Poker Story
I grew up in a card playing family. Hearts and Spades mostly, but we played a ton of other non-standard games like Fan Tan, Nines, and during the last three decades a game called Louse (maybe you know it as Oh Hell). But our family was kinda strict Methodist so drinking and poker were not in the mix. When you reached about 8 or nine, you could sit in the bridge game. I loved that game. Played on our HS team that was so good we had to play the local colleges (NJ) for competition. In three years we never lost a HS match. I continued to play in college (Miami, OH), though it was very difficult at our frat (SAM) with only three players. Our faculty advisor played though so we did get in some games. I won two All-University tourneys with two different partners.
Fast forward to the late nineties and Gore’s internet thingy has really taken hold. I am playing a coupla hours of bridge a night at The Zone.com This continues on until the Moneymaker win. Probably within a few months of that I DL’d the Stars software and play on the play money tables. I played bridge and play-money poker for the next two years….yeah you read right, I played play money for two years. I caught my big break when I played and won a freeroll in 2005 where the winner got a seat in a Real Money tourney. I can’t remember where I finished, but my poker BR began with this $48 score. BEAT= 2 years of play money. BRAG= I have never deposited money on the internet…. The $48 is still growing.
I played $5 tourneys (9-45 player stuff) for a coupla months until I moved over to the .05/.10 6Max tables. January 1, 2006 I had built up my $48 to a grand total of $42.70 Wheeeeeee. But then I caught a heater. It had to be a heater because I still sucked. Within 4 months I was over $1000 and was starting to bonus whore a few sites. That actually didn’t work out so well for me as I would normally just breakeven or lose a little. Pacific was the worst with a $600 deposit to win a $600 bonus. I cashed out with under $500. The only good thing was discovering Party Poker early that year. So while I was chasing boniii, I 2-3 tabled 25NL 6Max at Party…for fun and profit. I was cashing about $1000 a month at Party as I only had one losing month at Party.
Oct 14 2006, I cashout all non-US sites due to getting Fristed. I deposit $600 onto FTP with rakeback through raketherake. Due to raketherake’s referral policy, 6Max mod 4_2it is now retired and living on a beach in the Bahamas thanks to his monthly cut off my rakeback.
Anyway, FTP was not too kind to me and I’m losing at 6Max. So after getting my deposit bonus on FTP, I switch back to Stars with the $100 I left on there. November/December 2006 I 3 tabled 6Max games on Stars…..but the losing continued. At one point, my Stars bankroll was $0.18 and it became personal. I was pissed. I can remember going WTF!!! WTF!!! Ad nauseum. I took a little break and reread HOH and others but it wasn’t until I was reviewing my saved 2+2 thread link when I came upon a year old post by Tien about 6Max fundamentals on Nov 17. (It was so good I recorded the date in my poker daily diary (for taxes mostly).
Tien's 6Max Fundamentals
I got it. I was playing poker, but I wasn’t a poker player. I was trying to learn/play LAG on the tables because that’s what all the balla 6Max players were posting as the best strat. (As an aside to mpethybridge, you left a name off your list of posters that you cited as an influence to your game. It’s my list too except a serious 1000 whacks with a wet noodle for forgetting Pokey). “LAG play makes the best money”…..but with tien’s post, it was OK to TAG. Except I don’t know how to play TAG. First thing I did though was to build my Stars $0.18 back up to $100. This took until the end of Dec06. Then I switched over to FTP and began playing FR.
2007 was my relearning year only I had a big problem. BIG problem. I wasn’t learning anything about BR management. I was taking too many shots and not protecting myself with a floor. I would get up a grand or two at 50NL and blow it all on a weekend of 200NL. By the end of the summer, I cashed down to $500 ($5200 withdrawal) to pay for a move across country. Then the withdrawal Doom Cloud that is FTP descended upon our village and parked over my computer. I went busto for the first time in my poker life on Dec 6, 2007. I played a few miserable days with my Stars BR…wasn’t happy though, like I was kicked in the teeth. Soul searching crap,,,, but bottom line was that I was going to win the BR management part of my game NOW.
Two things happened next that changed my outlook and poker strategy. Number one was minor but it got me back on my feet. My November rakeback deposit of $171.00 YeeeHawwww, back in business boys! Oh wait, BR BR BR BR. OK, let’s grind some 10NL for a while. Number two was the notification that I could earn an Iron Man bonus with mega play in January….but it seemed impossible at 10NL. So after just a coupla days into the Iron Man I realized I needed to play more hands to max the bonus and I DO love free money. This is when I started 8-12 tabling 10NL, then 25NL, where previously I would max out playing 6 tables. I played a NIT game 11/9 with a 4 agg factor. And I won.
By April I had a BR just under 5K before the DoomSwitch leveled me. I think I posted that in a two week span I was over-setted 14 times. BR took a dive but I was able to get it back to close to 10K by June. I finished 4th in the RakeTheRake Freeroll in early June. Yeah,,,except the payout was 3 seats to the WSOP ME. I lost 3K at that point and withdrew another 4K as a stop-gap. So with a 3200 BR, I’ve worked it back to just over 12K now…… after (a) buying the Tri/CTS book and (b)giving up 2.6K playing two weeks of 6Max at the start of November Grrrrrr. I’m back to FR now.
I play 1000-1300 per night. PT2 and PokerAce. I use SpadeEye to table select and search 100-400NL tables. I highly recommend FullTilt Sortcuts if you plan on multitabling. I will not out my FTP name. I do not play optimally against someone that “knows” me…I end up soft playing to the detriment of my BR. I don’t play for ego or King of The Hill status and to bust a friend is not my idea of fun. TBH, I don’t play against many of you guys….but I’m always tabled with Small Full guys. Oh and before you ask, I have too many DBs to create a lifetime garf, so don’t ask. I’ve never made one, and probably never will.
I have played live poker twice in my life. Last year’s Xmas party for my wife’s medical practice had a casino theme……yeah Christmas…Reason for the Season LOL. I cleaned up a table in a little over an hour and won enough chips to convert into a DVD player. I raffled that off immediately for a little over $100 which went the evening’s charity. Second time was a bunch of flyfisherman in Boise. The buyin for the tourney was a coupla dozen flies. One dozen went to the local Boy’s club and the second dozen was the pot. I won nothing. One of these days I’ll make a Vegas run. Or Cactus Pete’s on the Idaho/Nevada border…though I “think” they only spread limit cash games with weekend NL tourneys. Neither would be playing to my imagined strengths.
Two Plus Two
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