$1 and slowly moved up.Played 20k hands on 2-4 and first shot at 5-10 almost crushed me...then 80k on 5-10 beating it for >2bb/100 and first shot at 15-30 almost broke my bankroll...First shot at 30-60 had a price of 19K...so yeah its been a battle but rewards are all worth it.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

My story is boring. Plenty of others more successful and skilled and with more interesting stories. Look for the stories in the holdem forum, up to 2 years back.

Maybe the only two gems I can offer are:

1-Only engage in games/activities in which you can double your BR at low risk. It doesn't take long to compound into a small fortune. (In a GOOD game, you should be able to double your 300 BB BR, on average, every 10,000 to 12,000 hands)
2-This one is not mine, but got it from a 2+2 book: "If your opponents are tough players, as well as being extremely tight, forget about the game...Leave that game to the world champions".

For me, the party 30-60 is very tough, and the Stars 100-200 is almost unbeatable. Even the "fish" are very agressive. Of course, you can be a luckbox at either for a while. I studied and tried it and left it.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

I started a year ago playing 0.5/1 at Party after depositing $100. I currently play 10/20 and suspect that I am a winner in the game (though still in need of improvement). I intend to move up higher in limits as my skills and bankroll allow, mostly because I enjoy the challenge.

Anyway, I'm not really a high stakes player, but I am told that 10/20 hands should get posted in this forum, so I thought that was enough to let me reply. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I don't think moving up from microlimits to mid or high stakes on a step-by-step level is that uncommon.

Long
 

I started playing in high school with friends at home. I'd host games and order pizza and drinks for everyone, since most people thought of it as somethign to do, rather than bowling or movies or somethign nobody cared about losing 20 bucks. A couple of people consistently won at that game, but i don't think anyone but me won much (though i'm not sure looking back). we played quater ante .25-2 spread stud mostly, with other games mixed in, and almost none of them played correctly.

I realized immediately that with .25 ante's and 2 dollar betting that i'd be much better off waiting for good starting hands then trying to catch up. I was the only person who did this, and it was the only reason i was the big winner in the game.

After beating up this game for like a year or two, it sort of dried up and i moved to ultimate bet. Losts of variance, no real understanding of hold 'em left me depositing a couple times. This was spring semester of senior year of high school.

I'd always tutored or something for money but i'd never had a job that really let me save money as opposed to have money, but over the summer i started caddying at a really prestigious golf course, and over the summer saved about 3000 dollats. This money would for the most part fund my learning at poker.

I continued to struggle at ultimate bet for a long time and frustrated (considering that i so quickly figured out my home games, and thought of myself as really good at math) i bought some books. I think the first one's i bought were Lou Krieger's Hold 'em and More Hold 'Em or whatever they;'re called. That taught me preflop.

(aside I had previously been capping with Ato figuring that my hand was better then average and the games i was palying in had like 5 or 6 to a flop even for multiple bets, so i could convince myself through logic deduction that my hand was better then average, so each bet gained me money. A lot of really seemingly smart things in poker are counter intuitive and very smart people can dselude themesevles into thinking they're playing correctly (It really takes the advice and views of others to point out some very fundemental mistakes).

At this point we're at freshemen year of college, and i made friends with some kids on my floor and we'd play 5 dollar buy in tournaments just about every night, sometimes a couple a night for the whole first semester. I continued to struggle on ultimate bet, but i actually won my way through a serious of satelites into the stone cold nuts the ultimate bet $2000 buy in tourney (my bankroll couldn't have been more then 300 dollars). At this time i was still a losing player.

This entire episode was really odd, as i couldn't play in it as i was flying to Rome for my honor's program at school the day of the tournament. I evenutally made a deal with the little known Fossile_Man on 2+2 to play the tourney for me, for 20% of the prize. He lost, he says he got all in AA vs KK with him on the AA preflop, I'll believe him. Haven't talked to him since. Then he won the World Series. But that's really neither here nor there.

