BBV roll call: Who got into poker bc of "Rounders"?

[J-Mac]

I learned how to play stud when I was about eight years old, but I never really got into cards until I saw "Rounders" with some buddies and we started a micro-limit home game. We didn't even know the rules of hold 'em.

So I started playing a little bit, then Moneymaker in the WSOP ME '03 happened, and the rest, ladies and gents, is history.

Who else?

[IronFly]

I'm ashamed, but yes, here. At least I didn't follow Moneymaker into it.

[Lurker.]

lol. yeap. I actually played in '97, but i had no clue what i was doing. as stated above...better than moneymaker!

[NU Star]

I began after Varkoni's epic win. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[IronFly]

I rented and watched Rounders with a group of buddies my sophomore year. One of them had an old set of clay chips and we started playing during the credits.

We did stud and hold'em, but also a ton of home games (pass the trash, mississippi, baseball, snake, 7-27, etc). We played with a $5 buyin. Often the games were more of a drinking competition than a poker game.

Best times I've ever had with a deck of cards.

[demon102]

wish I got into back then, I came late seeing the reruns or raymers win

[bigt2k4]

my friends got into it because of rounders, I had never seen it, but got into it because of them. After dropping 7.8k tonight I wish I never got into it all.
Honestly, can I hit my 2 oesfds? no, how many villians just pushed flush draws into me on flop or turn? About 8 I would guess, how many hit? 7

[baggins]

I started playing somewhere in '98. hadn't seen Rounders yet. a couple buddies and i had nothing to do and it was summer before college started again, and we each bought a roll of nickels and played 5 card draw in my buddies basement. then another friend heard we were playing nickel games, and invited some of us to a home game he played in. they played holdem, omaha, 7stud, chicago, and some other widow and stud based games for like .25-$1 spread limit. then our home games pretty much turned into that. i mostly played with my friends probably once or twice a month. more when more people were in town, and less when everybody was broke or working a lot or had finals.

then i bought 'Thursday Night Poker' and decided to learn some strategy based around a home game atmosphere. i learned a bit, and started beating my friends. they would razz me because i took it seriously, but i was the one walking out a constant winner. and i don't mean i won overall, i mean i never had a losing session when i played with my friends. still never have.

somewhere in there we watched Rounders a lot.

i also started reading 2+2 books, like THFAP and TOP. also some caro stuff. didn't learn too much from Caro. his positive little zen-koans were a little hokey for me.

after reading books, i decided i wanted to play higher stakes. i started going to the local cardroom (Hollywood Casino in Aurora, IL). of course, i wasn't willing to invest more than $100 in a single buy-in. i had only just turned 21 and was very intimidated by the casinos at first. the lowest holdem was $5-$10 and i knew $100 wasn't enough to buy in to that game and play right, so i would play 1-5 stud with the old farts. i lost a lot in my initial trips to the casino. but i knew i was still learning and could get better and beat those games.

meanwhile, the home games continued, and i read more and more hold-em books and started posting on 2+2. this was back before you had to register your account and make a profile and everything. back in the OLD days with Tommy Angelo and Vince Lepore and Dave in Cali and Clarkmeister and Dynasty were just starting to post and there were like 1/10th the number of forums as there are now. no real mods, no real need for mods. no online boom (don't know how far back online poker goes. i've only really played online for the last year.)

some of us from the home games were more serious than others. i had a friend who wasn't 21 yet, but he was itching to play in a casino. i was dumb and took the $2250 i had from an insurance settlement involving my beater honda getting totalled and i got to keep the car (it still ran fine) and State Farm gave me the $2250.

i didn't take ALL of it, but we drove the 5 or so hours up to some indian casino in Michicagan where you could be 18+ and play. we played for about 18 hours, mostly $2-$10 spread 7stud and he played a bit of holdem. i still wasn't convinced i wanted to play holdem yet, and had more experience with stud so i stuck with that. i think i lost maybe $600 and i don't know how my buddy did.

then i moved to L.A. in january of '01. right before, I had been saving up my funds for the trip, and i decided a couple days before Christmas to go play the 5-10 at hollywood. my buddy (different buddy) decided to come with me to keep me out of too much trouble. he didn't play, but the room was dead besides our table and a 20-40, so sweating the action was no big deal. (this was back when the room was like 6 or 7 tables - never all full at once - on the 4th floor of the casino) i sat down in the BB, saw K4, and nobody raised. flopped trips, and one big fat obnoxious guy could tell i was nervous and tried to push me off the pot, but i ended up winning, up like a whole $60 bucks, and that eased all my nerves for that session. about 2 hours later, I was up over $500 and by buddy said 'lets go. im not letting you lose that.' and we left. it was a nice little bonus to my bankroll before the move to LA. i had no car in LA (omg wtf? how?) but when i could i would play low limit at the casinos there. mostly the bike. i liked the atmosphere and the multitude of tables and games, and i liked the low limit tourneys. i also read a LOT of poker books then, and reread and studied and posted and learned and found my way into a lot of home games as well.

entered a $15 tourney at the bike, tripled up early with AA on the BB against JJ and QQ allins and progressed to the final table where i won 7th place. i was stoked, and i was hooked for life by then (if not earlier...) even after my phat TV-show job was done, and i was unemployed, i continued to pay rent and eat (though not balla by any means) with my winnings from 1/2-4/8 limit holdem.

then i moved back to chicago and had a job and played the 4-8 a lot at Harrah's East Chicago. i didn't like hollywood much (still don't) and was living in the city as opposed to the burbs, so HEC was closer. also played in some home games of a guy i met here (played in Uptown/Rogers Park area. some of the 2p2ers might know the game) then i lost my job, stopped playing for a looooong time, and focused on going back to college and working.

fastforward to now. i've been married for a little over a year. i've started lurking and occasionally posting on 2p2 again, and playing on PS almost every day. invested $50 back in october and have been playing small buy in SNGs and microstakes NL. was up and doind fairly well. been playing/running bad in the last month or so and for the first time i'm almost broke on Stars.

Also, moved to Tucson in january with my wife. i've played a few times at Desert Diamond. it's hard to get back into limit again. i played the $100+$10 NL this past wednesday and was playing well when i went all in with 55 on a 235r flop and get called by 34o. of course he has me slightly covered and gets a 6 on the river to knock me out. i was thoroughly pissed, but not for long because i realized i played the hand perfectly, got all the results i was looking for as far as my opponent, i just got unlucky and he sucked out.

Brag: wife loves watching poker on tv, has been playing play money on STARS and is learning quite a bit. she is taking it seriously, and has only had to rebuy a couple times in the last month. we've talked about a lot of concepts of poker and she gets things intrinsically that i really only was able to verbalize after reading all those poker books and magazines and 2p2 posts. she's getting the hang of it. i just need to teach her to play LIMIT and start her playing with cash instead of playmoneys.

i told her she could start playing for real money once she reads TOP and we discussed it along the way. she just went and grabbed it off the shelf and started!

long post. i got started and couldn't stop short.

[Fedfan691]

Wow, I had no idea a post in reply to "who got into poker bc of rounders" could call out that kind of history.

VNH.

[Python49]

I got started because of moneymaker.