I want to start posting some observations and things I learn as I learn them here, in my 'poker blog'. Seems like a lot of poker players have blogs these days, and I never really thought to put one up. From time to time I mention my poker playing in my regular blog, but I don't know if the audience for that blog is really concerned about it.
I'll start with my history.
One day while popping through the channels of my TV I happened on a poker tournament being aired on ESPN, or SportsSouth. I sat and watched, amazed at the amount of chips that were being pushed around the table. I didn't realize they were tournament chips, but still, I was fascinated. I don't even remember who was playing. I decided to look to see if there were places to play poker on the internet, and I came across Pacific Poker.
They had the option to sign up and play with pretend money, and I was all for that, so I did. They had a number of games for play money, and even a tournament every once in a while. That's when I learned that tournament money does not equal real money. I'd join a table, play a few hands, and usually leave the table pretty quick once I won a little bit of money. A real hit-n-run specialist. I noticed that you could put in real money onto the same site, but I was cautious.
I asked around, and my manager at the time played, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I deposited $50 at Pacific Poker, and played it much the same way I played my play money. Changing games, playing for a couple hands, leaving when I won. Then I accidentally sat down in a $25 heads-up tournament. I got lucky, and won it. I decided if I'm going to be using real money I probably should figure out what I'm doing and started buying books.
Ken Warren's book, "Winner's Guide to Hold'em" taught me about pot-odds. Phil Hellmuth's book "Play Poker Like the Pros" taught me some aggression. Then the book that changed my life forever, "Small Stages Hold'Em" by Ed Miller and David Sklansky. On the back I noticed they had a website, twoplustwo.com, and very quickly I joined the forums, and started discussing and learning poker.
That was January, 2005. 2005 was the glory year of internet poker as sites were popping up everywhere. Party Poker, Paradise Poker, PokerStars... in order to compete in this diluted market place many of them were giving very lucrative monthly bonuses. You move your money around from site to site, earning the bonuses as you play. Often the different sites were the same poker 'network' so you played against the same people, but for a different 'site'. Many people weren't even winning players, and yet their bankroll grew from the bonuses. I, of course, was a winning player AND a bonus collector, so it was a nice supplement. I usually ended up taking the winnings out and spending them, rather than letting my bankroll grow.
During this time I was playing 'Limit Hold'em', which means each bet could only be a certain amount, and most sites limited the betting rounds to 4 raises per betting round. You couldn't really risk your entire stack (the money you have at the table) at any one time. I started at .05/.10 limits, and worked my way up to play $1/$2 going from Pacific Poker, to Paradise Poker, and then eventually to Party Poker.
In early 2006 or sometime thereabouts the sites started consolidating, or going under entirely, and the competition was less fierce. The bonuses started to dry up. Now you really had to be a winning player to 'make it'. Televised poker was becoming more prevalent, and the 2005 World Series of Poker and the Moneymaker effect really brought some attention to the poker 'boom'. Unfortunately, it brought the wrong attention.
In October 2006 Congress passed the dreaded Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and the online poker-playing community went into a frenzy. I had just taken some money out, and as a result of the UIGEA the methods I had for transferring money around closed their doors. Other methods were becoming available, but they hadn't really been proven, and I was hesitant to risk any money, so I just played what I had at the time. One of the sites that I was playing on almost exclusively, Party Poker, closed to US players, so I had to find another site, too. I moved most of my money over to PokerStars.
I decided that with the increase of televised poker tournaments most players coming into internet poker would probably not go to the limit tables that I had been playing, but would rather go to the poker tournaments, and so I started playing those. I did fairly well in those, still made money, but tournaments can be rough because you can go through rather long spells without winning and bringing in the money.
I decided to try my hand at no-limit, and that's where I am now. I started at NL10, which means the most you can bring to the table at any one time is $10, but you can bet all $10 at any time. The blinds are .05/.10. I've gotten books, been getting help from the forums, and at one point was up to NL50 before the holidays. Holiday cashouts (taking money off of the poker site) dwindled my bankroll. I then went through a period of bad play and unlucky cards that put even more pressure on my bankroll and so I moved back down to NL10 to solidify my game before moving back up. I'm almost there, playing some NL25 recently.
I'm very careful with my bankroll. I don't have excess household cash to fun bad poker play, so I either win, and increase my poker bankroll or I lose until I'm broke and then I'll be playing a lot of free-roll tournaments (tournaments with no entry fee). I've taken enough money out to rationalize depositing every once in a while, but that is the furthest from my mind.
