Here's my story, not very long but I've found everyone else's very interesting and I kinda feel like reliving my own. I'm interested to hear a lot more of everyone else, especially the regulars I see helping others such as RoSeeker for example.
My first experience of Poker was when I was 14 at a mates house, we were playing GTA up stairs, I brought my PS2 and TV over to his, put them next to his and he were at it for friggin' hours, 2 screens next to each other getting square eyes, it was amazing. Back to the story though, he went downstairs and didn't return for an hour or so, I went down and he was playing Poker with his Mum and Dad with loads of pennies n that, and they asked if I wanted to play. Obviously I explained I'd never played before and they explained the hand rankings, the higher the cards the better etc and just told me the raw basics. I was terrible and I stopped playing after half hour or so, I found it pretty boring but I was still kinda interested, although nothing happened after that for another 3 years (July '08).
I was on a different forum and there was a Poker thread, there were 2 or 3 people who were bragging (or just posting, whatever) about the money they were making, a few with $11k BR's and another with an $8k, I was like.....!!! So I asked the guy about it and he told me to download PokerStars and play on the PM tables, so I did. I didn't really know how to play so I thought myself at these tables, what hands beat what, how the table mechanics work and how it's structured. I was still 17 at this point and didn't have a lot of money myself, so I was happy enough with PlayMoney for now. I was sitting with 1k, then I'd take it to about 20k, then I'd lose it all, get some more, get it higher until eventually I was getting more and more, and obviously, I thought I was the dogs nuts sitting there with 50k play chips in my account, I couldn't believe it and felt I could be World Champion within a year, I was hooked. I brought a Poker game for my PC and went straight into Championship Mode on the hardest difficulty and won it, then I downloaded a game on my Phone, and beat the mode first time. I was unstoppable, I actually thought I was one of the up and coming stars, I didn't know anything about these forums or anything about the Poker scene, but I really wanted to explore.
I brought CardPlayer magazine (August '08) along with Poker for Dummies and Super/System. I read PFD cover to cover twice to get the basics down and felt good for it, I understood the game, the rules, very very very basic strategy and I felt like depositing, except I wasn't yet 18, I was 2 weeks away. So I waited, kept playing for PM, studying about past WSOP's, reading articles on Poker history and eventually the day came, I was 18. A guy I knew from these forums told me to join SkyPoker, he told me about the freerolls and how I don't even need to deposit, so it sounded good. I created spreadsheets for it, I was going to track everything I ever did, all my deposits, how much I entered sessions with, when I finished, everything. My first deposit was £5 on SkyPoker, and I lost it pretty quickly playing £0.02/£0.04 NL. I redeposited £15 and I ran it to about £25 and I was laughing, before losing it again. I did this a few times over the next few weeks, playing SnG's and Cash Games not really knowing what I was doing, except losing money. After depositing over £60 and losing it all, I decided enough was enough, I was going to have one last crack at it.
I deposited £15, placed a bet on Liverpool to end Chelsea's 100+ home record in the Premier League at about 4/15 or whatever it was, and they did. So I had about ~£50 in my account, I got complacent and ran it down to about £20. This is when another guy told me to deposit on Stars and play @ 2NL, which I did. I was exactly the same as before, I ran it to about $50, then lost it all. I made 2 pretty quick deposits of $15 and $20 and lost them, and thought "I'm not good enough, I quit." I still had about $10 in my account and I thought I'd leave it in there for a rainy day, just in case I wanted to return.
So that was it, by November I'd quit Poker, 3 months of playing an hour a day, ~$100 down the drain but it was fun. The money I left in there was vital though as I kept playing a little here and there, but it wasn't until February of this year that is all got serious, Feb 22nd to be precise. I'd made 2 more deposits in early Feb and lost it all again, and something clicked. If I work at this, I can beat it. I wouldn't give in. I hadn't read more than 10 pages of Super/System, the only book I had read was Poker for Dummies but I was convinced I could do it. Someone recommended me to come here and I did, I started reading and posting some hands (on an old account, it was embarrassing), but I felt I could start winning and making money.
