[durron597]

This post carries a bit less weight than it might, because, of course, El Diablo long ago beat me to 30k. However, I still have to give homage to my original forum, STTF.

Wow, this place has changed so much since I first started posting here. I'm going to try to run down the history, and I'm sure I will miss some major events and posters but I'm gonna try to do my best.

Phase 1) ZeeJustin, Jason Strasser, Jman28: Wow, this seems like so long ago now. Back when Jason posted a hand about reraising the #2 stack with 85o as the #1 stack on the bubble in a high buyin SnG, and we were all like "whoah". And then another heated argument between ZJ and Jason where Jason was saying you should fold getting ridiculous pot odds and ZJ was like "I'm sorry, bubble equity is not worth the 1k in chip EV I am throwing away by folding here".

I was posting play money hands (embarrassing, yes, I know, I was a totally broke college student) without a buyin anywhere in the hand (it wasn't required then) and was so proud of myself that I was crushing them despite multiple people consistently going allin on the first hand. LOL

Phase 2) ZJ and Jason graduate to cash, I deposit finally, rise of citanul, Irieguy, curtains, Gigabet, eastbay, AleoMagus, lorinda, Daliman, DrPhysic etc. etc. too many to name. This is when I really started to learn a lot. ZJ and Jason laid most of the groundwork for this, the golden age of SnGs.

It was in this period that SnGs really became a solved game. A lot of the work had been done up to this point by the earlier crowd, but really all the math was worked out in almost every specific situation around this time. eastbay was the math king, and AleoMagus had his SnG tracker spreadsheet that everyone started to use - really the only software at that time. Multitabling was done but 12 tables and upwards were totally unheard of - no one had really internalized the math enough to do more than 8 around this time (iirc).

Phase 3) citanul is made mod. This is April 2005 or so. I remember wanted to be a mod of this forum even way back at this point, not because I was the best player on the forum but I was online ALL THE TIME. I went through a month where I replied to every single thread in the entire forum at least once... I went from like 4000 posts to 6000 posts or so in only about 2 months I think. Chief911 had already been made mod of MTT and I PMed Mat saying, essentially: "I'd like to mod STTF, but in case you don't select me to do it, my first choice would be citanul, and after that here are a few other good people". Mat reads my PM and doesn't reply, but makes citanul mod a few hours later. LOL. Also STTF-HUC 1 happens around now I'm pretty sure, but I didn't go so I don't remember exactly when it was.

LOL, I was just going back through my old PMs (mods have unlimited PMs) and around 8/05 Gildwulf was making digests on this forum. I had a PM convo with citanul talking about incorporating them into the faq. No memory of that at all, heh.

Phase 4) I ask citanul if he needs a second mod, and he agrees I would be a decent choice. A PM to Mat and I am greened. I also move up in stakes. I also bunker down and finally buy pokertracker. I'm now a regular at the $27s on Stars (starting from a roll of about $200) Major forum milestones: SNGPT comes out, dethgrind's ICM calculator (which is no longer on the web I think), software is really starting to become important. the shadow makes the greatest 1st post in the history of 2+2, his favorite threads.

Phase 5) STTF-HUC 2, which I actually went to, was Dec 05. Finally got to meet all the people I had been posting with for so long. There are too many good posters around this period for me to even consider trying, so I won't, though I will mention that around now is when I started to become pretty good friends with bluefeet, cha59, pooh74, and some others. AIM becomes a much bigger part of my 2+2 life. I am playing the $60s regularly now.

Phase 6) January 06. I hit a very large downswing in a very short period of time - over $1000 in a weekend. And it continues over the next two weeks. I don't multitable as much as others but it was really dense. But I do have a FTJ and I'm just reinvesting my poker money into my bankroll anyway, but this is really when I lost the wind out of my sails with SnGs. I'm still posting pretty actively, but I decide I need a break and just mostly stop playing for awhile.

Phase 7) April 06. Werewolf strikes OOT and STTF and the forum is crawling with all these threads. David Sklansky has turned Science, Math, Philosophy into the Religion forum (which it still is today), so I suggest to Mat to make the Puzzles and Other Games forum, which occupies a huge percentage of my free time for a few months.

I do, however, win a WSOP seat around this time, which also burns me out on poker even more. I spent about 3 weeks in Vegas on business from the end of June, first week of July (where I win two Binions small field tournaments, woohoo lol), and then come back for the WSOP where I made a stupid top pair+flush draw bluff on the turn against a set and bust.

Phase 8) The UIGEA is passed in September 06, and Party closes. Everyone runs to Stars. The games, while they don't get unbeatable, get harder, and I cash out a good chunk of my bankroll, and another good chunk to Neteller thinking "well maybe the poker sites will get cut off but I trust Neteller, they're a bank after all." LOL Then in January Neteller closes to US customers and I end up with half of my roll stuck there. This is basically my demise with SnGs and I never play them seriously for any length of time again.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading my perspective on the history of STTF, I know I left out tons and tons of details / people / events but this is what I remember. And tomorrow, 2+2 moves to vBulletin. Maybe I'll use that as my excuse to start playing again.

Thanks guys!