Hey everyone,
My name is Joe and I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I am 22 and I just graduated from college in May. I have a full time job for a decent company and make a decent salary but I LOVE poker. My job is pretty boring so far so about half the time I am on the internet studying poker or reading about other people's experiences with it.
I mostly play live 1/2NL at the casino in Cincinnati. I play some online but don't really manage my online BR. I usually just play a $20-$50 MTT every once in a while for fun or play the 5 cent tables just to pass some time.
My poker history thus far is pretty brief. I turned 21 last summer while working as an intern in Columbus. I always liked watching poker on TV and playing the occasional home game in college with my friends, which I usually dominated, so I wanted to try out the real thing. In my first session, in my first hour, I doubled up after flopping the nuts and then lost my whole stack a few hands later on a terrible play. I had AA and there was a raise to $8 in front of me, I reraised to~$25 and got one caller. The flop came 962 rainbow. I thought I was made so I immediately announced all in (for ~375 into a 60 pot!). The guy snap calls and shows pocket 99. Needless to say, I did not catch on the turn or river.
So in my first hour of real poker I had a huge high, a huge low, and a crashing realization that even though I could beat my friends for $20 I had no idea what I was doing. I quickly bought and read a couple books and learned the basics. Most importantly, I learned I might want to get a bit more patient
. So, I tightened up, and tried to not get too excited anymore.
Over the next couple months I played probably 15-20 hours a week and made around $500. Then school started again and I barely played during the fall semester
. It was about an hour drive to the casino and I didn't feel like making it. Over winter break I started going and did really well over a short period of time(+$1000), so when the spring semester started back up I still tried to go about once per week. I was only playing about 8-10 hours a week, maybe, but for about three months I was on a ridiculous downswing (-$2000). I got beat by so many rivers so often that I couldn't believe it! At one point I lost 4 times in a row when i went all in and each time I was ahead going into the river. I started to question my skills and thought about quitting poker altogether. That only lasted for about 3 weeks and I had to go try again. (BTW, we are up to after I graduated and started my job.) In 2 weeks and about 50 hours I was running like God and was up about $1600 over the 2 weeks. Since then, I am down about $400 over my last 40 hours or so.
I just want to tell my story as an average person trying to get better at poker. I have the analytical skills and I am pretty good at reading people and picking up tells. My biggest issue is by far the emotional side of poker. I know that I get too high after a big hand and too low after a bad hand or session. I get too attached to a good hand and make calls when I "know I am beat". In the past couple weeks I have figured out EXACTLY what my opponent is holding and still called and lost a couple of times.
I'll take any advice I can get, whether about a hand I post, how to control my emotions better, or any general advice.
If you kept track, I'm up about $1000 in live play. Let's see where it goes from here. Hopefully you follow my story