On Feb 22nd after a week or so of reading and studying I said to myself right, this is my last every deposit. $20. If I lose this, I'll walk away from Poker and concentrate on whatever else I have going on in my life - **** all but there we go. So the adventure begun.
I was killing it. The first night i was up to about $60, I was on a sick heater. I quit SnG's by this point, I was only on cash games. At 2NL I was winning at about 17ptbb/100 over 10k hands which was more than respectable, I decided I wanted to move up but didn't really have the guts. I did about a week later and found the bet sizing a lot more daunting, no longer was it 10c as standard pf raise, it was 25c! I was a little anxious when going in for pots with SC's or small pairs, at this stage I didn't really understand set mining and many other strategies with cards which are useless pre-flop, but I wanted to learn more and more.
I settled at 5NL and was beating it for about the same as 2NL, but then I hit a downswing and lost quite a bit, this set me back. I didn't really understand variance at this point so I thought I became a loser overnight. I took a day or so off and came back and I was fine. I carried on winning, nothing major and at this point I found Pokey's posts and many other guides, I bookmarked them all (honestly I've got hundreds of links still to read), but I read the recommended ones and the ones I felt I was lacking in them specific areas.
Nothing major happened, I had to keep withdrawing though for various reasons, so $220 came out of my $300 BR and I was down to $80. Just before this though I took shots @ 10NL and did pretty well, I noticed a lot more 3betting and stuff, but I was 2tabling it so it had my entire attention, so I was confident I'd get it back fairly quickly, how wrong was I!
I hit my worse downswing in my short (very) career, I was down to $20 again. Everything was getting cracked, so I moved down to 2NL again, took it back to $40 and moved back to 5NL. Bad BRM. Once I hit $80, I decided to move to 10NL again, and I took that to $120 in a short space of time before a few coolers lost me 4BI's and I was back to $80. I decided to move down to 5NL until I hit $250 again. I know I can beat 10NL, but I felt much better at 2NL when I moved down from 5NL, and I knew I'd feel much better at 5NL after moving down to 10NL, and I did. It was so easy, it was like 2NL again, so I'm grinding this again just to get BRM back on track, I feel like I'm neglecting one of the most important things in Poker, so even though I can probably grind that up to $250 quicker at 10NL, I want to learn a lot more before I move up, I still have lots to read. I have about 500MB of eBooks on my PC and I've never read a single on, Poker for Dummies remains the only Poker book I've read, I'm ashamed to say.
So here I am today, a winning 10NL player (only over 4k hands or whatever, 9ptbb/100 w/downswing), grinding 5NL because of my stupid withdrawals, biggest mistake so far in my career. I hear a lot of people say that but it's true, it's a real setback and something I guess you can't vouch for until you do it yourself. One thing which does annoy me though is when I play anywhere else except my house, I'm a loser. I don't know if it's just my concentration or what, but when I look after my niece on weekends, I play while she sleeps and I just can't play properly, I can't concentrate like I can at my house so I've stopped playing at weekends, I just don't have the attention span but I'm dying to play. In a way it's kinda cool because I spend that time watching videos and reading 2+2, so the weekends is basically my study time, which I guess is forced upon me in a good way, it'll definitely help me in the future.
Hope that wasn't too long, got a little tired at the end so rushed through it then, but it was good looking back at it and sharing it with you guys. I definitely want to play Poker professional one day, I'll definitely use it as a fund to go back to college aswell for something to fall back on/enjoy my youth, but it's a nice earner and I love playing, I know there's money to be made. I currently play 15/13 which I'm going to have to look at, it's pretty nitty so I'm going to have to open my range up a lot, and I admit there's a hell of a lot of work to be done, but reading all these stories and threads made from everyone inspires and teaches me everyday to get better, one day I hope to be in a position to help the people like I was when I first started out.
Phew that was long..!
By the way, I don't know anyone who plays Poker in real life (cba to teach my mates who think it's boring), so if anyone's got MSN and is interested in talking strategy 'n just general poker, and is at a similar level to me (5NL-10NL), PM me and we'll exchange MSN's, I feel like I'm missing out a wealth of knowledge by not actually discussing my game with someone else.
(Good luck, cmoney, PM me if you're interested mate).