I see your point, but doing this four-way with one pair sounds spooky to me.

Never heard of that term, but I understand the concept and have actually considered it to extract value from someone drawing. In the micro's where I'm currently at though, I only do something like this if I've got a big hand with little chance for villian to improve.

Raze, amazing posts. I definitely have to check out that blog from you "mentor". I am currently a dispassionate post-grad that does not want to go through with Law School.

Haha, I am outlining for law school exams like mad this week. The degree is pretty versatile fwiw. That blog mentioned by Raze is pretty well written, thanks.

Just found out this thread today and it's very nice to read how you build up your roll.
Thanks for your effort.

Raze,
thank you very much for your effort. Much inspiration in here.

I live in Ottawa and I don't like playing live. Almost every time I try, I get so bored from the slow action, and so annoyed by degenerates and people whining and complaining about their cards / hands / the dealer / their life. I usually end up running bluffs out of boredom and losing. I did have fun playing in Vegas last year, however, and in Dominican this winter at a CPT event. Dominican was especially good because almost everyone there was super cool, either invitees for the CPT events, or a rich locals (I happened to be there on vacation the week before the events, so I booked and stayed an extra week to play). I met a ton of cool people, and the cash games were the toughest I've ever played live ($2/5 1000max). I really felt outmatched on some tables there for the first time in a long while.

I'll be heading back to Vegas in June for a week to take a shot at the 5/10nl cash tables. I've never played higher than $5/5 live.

Good dialogue on this hand.

I think we're kind of ****ed with this King-high board. Anyone who got this far with a strong King is stacking off, which opens our opponent's all-in ranges to include sets + Kx. It would take some very complex hand-reading and range assignment to determine our Aces are beat with the required certainty, given the fact that we're 4-ways OOP, and given the size of the pot (especially if we choose to bet out flop). There's definitely no easy way out of this one. Before the flop, when facing that $25 raise, we should have identified this potential flop problem, and we would have all the more reason to go ahead and 4bet pre.

Summer 2007 - $400NL

I was a $200-300NL regular on Tiger for the first half of 2007, and I was doing very well. Unfortunately though, I had a dispute with the site over a cashout, and I ended up deciding to look elsewhere for action. It was probably for the best, since 300 was the highest regular game on the site, and I felt like I was crushing it daily. My limit bankroll was long drained at this point, as my NL results were piling up and I kept a large bankroll while regularly cashing out the excess. Everything was going well... so naturally I had to shake things up, switch sites, and move up to where I was scared money!

I did my research, and shipped my roll over to iPoker at the beginning of August and fired up some 200NL to get re-aquainted with the site software. I had played a lot of small-stakes limit on iPoker back in the day, with good results, so I was comfortable with the site right off. Since I was in my comfort zone at 200, I experimented with a few things. Since I noticed the regulars were TIGHT on iPoker compared to other sites I'd played, I opened my game up. I started stealing close to 50% of Buttons. In full-ring games, I widened my EP opening range, raising any pair from any position, and since I ended up taking a ton of pots either PF or on the flop with a Cbet, this style worked well. My game became much more dynamic and fluid, because since I was still hunting fish, I couldn't use this style against a guy who would call everything. So... rather than playing an ABC style, I started varying my ranges based on the players at the table... a BIG improvement in my game. Also, on iPoker there (still are?) monthly rake-races which would entice players to 24-table all day in order to pay the most rake, and therefore win big cash prizes. This was probably a big reason the games were packed with nits. I took full advantage. I checked the rake-races to see who was playing the most hands, and then I made sure to mess with these guys who were on most of my tables. One of these guys had stats of 7/5/3, with 96% fold-to-steals, on my six-max table! If there was a tighty like this in the BB, I would open any two cards on the Button. If there was a big limping fish behind me, and tight players in front of me, I isolated with a very wide range, to the point where I would run 33/30 at a six-max table and the weak TAGs would be forced to start 3betting me once in a while.

I was doing well enough on iPoker, but just to mix things up when the iPoker tables sucked, I put some money back on Party. I did some datamining and found the Party tables quite good as well... although I was earning 50% rakeback at iPoker and basically zero on Party (they caught my illegal RB provider that year). When I tried to use some of my iPoker tactics on Party, I got another lesson. A lot of the trends on site X, even at the same limit, just don't exist on site Y, and as such, certain strategies and tricks backfire on you.