So i lost all my money again and was keeping track of my poker debt on my profile so my friends could laguh at me. At it's height it was around 1100 dollars i believe.

I moved to party during the winter break of that year and started to play winning poker after losing maybe another buy in or two. i switched games constantly eventually settling at the 50+5 SnGs. I eveneutally built my bankroll up to 4k and started taking shots at 10/20, i lost because i still sucked at poker, i had just figured out the pretty basic all in startegy of late stages of SnGs.

My roll went up and down from that point, but once the summer rolled around i decided that i was going to really concentrate on limit, as that was where i saw the largest profits where games were readily available.

In the spring i started with 1/2 having withdrawn a fair amount of my roll, and was playing 2/4 and 3/6 by the end of the summer. I now lived with my friends from last year and we were all playing poker online by this point, and even at 3/6 i was making what i felt was an absurd amount of money for someone my age, though my friend's concentrated on SnGs (IMO by far the easiest game to churn out a small profit at). I took shots at 5/10 and got beat up a lot around december 2004 or so, though eventually i started winning.

I bought myself a new computer in februrary, and lost all my old poker records, it has pretty much every hand i've played since then though. i played 5/10 more and took off. Moved to 10/20 and killed it, maybe played 40k hands at 5/10 but only like 8k hands at 10/20 before trying the then legendary 15/30, i continued to run hot and was up to a roll of about 17k when i withdrew like 2 grand (my first withdrawl since i started playing limit, and was really trying to move up in stakes).

I was the [censored] and was winning unbelievable amounts of money. Luckily reality set in by taking my 15/30 bankroll of 15k down to 4k by the end of that semester. I wasn't really good enough to beat the game yet combined with what i legitemently think was a horrible run of cards. it was with the stakes played my first 300BB+ downswing. (so far only).

I started again in the summer by moving back to 5/10 and crushed it. I worked really really hard on my game and moved to 10/20 and crushed it. At this time the 20/40 and 30/60 games opened up and the beautiful party 15 of old dissappeared.

I stayed at 10/20 6 max most of the summer taking occasional shots at the higher limits, but my rate was so good at 10/20 i was satisfied with grinding it out for awhile, especially considering my recent perspective altering downswing. I'd certainly lost any naivete i'd still had from my high school games that i could win without hard work.

Eventually party made the rake change for six max, at a time when my bankroll was doing really well, and had put in some winning hands at 10/20 so i decided [censored] it, i'll move up to the higher stakes full table games.

I haven't looked back, and am playing 30/60 as my main game, and sprinkling in good 50/100 and 100/200 tables when available.

i won't sugar coat anything, i was a losing player for my first year, and my bankroll management was never great. I was overconfident (and still am to a degree, i can count the handful of players i've met that aren't on one hand). But i worked really hard and kept challenging myself (by which i certainly mean moving up in stakes and getting knocked back down, every time it improved my play).

Poker wasn't particularly easy, but then again it's not particularly hard, work at it, think asbout the best way to play each hand, and you'll simply get better.

There were certainly eureka moments, and having 3 roomates/good friends that play certainly helped my understanding by letting me talk about things with other thoughtful intelligent card players. The books and forums helped too, but nothing beat figuring out the concept of way ahead/way behind, and later that at some of the higher games, when people are good at reacting to your raises sometimes it's better to let the super aggros bluff at you. I learned both those things from playing at limits i wasn't ready for, and where i got knocked down. I think however that it was certainly the right thing to do, as i didn't risk my bankroll, but just took shots, and it really improved my game even when i had to move back down in limits.

I am a wholehearted proponent of the bikecyclekick method of moving up, and as i've said in many posts improvement in skill> improvement in bankroll.

Poker is really really hard, unless you work hard. Then it's still hard, but it's almost a guarentee that you'll succeed. There are very few games where effort spent to readily and quickly related to money won.

