*****note******
I just finished typing this and it is lengthy. It consists of my poker background and recent hurdles. If you are only interested in the video link just skip to the bottom.
This is my first post ever! I have spent the last few months reading various posts of interest/watching videos on this site and on Cardrunners. Hopefully by uploading my own material it will allow me a starting point to becoming more interactive in the online poker community. I am just kinda shy and i don't wanna say anything stupid but the time has come so here it goes.
At the advice of my bestest buddy and poker mentor, I started off playing live at Argosy Casino playing $1-$3 and online small stakes cash/SnGs/MTTs. I played pretty tight and against weak players its easy to sit back and wait for a hand. I was clueless (and probably still am). After college i decided i would take a shot at the poker "biznazz". It didn't go well so i continued to work my suck job and play exclusively online.
After going busto a few times due to lack of bankroll management I would always play the 1 table satellite to the Sunday 100k for 70fpps on Pokerstars. The winner got a $10 seat in the Sunday 100k and i would simply un-register and take the tournament dollars to a $10 SnG. From there i would usually take 1st or 2nd and continue to play like this until i had about $50. From there i would play the $4 180-man SnG. I took a shot at this SnG probably 10 times. I cashed a couple times and final tabled once before i actually took down a 1st place in March of 2008 which yielded $216. Needless to say i was pumped that i won my first MTT SnG. Like 2 days later i got off work early and decided to take a shot at a bigger tournament. I took a shot at the $40k guarantee $27.50 buy in on Pokerstars. To my delight i took 4th and $2,700. I should have taken the offered chop but i was feeling too good about the situation so whatever. I was feeling unstoppable as i am sure many of you have felt before. Then as in most cases, the reality check to the nuts comes a short time later....
I was positive that since i now had a "good" bankroll i could play any game i wanted. I always went to the casino with 2 buy-ins, so why couldn't i do it online right? YEAH!!!! WRONG! lol. I decided to play $400NL 6-max. Oh Boy was I in for a treat. I played about 4 hours a day breaking even for about 2 weeks. To this day 6-max body slams me and its amusing looking back and thinking i was able to handle those games. Needless to say my bankroll shrunk in half. Due to fear and uncertainty, I decided to withdrawal $1200 and leave $200 online. Within a month i was busto again.
So its back to the drawing board. A short time later in August 2008 I did my AMAZING turn fpps into cash again using the same plan as explained previously. However, this time i took a different approach. Once i got to a $100 bankroll, I started playing $25NL full ring. It worked out pretty well yielding a slow but steady profit. Keep in mind i was still pretty clueless but had an OK understanding of what the hell was going on. then I joined Cardrunners and i can say with complete confidence that it changed my game around 180 degrees and put me on the right path. Not necessarily Cardrunners, but more particularly the $25NL video produced by WCGrider. I played about 90k hands and experienced a 20k hand break even/downswing hurdle during $25NL but eventually got through it.
I played $25NL until the first week of October 2008 and had 50 buy-ins for $50NL. Lately, my colleague and I have been thinking that a 50 buy-in requirement for ourselves might be a little too conservative, but i think everyone's comfort level is different.... so whatever. Anyway, then I moved to Full Tilt Poker to take advantage of the whole rakeback craze, which by the way is amazing. Following the instruction of Sixpeppers and Muddywatter on Cardrunners. I played $50NL until the first week of January 2009 . I had a $5000 bankroll built up entirely from fpps! YEEEEHAWWW!
Now comes my current situation. I took a shot at $100NL and realized a few things. I was playing like ****. I was running pretty bad. I didn't like the bigger swings. My confidence level was down. After about 10 days i managed to lose 5 buyins at $100NL and and another $500 experimenting at $50NL 6-max/ $50NL. I decided a break was in order to get my head clear and to study the game that we all love. I started playing again a few days ago and my play improved tremendously, however the results didn't show it. Coolers, bad beats, draws got there, etc. I was fine with that because i was playing better. I will post my graphs and stats below. This all leads into the video i recorded last night of my most recent session.
****for those of you only interested in the video******
Please bare in mind that this is my first attempt ever at making a video and first attempt at talking out loud trying to articulate my thought process verbally. It may be painful at times and i ramble at times about things that are irrelevant. Thank you for taking the time to read this and feel free to comment and critique.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DGK3FRC4
Last edited by CMaximus; 02-02-2009 at 06:53 PM.