For instance: on iPoker, I tried to make HU steals (my SB v BB when folded around to us) lightly against these tight TAGs, but it didn't work out too well. I got called and floated on the flop a ton. So, I tried a move that no one else used, and that most on 2+2 would consider weak and -EV: I open-limped my SB heads-up. Surprisingly, I almost never got raised. So I would limp, see a flop, and then I'd be first to act in this indifferent pot. When I flopped a pair, I bet, and they folded... every time. They're not raising my limp, they're folding all the time to flop bets, and no other TAGs are doing this? So it came to be every time I had a non-monster in the SB, I limped. I saw a flop. I bet 2/3rds pot regardless of the flop, and I took it down 4 out of 5 times. I did this hundreds of times with success, until I hit $600NL and people started catching on. I even got ridiculed on the forums when I posted my stats (winning 5ptbb/100), and someone noticed my HU steals was super-low, as was my SB aggression... unacceptable, of course, for 2+2 standards. Guess what else? I was a small winner out of the SB over 100,000+ hands.

So I took this trick to the Party 400 tables, and the regs were NOT HAVING it. I limp, they raise. So, I recognized that this line just wasn't working, and I worked around it. I went back to HU stealing, and it worked like a charm. Again, vs certain opponents, I made the HU steal with any two, because they were 57-tabling and just couldn't be bothered with those small pots. And that's why heavy multi-tablers are usually the first to complain about long downswings. They aren't picking up every little piece of EV they can find. They aren't pushing every edge. In short, they'll never be as good as someone who is looking closely and actively for every scrap of value in every situation and every hand they play, and that's what we should all strive for.

I've been saving up HH's recently for my next post, $600NL.

I've been really looking forward to the next part of your climb!

It delivered, thanks!

Just saw update; will read now!

This thread is F***ING awesomw!! n1 raze, keep up the good work

bumpity bump bump

These stories are cool so I want to share mine

I started playing poker while at sixth form, we would play no limit holdem with 5p and 10p blinds at lunch time and we would play 5 card draw sometimes too. I quickly managed to learn to fold bad hands and bet with good ones, and soon I could win enough for an extra sandwich or whatever, it was fun and no one took it seriously.

After sixth form I went to uni and brought my chipset along with me. Poker had always been a social thing for me and I figured it was a great way to meet some new mates while drinking beers, smoking bud and generally talking **** to eachother. Typical male bonding. It worked out great. We played about 5-10 STT's a night for about a £2 buy in for the first two terms. Then we started playing bigger, £5 buyins, £10, £20.

Then we started playing cash games. This is where I really started to love the game. We would play 10p/20p blinds and people would usually buyin for £10, and a few of us would buy in for £50. Eventually the games got very big. We kept the blinds the same, but soon all the people would be sitting with at least £60 and there would easily be over £500 on the table. For us uni guys, this seemed like a lot of money. I got hooked. We all were. In my house, I would host 3-4 cash games a week, we'd end up playing until 8am and only stop when we realised the sun had come up.

I uni I started playing poker at the Poker Society. I wasn't to know it then, but we had a really good caliber of players, a few of them went on to become full time pro's. I remember first getting really into poker when we played a £50 freezeout in the poker soc. I can remember the blood flowing through my veins and my heart thumping when I was reraised all in by future betfair pro and aussie millions HU 2009 champ John Tabatabai on a T high flop when I was holding two jacks. I called and he flipped over ATs with Top Pair and a Flush draw. I held up and knocked him out, it was a massive buzz. I was later knocked out near the bubble with Aces, all in preflop vs Kings. The King came in the door and I was gutted. Truly having witnessed the highs and the lows, I loved the ride and the thrills. I started to ask John how he plays poker for a living. We played a couple SNGs and headsup games for a few quid, and talking to him made me realise that I could make money at the game too, so I started to try and take the game more seriously.

John Taba told me that he was a sponsored player from BadBeat.com, and how he had a loss limit of 5k a day at the time. This money seemed astronomical to me. I wanted in.

University year finished and we had summer break, I played on VCpoker at the time and played all summer to try get to play with badbeat. I went to badbeat with a summers results and they accepted me for their $50 a day program. The staking was 50/50, with profits paid 1/3 each month and the other 2/3rds saved until every quarter where you got paid a bigger sum.