You simply get out of it what you put into it, and almost everyone playing a lot of hands, or even making a lot of posts, is auto-piloting way to much to put anythign into it.
Think about things and analize situations, it's that simple, you'll win at poker.

I'm a smart guy that worked hard and still couldn't win for my first 7 months or so of online poker, made maybe 2-4k over the next year, and then 50k in the 10 months after that.

It's not rigged, it's not luck, it's not intelligence, and it's not just you.

It's a very difficult game, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.



EDIT: there is not a chance in the world i'm going through this [censored] storm to edit grammer/spelling.

Re: Long
 

nice post jDanz

Re: Long
 

GREAT post.
thx a lot.

Re: Long
 

great post. you nailed it with the way ahead/way behind concept. that is the concept some decent ultra aggressive guys never figure out.

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

i started playing $10 NL SNG's at a friends apartment in the summer of 2003. I had absoulutely no idea about anything. i went and played live 2/4 limit at canterbury, but like most retards, i hated it because "i coudln't raise enough to make people fold". i decided to try to learn limit in early 2004, and deposited $200 into Party. played 0.5/1 and was a donk. read lots of 2+2. got better. made maybe $2K on the year. in March of 2005 i bought a new computer and became even more serious. did well at 3/6 full and moved to 5/10 6max in May. did OK there for 85K hands (1.4bb/100) and moved to 10/20 6max. (in the meantime, i took a 1 year leve of absence from my teaching job to play poker for a year. so now i am a "pro" i guess.)went insane there (40K hands of breakeven, with 3 drops of over 200BB). decided to move back to 5/10 to improve/keep my sanity. have been playing 15/30 live and lately 30/60 (with help from a friend who takes 1/3 of my action.) i still have a long way to go, but it all started with my $200 deposit in February of 2004.

Also long
 

I just copied and pasted from my "one year as an underage player thread". This was written at the end of June.



As of today, I have officially been playing internet poker for one year. I just graduated high school 4 days ago, and the last year has been very interesting balancing poker with my personal life and school.

I have had an interest with poker for a while, and since my academic performance was pretty solid during my junior year of high school, my parents decided to let me set up a Party Poker account last summer. There were a few ground rules, which were as follows.

1.) No playing more then 2 hours per day
2.) Only deposit $200 into the account, and if I lost it no future deposits could be made.
3.) I had to keep them updated on what stakes I was playing at all times

I was perfectly content with this arrangement, so I made my deposit. At this time, I had good poker instincts, but not enough knowledge about bankroll management and other crucial skills I would need to acquire.

At the beginning of my poker career, I bounced around a lot, playing SNG’s, a little bit of limit cash games, and some NL as well. In my first 3 days, I ran my $200 into $425. Somewhere along the line I started playing SNG’s exclusively. During a brutal run, my account balance dwindled down to $47.00 I then took 1st place in a $10 SNG, and this somehow gave the feeling that I was going to get past this run. For a while I was so emotionally drained that I told myself I would get my initial $200 and quit playing.

As the month of July wore on, my confidence grew, particularly after one all night session where I managed to grind out $180 playing $10 SNG’s. Anyway, by then end of the month had my account balance up to about $1300.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, my bankroll management skills were horrendous. For some reason, I convinced myself that it would be ok to play some $100 NL tables. After taking a couple of brutal beats, I was on major tilt playing above my head at $50 SNG’s etc… By the end of the night I had lost about $700, which was an ridiculous amount of money to me at that time. Anyway, at one point my account balance was back down to $400 when I vowed to be better with bankroll management and get myself out of this situation.

Over the next couple of months, I grinded it out at the $10 and $20 SNG’s and built my bankroll to about $2900 the beginning of October. Then, on a whim, I decided to play some $2-4 limit. I immediately realized that I had a knack for limit poker, and I immediately started crushing the game. I didn’t have poker tracker at the time, but I can tell you that I won about $4700 in October 4 tabling 2-4 for about 15 hours a week.

