Who are you? Personal / Poker background

[Beastmaster]

Mod-please don't move to another forum, you can put in LC thread if needed. Just curious about the background of the regulars in this thread:

A little about myself:
27 yrs Old
Married with one child (9 months, changes your world...all for the better)
Wife and I have nice jobs, both in sales.
Own a home, with an inground pool (nice as it close to 100 degrees today)
Went to a Div II College on basketball scholarship
Played basketball, baseball, football in HighSchool.

Poker background: Play as a hobby and for side-income
Friend got me into it a few years back. Started with $50 bucks on PP playing .5/1 limit. Quickly started to read and research holdem and found out about bonuses. Starting jumping from site to site and collecting bonuses at the .5/1 - 1/2 limit. Also found some nice casino bonuses and that padded the bankroll at the start of 2006. Continued in 06 to play 1/2 with some 2/4 and collect bonus and rb from various sites. This year, decided to play on Absolute as my home site. Play 2/4-5/10 and usually play 3-4 tables. Usually play around 15k-20k hands a month.

Okay, so who are you?

[Scorcho]

Personal:

27
Single with no children
I work as an electrical engineer during the day
Own my own condo in Portland
Avid golfer & beer drinker

Poker: Also play as a hobby and side income
Also surprisingly started out with a $50 deposit in late 2004 after a friend introduced me to it. Bounced around collecting both PokerSourceOnline and ECasinoDeals offers for various rooms, then moved on to bonuswhoring 1/2 limit. I opened my old laptop the other day and laughed at all the poker icons on my desktop.

Also did some casino whoring and padded my bankroll immensely (hitting a slot machine for $1825 and another for $1100 helped). Now days I still play 1/2 because I'm a vagina, typically about 10k-15k hands per month, 2-4 tables at a time (depends if something is good on TV). I'm pretty risk-averse for some reason. Every year I tell myself that this is the year I play 2/4 and possibly 3/6, but I don't because I withdraw the profits from 1/2 and spend them. I play on Stars for a week to get my gold status, then onto Absolute for bonus clearing & rakeback.

[HoneyBadger]

- 27 y/o
- Long distance relationship (girl living in bombay, india), not married, no kids
- Do not own a house
- Ph.D. student in computer science for past 2 years with 2 more to go. Working on virtual reality / computer vision.
- Have a master's degree in computer science (parallel computing, networks and operating systems), and some sort of 1-2 year associate degree in mathematics.
- I read a lot, about anything, both fiction and informative books. Lately been picking up digital photography; bought a $1000 lens, but no time to take pictures...

Poker:
Always played with friends in bars. Mostly stupid stuff like follow-the-wild-lady-to-the-baseball-stadium-matrix -- you figure it out, usually the poker with least wilds wins -- but also some limit hold'em. Started playing online 7card stud hi/lo SNGs, then 7card hi/lo cash games (my first poker book ever was Ray Zee's book), followed by full ring limit hold'em. Fifteen poker books and 2 years later I'm still a full ring nit, played that up to $5/10, moved to 6max $2/4, lost, moved back to full ring, won, moving back to 6max $1/2 now, breaking-even. I'll learn, eventually.

[ZOMG_RIGGED!]

25
Oregon
Divorced { Free'd up a lot of time and income for poker :-) }
I work 55 hrs a week as an accountant for less than what I make in 20 hrs a week playing 3-6 and 5-T

Started playing .5-1 on Party Poker in 2004 and quickly dropped about $150. Decided it might be time to read a book and learn what the hell I was doing. Played 2-4 and 3-6 small time on PP and eventually got up to about a $1000 bank roll. Had a break through month were in a 10 day period I came in 2nd in a 2500 player mtt for almost $5K, 1st in a 150 player mtt for $1500 and 1st again in a smaller limit one for almost $1000. Was a big month for me :-) went from a "monster" $1000 bankroll playing small stakes to over $11K. Decided I was the [censored] and started playing 5-T. Held my own ( a small miracle looking back) but never gained any ground. Cashed out everything and paid college, and credit card bills. Played off and one for the next two years but no real time or money because I was finishing school and dealing with a bitchy fiance/wife.