I played with badbeat through the $50 a day loss limit, got extended up to the $100 a day and then eventually the $200 a day. At the same time, I learned about rakeback so I began to resent the terms of the staking. The conditions were that you must play 40hrs a week and they kept all the rake. I realised that myself, and all the other candidates on the staking program, were making them alot of money. I wanted my rake back for me. Having said that, I had some great experiences with Badbeat, I was mentored by Paul 'Action' Jackson and got some great coaching from him. But - I also had a degree to think about, a dissertation to write and classes to attend. I couldnt stick to 40hours a week, plus uni, plus social life. they were affecting eachother too much, or better put, poker was dominating my schedule! So I gave it up. Content I had learned new skills and more poker knowledge, I decided to stop playing for 6 months and concentrate on uni work. I decided when I went back to poker, I would play for myself, keep all the profits, and absorb all the swings - I had to walk the road alone - it just felt right.

6 months later, uni was out of the way and I decided to start playing myself. A friend from uni who had turned pro kept a poker blog which I liked to read and he said helped him reflect on things. So I set myself up a website where I could blog my thoughs on poker (http://www.donkfestpoker.com). I was going on my own again, there was a slight problem though, I had maxed out my cards and overdrafts the past 6 months of uni and had nothing to my name. So I borrowed £100 from my girlfriend (what a saint lol) and started to play 4NL on ladbrokes. I started reading 2+2 alot more often, and started buying their books. I got better, and was able to build some profit to play 10NL, then got to 20NL, then 30NL, then 40NL then some 50NL. I tracked my results on a trail version of PO and PT2. I withdrew some money and then ladbrokes made some software changes. This through me off base abit, I had become used to the software and the stakes. they completely got rid of 30nl and 40nl and then changed the site's main currency from $'s to €. This meant I had a choice to go back to 20NL€ playing within my roll, or 50NL€ undrerolled. I had learned BR management by now so I chose the former. I got HEM and signed up to PS+ and DeucesCracked. Good choice's IMO.

I've been steady grinding away, and I've just recently moved my BR off ladbrokes and moved half of it to unibet, saving the other half towards my uni fees for a new course I am doing next year (don't get in debt lol). I've been doing really well since then and now I play 40NL€ 6max cash games. My goal is to move through 40NL, upto 50NL by June when my BR hits over €1600, then move up to 100NL when I have over 3.5K. I want to play 100NL all of 2010 and cash out all of the profits for living expenses so I can be free of a typical student job. Thats my story so far..

Here's my graph since I got HEM pro with my PS+ subscription:

Great story, comb. Anyone else reading this thread who hasn't put their story up, however long or short, let's hear it please!

i put 25 bucks 2 weeks ago into pstars after having gone bust like all year on a monthly basis. ran that up to $131 in a week by playing $10 sng's. i must of found some fishy tables cuz i won two and finished 2 nd in the third one. then i played some 10/25 nl 6 max and felted a few villains and i though i was phil ivey. then i came home at 3 am from work and wanted to get it to $200 in a week and soon move to 25 nl permanatly cuz i knew what i was doing. shoot i know how to three bet lol and i was felted twice in five minutes with one pair . i thought they where bluffing!! and then tilt set in and there went my money. i am currently studying the game more and hope to be back as soon as i pay my rent first.
ed

Great stuff! I'd post mine but I'm a lazy failure so I won't waste anyone's time lol.

Okay here it is the legendary Arnz18 story lol. (set the rumours str8 obv)

3 years ago I learned the rules for texas holdem at the kitchen table from my dad we then had several home games that were 5 dollar buyins and I would always win. In fact nobody hardly ever beat me I was the best player in my family besides my dad (at that time). It was also at this time where my dad discovered online poker and started playin on partypoker. Obviously seeing my potential he deposited 50 dollars into my account and the first nite I started playin 10c 25c no limit holdem I won 65 dollars that first nite and I thought I was so rich.

Back then I didnt know anything about moving up limits or anything but I kept winning in the 25nl games at party and stayed there for a year where i won several thousands of dollars not sure of exact amount but then I blew it all on a fancy car stereo and partying etc.

