An Introduction of Sorts

I've contemplated doing this a few times in the past, but have never gotten around to it until now. My goal for this blog is to keep me concentrating on poker. This blog should keep me thinking about poker, help me confront losing streaks, and hopefully avoid bad play via the punishment of embarrassment. If you are reading this, you are either my friend in real life, or you play poker (at this point, probably micro-stakes, like myself at this time).I'm going to try to keep the writing fairly easy to understand for my non-poker playing friends. My hope is that it will be somewhat like Rounders in this regard; I won't explain every little detail, but it should be easy enough to figure out through context clues. This won't have posts about what I did last Saturday afternoon with my best friends - I'll start a real blog if I get that bored - this blog will be strictly about poker.

I guess I should also include a brief version of my poker history here. I'll try to keep this really short, but this might be long. Sorry if anything is off in the timeline - I think I've got it mostly straight.

I first became interested in poker in late 2003 or early 2004, around the time of Chris Moneymaker's big win, though it was Rounders that actually showed me poker for the first time. I was hooked instantly, and it wasn't too long before I was putting a great deal of my spare time into poker. After a few months I ran up 3 million in play chips on Poker Stars. Eventually I convinced my mom to deposit some real money. That real money was soon gone. This happened a few times before I started getting the hang of it. At some point I started exclusively playing Sit-n-Go's (SNG); it's like playing a poker tournament and skipping to the final table. 9 men enter, top 3 get paid. I played these, probably break even, for about a year. During my senior year in high school ('05-'06), I decided to take poker seriously. Utilizing 2+2 (the best poker forum around), talking with friends, and a LOT of practice, I went from single tabling $5.50 SNGs, to 8-tabling $60 SNGs by graduation. My ROI wasn't mind blowing, but it was solid. This is the time when I got most of the cool FPP stuff - 50" plasma, a few ipods, etc.. I also cashed out all that I put in - I am now free rolling. My one regret of this time is not playing more and not continuing to improve. I got complacent with how much I was winning, and got satisfied with not playing all that much. If I had played 30 or 40 hours a week February-August, I could have more than paid for college in advance, and be a mini-balla while I was at it.

Anyways, over the summer I went on a nasty downswing that discouraged me from playing a bit, in combination with two or three vacations and preparing for college, not to much poker got done. It was a losing summer as well. I decided as I was starting my first semester to switch from SNGs to ring games. Though a good idea overall, I decided to jump straight to 100NL. That was idiotic. I literally had NO idea of how to play post flop poker. Yet, I maintained a slightly positive, though swingy, ptbb/100... somehow. Then I started getting exam grades back. It wasn't good. I wasn't flunking out, but my grades were still bad. I started focusing more time on school and less on poker. Around this time the UIGEA legislation passed. Not too long afterward my winrate started going into the red. But I was dumb, I didn't improve or move down, I just kept losing. This pattern of losing continued into the next semester, though I played even less, determined to improve my GPA (which I succeeeded in). That summer, Poker Stars had a huge bonus, trying to encourage new customers in the post-legislation environment. Being a Super Nova, this was a huge bonus... I played a lot. This is when I came to the conclusion "hey, you know, I'm not as good at cash games as I was at SNGs." At some point I dropped down to 50NL, but I still played horribly and wasn't improving much (though in my defense, I really was running bad at the time as well). At the end of the summer. even after the bonus cleared, I was down a few thousand. It was about 35 buy-ins (a mix of 100NL and 50NL, weight toward the 100NL, sadly). Over the last year and a half I've made other half-assed attempts of playing, usually 25NL or 50NL, but would always get distracted with school, switch to Omaha or Multi-Table Tournaments, or just run bad (and/or just played bad) and quit. I don't want that to happen this time.

I'm down to about 3K (which is 3K more than I put in, keep in mind), spread acrosss sites. I could just hop on Poker Stars and play 50NL or 100NL. But I want to be a winner again. Like I was in '05-'06. The games are clearly harder now, but I learned it once and I can do it again. I've subscribed to DeucesCracked (video tutorials - highly recommened), and downloaded the newest version of Hold'em Manager (keeps track of all my hands)... and of course the free stuff - PokerStove, random videos off 2+2, etc.. I had a little over $300 on Full Tilt. I'm not depositing on there again, so I know I'll take playing micro-stakes on there more seriously than I would on Poker Stars (where I'm sure "it's just 10 bucks" would run through my head many times each night). I plan on taking this money through 50NL, maybe higher, within a few months. Wish me luck.

This is a good time to mention that if you don't have any money online, and you are thinking about depositing - TALK TO ME BEFORE MAKING AN ACCOUNT. I will hook you up with Rakeback (only donks play without it where available), specific (reliable) sites with good bonus oppurtunities, and the right site for you based on what you want to do. And then keep talking with me - the best way to improve is talking theory with other players.

This took entirely too long to write. I'll post my results of the last few days later tonight or tomorrow.

Edit: fixed a few errors and added more links, it being the first post and all. And either add my RSS feed or click the follow me thing at the top right of the page if you want to keep up with my posts