How did you get where you current are?

[Duerig]

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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.


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Could someone elaborate on this?

[zmigsthatkid]

god what a great story... thanks for sharing

[yvesaint]

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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

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wow. this is like exactly me, now, except exclusively NL.

maybe one day ill be making big bucks like gabe is.

also its really weird seeing baronzeus saying "i finally hit 50k!" in this thread

[DavidC]

bump due to recent thread.

[johnnyrocket]

great thread, real cool to see how many different paths people have taken.

[KingDan]

I started with I think $25 to clear the pokerroom refer a friend bonus rat holing nl 25. Clear the bonus continue raping tiny NL games. Moved to SNGs where I eventually was beating the 215s for what I thought was huge money at the time.
Then started playing Mtts. After my friend kept ragging on me for not playing real poker, I try cash (2/4 and 3/6) and run very good for my first 100k hands.


In the fall I cashed out most of my roll (bc of neteller party dying etc). Decide its a good time to try 2k and get slaughtered. At the same time a guy I'm backing drops 15k. Took me a lil while to rebuild, but with some help from backers I'm back to donkaments 5/10 and 10/20.

[HOWMANY]

I have class soon so this is going to be typed quickly and hard to read. Start with 50 a couple years ago, go broke, do it again go broke, do it again and play 25/50 cents Razz on FTP like a nit and eventually 25/50 cents-1/2 pretty much all the games like a nit until I have about 800. Be a pretty terrible losing player at 2/4-3/6 live, discover 2+2 when trying to learn about Omaha 8.

Learn how to play poker about 15 months ago when I get PT/PAHUD and like a million 2+2 books and play 1/2 6max LHE till I had 1800, move up to 3/6. Move up to 5/10 when I have about 4500 run good at first till I have about 6k at which point I start playing 8/16 live as well. Run terrible in a shot at 10/20 and 15/30 Stud 8 and move back down to 3/6. Win it all back at 3/6 LHE and run good live and lose/breakeven for 50k hands 5/10 online until I have about 10k but am playing the same games. Stop running awful online until I have about 8k online and 6k live and am playing 20/40 live and 10/20 online, LHE mostly but a decent amount of HORSE/Stud 8 also. Apocalypse september losing Party and immediately losing about 3500 which is pretty substantial when your roll is like 14k. Move down to 2/4-5/10 to rebuild confidence online, no time to play live because of school. Stars adds 2-7 I win like every day I play which isn't that many at 5/10-10/20 because everyone is awful and I probably ran well, I then have about 13k live after winter break and some 2/5 NL and about 12k online. After winter break start playing 40/80 live miraculously run good for once when I move up and win like 33k in 160 hours or so. Of course things don't work out quite as great as they sound because I also lost 6k at 75/150 failed shot and 10k HU 50/100 as well as a small 6k downswing online that took me from a sad 13k to 7k that I am barely recovering from since I don't play much online.

No clue how many dollars I actually have, somewhere in the 40-45k range, which is not a lot, but plenty for the games I play now which is 40/80 live, 5/10 LHE online and sometimes 30/60 Stud 8 when one specific fish is playing. I sort of want to start playing online again, so probably 10/20 online soon and a lot more 30 Stud 8. If it weren't for 2+2 I'm pretty sure I'd be broke and have no clue how to play. While it pisses me off that I feel like I fail miserably every time I take a shot and it results in me staying where I am for longer than I should, I'm pretty sure I ran REALLY well when I first started playing 3/6 online and I can't really complain about how well 40/80 has gone for me, so it's not too bad.

[Marmor]

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bump

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[KexChoklad123]

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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

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According to TexasLimitKing he is "not very good", quoted from a swedish forum

[dcb777]

Lots of heavy drinking and occasionally blowing my balls in the blackjack pit.