2007
Arnz is busto. At this time I had discovered the site PokerStars after getting referred to it by a friend and my older brother put 10 dollars in my account for me. Well the first night I won $4.40 180 man sit n go for $216 first prize. I grinded sitngoes for a while eeking out some profits until about a month after the first win I took down a $10 deep stacks tourney for 1k (4way chop at end) shortly after that I final tabled the same tourney again this time taking 1500 for my efforts. At this time I was exclusively playing Mtts and i had won quite a bit of money in them in February 07 i got 2nd place in the 109 deep stacks and took down $5200 my biggest score yet in my career. So basically I was on top of the world it was hard not to brag to people obviously but I always kept an even keel and was very humble about poker. I also got headsup in the supernova 50k freeroll and won 8800 after we chopped it. A friend had half of me in that tourney lol half in a freeroll so i only got 4400 of the prize.

At this time my bankroll was 15k and it felt like so much money. I didn't know anything about bankroll management and this is about the time I decided to try some 600nl cashgames. The first day I sat down at a fullring 3-6NL game an hour later i had over 3k in front of me I called my friends and was like come look you don't believe me this is so easy(I was runnin like god obv but didnt know it) I won about 3k that day in total. The next day I try 5-10 i win about 1k I'm ecstatic or however u spell it lol.

Some period of time passes not that long maybe a week and I try the 5-10 game again that night i lost about 3k which in todays games is very easy to do with standard variance etc. But it was so much money to me I was so rattled i cashed out my 15k roll and said I would never play on pokerstars again. Like I said I didn't know about variance or br management or anything yet I was just a kid with what I thought was a fortune.

2008

I start playing on Full tilt poker. The fancy lights and avatars really caught my eye and I loved the fact that so many "name pros" played there. I played sitngoes for a while again with about a 1k profit. Then I dipped myself into 100nl cashgames. The first month I won about 5k which was so much to me again I would protect my wins and cashed out all 5k. I did it again months later. As time passed tho and bad runs as well as laziness to put in the volume needed to win money at low stakes my br was slowly dwindling. I didn't have any money on Ftp anymore except for a few bucks.

Heres where it gets interesting sorry with the boring backstory etc. On March 31st 2008 Daevils aka foxwoodsfiend was beating up on yossarian at 100 200 and ended up winning 120k. Always gracious in victory he decided to have rail games. "First one to type thanks for the games gets $100" he typed in chat. I had a fast typing background so obv instantly I typed in "thanks for the games" shortly after 100 dollars was xsferred to my account and from here I would slowly grind. I still didnt play that much but after a few months of slowly building I had about 2k in my FTP account.

At this time I decided i was gonna grind hard and try to build a respectable roll or bust trying. I started at the 25c 50c 6max games. I 16 tabled for 6 weeks str8 eyes bleeding and everything at the end of the 6 weeks my 2k was now more then 8k. I played 100nl for a while with mixed results I ran bad in my defense not losing but not winning that much probably about 2k over 80k hands or so. Then I just decided to jump into the 200nl games with quick success winning at a higher winrate then at any other level lower then it. It was like the game was designed for me. I kept playing the 200nl game with plans to try some 2-4 as soon as i pad the roll a little because all the talk about the tough and high variance 2-4 games scared me that I might lose like 10k instantly there. But the money just kept piling up faster and faster at my current level of 200nl and soon I found my self grossly overrolled with about 40k. (this is just 4 months after i had 2k and was playin 50nl)

So I started playin some 2-4 winning 6k instantly and the games weren't that hard you just had to think more as there were more regs and they were obviously a bit better. But during Feb. and March this year I caught a bad run and went on a 10k downer losing all my profits that I made at 2-4 all back. So then I started playing 1-2 again and mixing in some PLO which I have quickly learned how to beat fish at and I quickly grinded back that 10k downer and am now at my highest peak in my career bankroll wise.

in about 8 months now I went from a busto 50nl grinder with a 2k roll to a 200nl grinder with over 52k in winnings. Lately I haven't been putting in the volume I should but I'm going to try to finish off the year strong and start 2010 with a 6 figure roll. See you guys at the tables.

p.s. special thanks to foxwoodsfiend for getting me going again with the hundo

Amazingly clear, makes total sense! Great thread Raze. I have been playing for about a year, lost half of my 50$ freeroll winnings. Am struggling on how to move to the next level. What you stated before worried me a bit: I.E. there are tons of mediocre players posting (including me=> hence the low number of posts) and the very good players are busy playing. Anyhow, reading posts from successful players is the key. I am thinking of getting a coach from some 1on1, which I think will allow me to learn faster.....

