My Poker History

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.

Friends are cool

It's nice to have friends.  Friends that, say, when an SUV crashes into the phone equipment outside and to the north of your housing development such that it lands upside down and on TOP of the phone equipment (about 5' high big green boxes) and then is removed by being dragged off the top of them which in turn destroys all the equipment underneath them taking out the phone and DSL of hundreds of homes, that you can go and vitually spend the whole weekend with them so you can use their internet.

Friends that have a pool in their development, so that you can spend the day standing at the pool looking up at those angry dark clouds trying to decide if they're going this way or that way so you can either run for it, or jump back in.

As you can see, our internet is back.  It was gone from Friday evening until just a couple hours ago.  Friday storms were drifting through the area and right at 5pm our lights flashed.... then right when all the DSL modems and wireless modems logged back in and I re-connected to my work network (please note that I was being extremely dedicated doing this at 5pm on Friday) they flashed again.  This time I decided to go to the store rather than wait for all the lights to start blinking, or not blinking as the case may be.  As I left I saw the lights of the firetrucks and police to the left and marvelled at how that could have happened outside of a CHiPs TV show.

Now it's possible that I had lost my DSL at that moment.  After all, I didn't wait for the lights to come back the second time.  But by the time I got home from the store there was no internet.  I picked up the phone in order to call the phone company, and I was incredibly shocked to find no dial-tone.  I couldn't remember the last time I picked up the phone and there was no dial tone.  It was like... the end of the world.

The next day I drove past and a legion of AT&T trucks were working at the site of the crash.  Literally 10-12 trucks were parked around it and across the street.  The automated response system I called from my cellphone said it expected everything to be back up by ... gasp ... Tuesday.

Luckily we had made plans earlier in the week to go over to Dave and Julie's Saturday evening.  YES!  They have internet, AND a wireless router.  We showed up early towing our laptops.  Saturday was dinner and a movie... Sunday was lunch at the pool, dinner, and another movie.. :)  We had a good time hanging out.

Today I actually had to go to the office for work.  It was nice to have free coffee that was hot even in the afternoon (mine goes cold unless I click on the heater again, but even then I'm usually not patient enough to wait for it to get fully warm).  I did remember to wear a long-sleeve shirt and jeans because air-conditioning chills me to the bone, and I ate wayy too much at lunch because they used really big bread to make my ham and turkey sandwich.  I didn't even get hungry at 3:30pm.

Tomorrow's Tyler's birthday party.  He wants me to make a movie, so I will.  I made one of the Disney trip and well... we got a lot of footage at the beginning, but not so much in the middle or at the end so I tossed some pictures in.  Anyway, it's here, on YouTube.

Tonight's Sunset

 

 

I love my back porch.  You'd think I sit on it more.  Maybe I should move my computer out there.

I was hanging plates and pictures up around the kitchen tonight.  I thought it was probably about time I crossed off some things off of the honey-do list.  With all the vacations, trips, and trips-to-come I've not been a very productive sort this summer.  It's a small thing, hanging pictures, but something that's easily overlooked when I'm in my normal rut.  Plus we got a new bunch from Teresa's parents while we were down there.

Did I mention my grass is dead?  Evidently Georgia has been something of a sauna while we've been gone into the mild weather of Florida.  But without the water you can ladle onto the hot-rocks... and the naked people wrapped in towels.  Absolutely no rain, and hot, hot, hot.  My yard is dry and crackling.  I thought I'd come back to a jungle but instead I've come back to a savanna outside, but without the lions and giraffes.

I talked with Paul for a while the other night.  USF is getting a pretty respectable football team and has even scheduled a game with Auburn this year.  His oldest already knows how to say 'Go Bulls!', and he's throwing a gameday party.  Paul is, not Joshua.  That's September 8th.

Next week is a Labor Day party over at Kelley's (we're trading off parties this year, and since we did the 4th she gets Labor Day... so I guess we get Halloween).  That's September 2nd.

September 13th I head to Seattle to spend a week with my sister and celebrate her marriage.  I return on the 19th.

September 23rd we head to North Carolina for a much-needed vacation (!).  We're going with a couple other of our families/friends at the same time so it will be more like a 'let's go have fun' than 'let's get away' type vacation.

Phew.  I think I'm going to be ready for a rut after next month.  Paul wanted me to go on a white-water rafting trip on the 21st.... but geez... 4 activities??  In the same MONTH??  You've got to be kidding me.  I'm so stressed from all this leisure activity!  I'm pretty sure that when I have to start looking at my calendar to see if I'm 'free' I need blood pressure medication.

Did I mention Teresa wants to paint the garage floor this weekend?

Yeah... that back porch is looking mighty attractive.