In November, I moved up to 3-6 and had some good success there, and although I took I week to move back down to $2-4, I still ended the month up $3700. I had a frustrating first week of December, and it ended up being my first break even week since I started playing limit. For some reason, I thought it would be a good time to move up to 5-10 6 max. It was pretty scary for the first two days, but I ran insanely well and ended December up something like $7800, which was about 2 years work at my job. I had been a service attendant at a nice restaurant for almost a year and a half, and while I had some good friends there, I decided that it was time for me to leave.

I continued to have success at 5-10, but in January I decided to give the 10-20 6 max a shot. I quickly had a 200 BB upswing followed by a 200 BB downswing. After the downswing, I realized I wasn’t emotionally ready to play for this much money and moved back down to 5-10. A month later I was giving the 15-30 full games on party a shot. I got off to a blazing start, winning something like $6,000 in my first week. I made this my new home, and made another $5500 in March, when I also finally set up a rakeback account and staring pulling in that extra income. I was a little disappointed with this result, as my winrate was significantly less then it had been at all the other stake levels I had been at. Anyway, April was a difficult month for me, I had some serious issues with my girlfriend with whom I had been together for almost a year and a half. We split, and I ended the month even not including my rakeback. At the beginning of May I was rejuvenated ready to have a huge month. I went on a tear playing everything from 10-20 6 max to $1000 NL tables and was up 7k by the 11th of the month. Unfortunately, a large chunk of this money came after having a few solid sessions at 30-60, and my downfall was inevitable. I dropped 8k in 24 hours, which is a sick amount of money to a 17 year old. I realized I couldn’t hand the swings, and I dropped back down again. I was running so bad and my play was rapidly deteriorating and I knew I needed to take a few steps back.

At the end of last month I moved back to the 5-10 6 max to rebuild my confidence. I’m up almost $5600 this month at the 5-10 game as I am writing this, and I’m back on top of my game. I’m going to stick it out at 5-10 for July and then give then 10-20 6 max a shot in August, I am confident about my prospects in that game given my results from May. After 1 year, my $200 in now somewhere around $ 38,000.

I have come a long way in the last year, both as a poker player and as a person. One thing I am particularly proud of is the fact that I have kept my life balanced despite poker. I have had more then enough time for my friends and for my on and off again girlfriend. I was able to keep a 3.4 GPA and I got my SATS up to a 1330. I also have matured as a result of poker, most poker players know how brutal the swings can be, and they make other things that used to bother me seem mundane. I will be attending Bentley college near Boston next year and would love to meet up with any 2+2ers in the area.

One thing excites me is how far I have come in the last year. I feel that if I continue to work on my game and focus on improving and playing my best at all times, I have a lot of potential. Poker has enhanced my life, and I hope it continues to do so.

Sometimes I still need to pinch myself to absorb what had happened to me in the last year, while I have worked hard to get where I am, it’s hard to always feel like I deserve the success I have had. It certainly makes me feel like I have more responsibility to do good just because of how fortunate I have been. So thanks for all the feedback, and hopefully year 2 will be even better than the first one.


Gabe

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A reply to noone in particular but it seems that nobody has grinded his way from microlimits.

[/ QUOTE ]

Many have.

I started my latest roll with $.15 on a .01-.02 table. Wanna talk bout grinding in the micros? haha [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

b

Re: Also long
 

You are a very solid young player, and your attitude makes you a credit to the game. I am sure you will be very successful in all your endeavors, and I wish you the best.

TSP

Re: Also long
 

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement as always TSP

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Also long
 

This has turned into a very nice thread. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: How did you get where you current are?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I started my latest roll with $.15 on a .01-.02 table.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's only 7BB! That's horrible bankroll managment and is a good way to go broke. You may want to read up on br managment in the beginners forum.