Anyhow, thanks again

p.s. another cool thing is I live in the same town as you Raze

I meant to post this a couple weeks ago, but life/work/poker has kept me busy, and I didn't want to do it wrong.

My first exposure to poker came just after college - I saw this guy named Moneymaker on TV and just got hooked fast. My degree is finance, so I got the odds and calculations concept real fast (that it wasn't just gambling). He had clothes from a place called pokerstars.com, so I checked the site out, and started goofing around with play money.

I realized that I did like this game and decided to put $50 on. Used my credit card, and no sweat...instant gambling! This was probably in about November 2003. I slowly lost - the smallest SNGs back then were the $5.50s, no such thing as turbos. By late April (the 30th to be exact), I was down to about $22 and change in my account. I was ready to forget poker ever happened, like a bunch of prior online gaming hobbies. I decided with absolutely zero rational reason to check out the first ever heads-up tournament that Pokerstars was running....and I had about 70 cents over the $20+2 buyin left in my account, so I did the perfectly rational thing and entered. I made the semi-finals for $256. To my credit, I only sucked out in one match (pair over pair preflop), and got two outed to lose. And yes, I really do remember it.

For the next few months, I staggered around - I did start buying books and trying to understand the game since I had such a massive bankroll (I really did think it was) now. I bought Holdem for Advanced Players (thinking it was about NL - oops), the original Super/System, and Theory of Poker. Well - 1/3 is good in baseball, right? I never really got into NL Holdem even back then - I was actually winning money in Stud H/L cash games and blowing it back in NL tournaments primarily. Of course, beating 10/20 cent and losing $5.50 SNGs went exactly as well as you would think it would.

I got myself down to about $100 again by mid-October. Now back in those days, Pokerstars only ran some tournaments each day - and Thursday was Omaha H/L day. One time middle of the month I played the $3 LO8. I didn't even know the rules, but I figured them out quickly by some crafty googling. I didn't cash, but I had fun and made a very substantial run. The next Tuesday, I went over to my local bookstore and bought the only book that covered the game - Hi/Lo Split for Advanced Players by Ray Zee. I only took the time to read the introduction (which lays out basic strategy - 22 concepts in 15 pages). 651 people entered, and I won the whole damn thing for $488. I didn't really play much over the next month, and come December, I was jonesing for some action. My 6:00 tournament just couldn't come fast enough, and I impulse-entered the $22 buyin tournament that was at 5:30. I get seated immediately to the right of the defending $5000 LO8 WSOP bracelet winner - gank. Crap - I'm not good enough to play against a world freaking champion. 4 hours later, my account is $750 richer after winning - again. I final table the same MTT again a week later, finishing 5th.

Over the next 13 months, I play the same sporadic schedule I had been on - I'm not really taking poker seriously - I play and play hard, but I'm not trying to build a bankroll. It's fun and a profitable hobby, nothing more. I play the 10/20 mixed game in Atlantic City occasionally - I usually win a few bucks against the regs. I win a few more tournaments - the weekly $22 in April and September, a PL event in January 2006. I also decide to play my first ever live tournament after the September win. Later that month, the Taj Mahal is running the USPC, I play the $300 LO8 event with my $1800 bankroll (yes this is a pattern of absolutely HORRIBLE bankroll management). While I'm registering I see TJ Cloutier there, and that's just the coolest thing (it was day 2 of the Borgata WPT 10k with the USPC 10k the next week, so some pros were in it). I ended up playing 8 hours with TJ and got busted with less than two tables to go by Miami John Cernuto. When I got broke, TJ actually got up to shake my hand and complimented my play - I could tell he meant it....it was the only time all day he ever acknowledged a busted player. Honestly, that's still the highlight of my poker playing, that moment there.