After the divorce 6 months ago I started playing seriously for the first time when I releized my job couldnt cover my newly found student loans. Tyring my best to learn what the hell I'm doing. Trolling forums, reading books, watching cardrunners and stox. Running out of hours in the week so i'm going to start taping books to my forehead when I sleep and hope I learn by osmosis. Play mostly 3-6 and 5-10, lots of bonus whoring. Had a $300 in March. Have a $3000 bankroll today, but I cannibalized it every month and pull out $1000 so I can pay the bills. Goal is to get the bankroll to $10K and have enough saved up that next spring I move down to LA and play at the commerce

[sethypooh21]

[ QUOTE ]
Went to a Div II College on basketball scholarship


[/ QUOTE ]

Damn, and I thought I was the best hooper in SSSH. (Played D-III myself)

I can take any of you at the ultimate frisbee though...

[Oink]

- 31 years old
- Getting married (the one with the huge...)
- was about to own a flat. Seller opted out and now 2 years later we lost in the danish national court. (Last one before supreme court)
- Ph.D. student in economics for past 3 years with 2 more months to go. Working on game theory.
- Have a master's degree in economics.
- Used to play golf at a elite level here in DK. Was part of the team winning danish nationals in 1996 and won the equivalent junior title in 93. On both teams were now European tour winner Soren Hansen.


Poker:

Started playing christmas 05. before that I had only played 5 card draw with friends where we didnt even know the rules. Lost 100 USD and then bought SSHE by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth. Played 0.25/0.5 full ring and moved up to 1/2.

Started playing limit SH last may. Started at 0.5/1. Wasnt a huge winner. Dropped about 2k in the 3/6 games at AP last september. Joined Stoxpoker in december last year and havent had a downswing of more than 200BB since. I now play 5/10 but thats because I took out 24k to cover expences for the afore mentioned trial regarding the flat.

EDIT: Since may 1st this year I am up about 45k which I consider pretty damn good so I just wanted to brag [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Future: Gonna finish my Phd and have decided to "go pro" after that(I hate that expression). I will give it a year and see what happens. If its crap I will get a job in some investment bank (hopefully) and (not) work there for the rest of my life. But I hate working so poker needs to be REALLY crappy.

[Guy McSucker]

Usually these threads make me feel really old but this one hasn't managed that so far. I am the oldest person in the thread so far but not by as much as usual.

So.

I am 34 (at least I think so; what's 2007 minus 1972? and I haven't had my birthday yet this year), married, and have one child who is nearly three years old. I am a professor of computer science at a university in the UK which was stupid enough to make me a professor.

I started playing poker shortly after I found Theory of Poker in my local bookshop. The mathematical side of it intrigued me, so I read the book, then learnt how to play the games... I think I am probably the only person who ever read TOP before considering playing poker.

That was like 1999. I soon started playing online at Paradise. While all the fish were playing limit, I played no-limit and pot-limit. Used to post on 2+2 when there wasn't even a single no-limit forum. Then when all the fish moved to NL I switched to limit.

I don't play much (8k hands a month) and I suck, but luckily my opponents suck worse.

[ZOMG_RIGGED!]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't play much (8k hands a month) and I suck, but luckily my opponents suck worse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen

[Oink]

[ QUOTE ]
Used to post on 2+2 when there wasn't even a single no-limit forum. Then when all the fish moved to NL I switched to limit.


[/ QUOTE ]

LOL!

That one made me chuckle causing the girlfirend to give me that standard "you play too much poker" look.

[sethypooh21]

- 30
- single, but just bought a reasonably baller condo. Would you like to come see my etchings?
- Lawyer in real life
- played basketball and ultimate frisbee in college, played elite level club ultimate (oxymoron?) for several years after college

Poker:

First deposited like $200 on pokerroom in about 2001. Lost it all quickly because they didn't respect my raises.

About 2003 during law school, friend told me about WPT, started watching. Deposited on party (ahhh party) lost $50 once, and then started beating the SNGs like a drum, worked my way up from the $11s to the $109s. Made good money at that. Read Schneids 100k in 100 days story, decided to try SH limit. Immediately ran like a good at party 1/2, but got crushed in every shot at 5/10. Switched to stars for 2/4-3/6 ran goot. Made about 60k between when I started and October '05 when I completely burned myself out trying to bonus whore. Quit until end of March this year.

After I took the bar, was bored, so logged onto pstars to donk around. Had a gazillion FPPs, played some sats to the sunday mil (it just happened to be the $1050 the week I logged on) won 2 seats, cashed em in for T$, started playing some donkaments and SNGs, ran the roll up to about $3k, started playing 6max again. Quickly moved back up to 3/6. Took a few shots at the 5/10, ran goot. Discovered I could +EV play 8 or more tables. Robusto ensued.

As of now up ~ $50k for the year playing part time, considering 'pro' next year...