Through all this, I'm wasting alot of energy bonus whoring off Neteller (I think I had 10 different accounts at one point). Honestly it's costing me money - I'm probably breaking even or losing before the bonuses kicked in because I'm playing sub-optimal game selection. I come in 2nd in a $109 PL event for almost 3k in March, then a 3rd in a 11R PLO and 2nd in the 5R NLHE in 3 days in April. Now I have a pretty good roll, so I cash most of it out and invest it. I take about $3000 and really commit myself to grinding SNGs - NL on Party.

It goes well - I join a bankroll sharing team and it's good fun. Good guys and got to really push my limits playing WAY above my self-sustainable bankroll. Once the UIGEA starts going down, we're all back on Stars, which is good since I don't have data on OPR for my other usernames. I have another final table in the $5R NL in December 2006 and win a $55 PLO in January. I'm basically a break-even SNG player and was making platinum every month when they started the VIP program. By summer 2007 though I was just completely exhausted and burned out on poker - which I still really haven't recovered from psychologically. I put almost all my energy into my job, and started hating my life. I missed poker. Around this time I also switched more and more of my play to 2-3x a month live sessions in Atlantic City playing 2/5 NL. I don't really love the game, but the money is good - real good.

I do reset myself back down to the small stakes games online - I only left a couple hundred on when I was hating things, I'm doing alot of damage in the microstakes MTT circuit, nothing really adding up until I ship a $11 PLO in January (2008) for a few hundred. That February, I also peak out on a $15k upswing in the 2/5 and 5/10 (1500 buyin those days) NL games at the Borgata.

In early March, I attend my third ATLARGE and end up winning the NL tournament. The next five months I have a $10000 downswing - in retrospect it was 50% variance, 30% bankroll management (it took me awhile to accept that I wasn't beating the 5/10 NL for enough to be worthwhile, I did quit that game a net winner though), and 20% my game falling apart.

I regroup starting with the 2x bonus that Stars ran in July last year (this roughly coincides with me deciding to post in this forum and try to help out a little, since its a 'nicer' place, and I'd rather be nice if I'm going to be helpful). I make a couple final tables, nothing spectacular. I'm starting from a $600 bankroll (deposit bonus). I make a couple final tables in tournaments while grinding the 10NL games ($5 PLO, $16.50 PLO), don't win them. In September, I win the FARGO NLHE event. One week later, I break through again online, winning a $8.80 PLO8 for $442.

Then starting just after Thanksgiving last year, I go the heater of my life.
11/28: Final table the $11R PLO for a few hundred.
12/10, 12/14, 12/27: Chop the $22 PLO8 (I took at least 2nd place money in each).
1/4: Ship the $22 PLO8 outright.
1/31: 5th in the $215 PLO8.

Mind you, all this is while working a ton of overtime at work, I was playing poker while working 70 hours a week in a crumbling economy (FARGO happened right as AIG and Lehman were destructing). I had a ton of smaller cashes as well in PLO and PLO8 tournaments.

The last few months haven't been nearly as interesting as the ones before that. I've been spending my poker time studying more and I'm starting to transition into 6max cash. After spending time in LO8, PLO8, and PLO (6 max and FR for each), I've settled on 6 max PLO. Why - I'm not entirely sure, but it's where I've felt the most comfortable playing at the 25 level (I'm 4 tabling). The plays just make more sense and I can play well (oddly this is not the highest win-rate level).

I did cash (I think) half a dozen times during the SCOOP - every LO8, PLO, and PLO8 I played prior to the final Saturday. No real scores, just nice solid cashes.

For the 2000ish hands I've gotten in this month (while playing basically twice a week due to being sick), I'm winning over 8 bb/100 on pokertracker. I'm running way below EV on pre-river all ins, and studying hands like crazy. I'm going back to what I did in the good old days - I'm doing the work myself and really getting into the why, not just the what.

When I came up in poker, there were no coaching sites (heck Taylor Caby was just starting to make a name for himself, there was no durrrrr, no Antonius, etc). There were very few poker books, let alone quality ones (Super/System was the definitive NL text). PokerTracker wasn't at version 2 yet. I was very put off by this place as well, so what did I do - I did all my own homework. When I was playing SNGs, ICM was a fairly new theory (I did read 2+2 for this) - I spent hours upon hours working through Pokerstove (Andrew Prock actually hooked me up with a custom interface to expedite things) - I broke down several thousand SNGs - built standardized hand ranges based on several different 'average' player characteristics for push/fold, and solved the equities against all of these. A buddy of mine really mastered ICM's guts, and the two of us are still scary good at this.

I've done comparable exercises for PLO, PLO8, Razz, and Stud H/L at various points over time. Why - it's not the fastest way to making money in poker - far from it. If you want, there are some great shortcuts - these forums, training sites, books, etc. There is just so much knowledge out there now. And just for fun (since I've consciously never posted my Stars ID, it's here.

I still really do believe that if you really want to learn poker - the right way - you do it yourself in your mind. Take a hand at every point (with two or more known sets of hole cards), and work through all the lines. What if you check here, how would raising the flop vs smooth calling affect the river line, what if the river is something else entirely, etc. The quickest example I can give you from this site would be Here. That's exactly what I did - think about how your bets will be perceived, and how the reaction to those bets will affect your situation, and manipulate that to your advantage. That's how you win at poker. Granted, the alternative of a very straightforward TAG/sheer aggression approach is much simpler to learn, and I don't really fault people for it, but it won't get you as far as really understanding the guts of poker.

The big mistake I've made - this is easy, I've made two. I didn't realize that I had talent for this game and really embrace that my talent was not in holdem until the end of last year. Because all the TV and all the hype is in NLHE (and there's just so much of it played everywhere), I really forced myself to play a game that for good money, I'm not that far over break-even at. Am I a winning lifetime NLHE player, absolutely. Is my EV anywhere close to where it could be in PLO, PLO8, or LO8 - absolutely not. My lifetime reported ROI in Omaha H/L MTTs is 77%, and 40% in PLO. Both of those are substantially understated because of various swaps and chops. This is my one real true regret in poker - not taking Omaha seriously despite the fact that I've destroyed every game I've played since literally the second time I ever tried playing it. I honestly think I could have a bracelet right now if I had focused smarter.

I've also been absolutely horrific in bankroll management, though I admit I've matured alot in this regard over the last three years. Prior to that I did such gems as putting my entire bankroll on one MTT, playing a $22 buyin with a $300 bankroll, and a $340 buyin with a $1800 roll. I admit that I will still take big shots, but I've gotten better at selecting them and have a much better understanding of what I'm risking when I do it. Naturally I haven't caught quite as good as those first three times since. There really is something to be said though - there is absolutely no feeling in the world like taking a score that multiplies your bankroll - I've had days where I more than tripled my bankroll four times (my worst is -10% since I'm sure most of you are wondering), and it feels just amazing.

The real secret to taking the (insane) chances that I've taken is that you have to be willing to drop down in limits without dropping your play. I've gone from playing 4/8 cent stud hi/lo to playing 2000NL to resetting to the $4.40/180s on Stars, and most of the way back again. Most of the times that I've swung back down, it was by choice to make poker fun again. After all, I already have one job, I've learned that I don't want a second.

That's a choice that some of you are going to be faced with. Honestly, most of you won't. You either won't be good enough, put the hours in, or just find something else more productive to do. That's okay. But if you are good enough, I can honestly say that it's a scary choice once you realize that you are so good at a game that you can make a living from it. One of the many things I've learned is that it's okay to not be in the biggest possible game - sometimes, it's better to just be having fun playing a smaller (sometimes WAY smaller) game, especially if your livelihood does not depend on it.

I think that's way long enough, only spent the last three hours writing what I figured I could do in one.

Holy crap, I just realized that I wrote a 2500 word essay, sorry

The good stuff is in the beginning, I promise!

I read every word. Thank you.

-Luke

Very entertaining post as I am trying to build my roll to where you are
Thanks for posting

I got out of jail for a dui on January 28th of this year with no job, due to the dui, and 150 bucks in my stars account that i had been donking around with. A few of my good friends have been playin for a couple years, one was really successful, so i figured id try and run it up. I played probably 40 hours over the 25 billionth hand celebration weekend and ran my 150 up to 1500 playin from 10nl up to 50nl, all fr, tryin to keep good bankroll management but moved up a little short. now its been 3 months and ive cashed out 3k and have 1k still in my account. short story so far but bored and figured id share.

Some friends and I decided to try to start playing some poker around the beginning of 2004 or so. We started seeing it on T.V. and I remembered seeing Rounders a few years earlier, and thought NLHE was saweet. We really had no idea what we were doing, and goofed around playing once a week or so, while drinking and socializing. A few months in, I decided that I wanted to start taking my friends' money, so I tried to find some strategy to read up on. I ended up watching a WPT(I think) episode with Doyle, and the commentators said that he "wrote the book" on poker, and I learned about Super System 1. I bought it and read the NLHE section in like a week. I tried doyles lag style with my friends and it didn't seem to work so well. Next I found an ebook, "Intelligent Guide to Holdem" or something by Sam Braids. I learned about pot odds and the rule of 2 and 4, and all kinds of basic theory that I thought was mind-blowing at the time. I entered a few $30 buyin mtt's at the local casino, and got 4th in one for like 150 bux. I was pumped. I went back and played 1/2NL a few times and was up a few hundred bux. I also began to hit up the play money on Party. Next I bought Little Green Book, and Killer Poker, played a bit more 1/2 and final tabled a few more donkaments, at the same time, slowly starting to win the monies off my friends.

I went to Australia to backpack aroundin december of 05 with my (soon to be ex)g/f. I had a 100pc chipset and little green book in my bag. I met a new friend from Edmonton in Brisbane, and we went all over Oz, working and playing $10 poker games with the other travelers, and we seemed to do pretty well. We parted ways in August of 06 and I moved to Perth for a few months. I was saving to go to Thailand before home, so I didnt play much for the last few months except for the odd casino field trip (limit mostly), and pool-table hostel games.

I came home to Vancouver in dec 06, and in Jan I decided to try to play real money online. I deposited 50 bux on an Ipoker skin and lost it in a few days. I took a few months off, and then tried again. This time I signed up through Pokersource on Party and ground out .05/.10 to clear my free Nevada Jacks chips. I had still never been to 2p2 , but I had gotten my book collection up to like 10 books. I cashed out just about dead even (75 bux) and moved it to stars. I cleared another promo for more chips, and even managed to cash out $100 before playing under-rolled finally got me. Next I signed up for RB a FT and played 5c10c and micro sngs for a few months (I was one-tabling mostly, playing maybe 8 hrs a week MAX). I would go to the casino every so often, with pretty good results.

I joined 2p2 in 2008, but I never really read it in depth until like feb of this year. I tried an instant bankroll promo on Titan, and got tired of the swings of (under-rolled)10NL. Finally at the end of feb, I sat myself down, read a bunch of pokey posts, got fees guide, and decided i was going to start at 2NL and seriously grind a roll.

It has been about 30k hands since then (I know still not much), and aside from blowing a few underolled shots at 10nl, I have a nice NW pointing graph.

I now try to make a point to post on here a few times a week, and actually pay more attention and get proper reads (if there is such a thing at 2nl/5nl).
I now wish I found this site years ago...KITN to me.
sorry for the long a$$ waste of time.



cliffnotes: I am basically a mediocre, micro stakes recreational poker player who just recently decided to hunker down at the micros and learn my way up.


Thanks for listening, and thanks to Raze for this epic thread.

Thanks for taking the time to write it, I've been keeping up with this thread and it's nice to hear some of the background stories from guys I've seen around here for years.

Honestly, I thought it was all good, especially the second to last paragraph. Pride and ego can be our own worst enemy.

I also like where you've mentioned that we learn the game for ourselves, instead of just taking the popular line that's in the strat forums at the moment. (Usually it's "shove turn" or some equivalent, with no real reads or analyzing) Raze touched on this as well, how he adjusted to the different players allowing, or not allowing, his steal attempts. I have so many other commitments irl that I don't spend a ton of time playing or studying, but I do take it as seriously as I can. Actually, as much as I like the specific hand posts, I like to hear the thought process of theory type posts much more, like the one you linked to and the ones Raze has posted. Much more thought provoking, which helps excercise the brain. Thanks and good luck.

Thanks Terre (and the others) - it was a very interesting exercise to write. OPR and pokerpages definitely came in handy for making sure I had the right dates.

And thought process is the fun part of poker - you can be working on it anytime. I remember driving home from work every night and while sitting in lovely NJ traffic, I'd be working through various hand lines.

I do also love hearing the other stories - I know I've asked that question point blank to a few friends who are professional and/or pro caliber players. The answers are almost always totally unexpected and also are always very interesting.