I would rathole 6max cashgames and then randomly tell some one in irc to come watch me play since im so good. I would pick hands that flop good like Q7o since the Q came on the board so often. I went busto playing 20+2 superturbo sngs.

i played $11 sng's on party with a $50 roll
i think i busted like 4 times before i ran it up

Ran downstairs and yelled to my dad "I just won a four hindered dollar pot!"

Then I'd be secluded at the computer for a long time not talking and he asks how I'm doing. "fine" which meant bad. And hed ask how much I lost and I'd be ashamed to tell him lol. I learned honesty shortly after

Online friend on MSN told me that he won money from poker, I thought it was easy so I wanted to deposit like $30 or sth. I didn't even know what poker was, but I was sure it was easy. Since $50 was minimum FTP I proceeded to deposit $100 and $100 after I lost my initial deposit... these deposits turned into ~$4k before I got my **** together and started winning 9 months later.

Thought that I was really smart because I downloaded "Professional Poker Tour" and used it to "play like a pro".

I played everything mixed (mtt/sng/cash) while googling poker hang rankings... awesome imo.

the stories of people going bust are much more entertaining than the "and then i ran it up to 50 buy ins" stories.

I thought .25/.50 fixed limit on Party Poker looked super low, so I deposited 50 dollars, lost it all in an hour or two and then didn't play poker again for years. It was embarrassing and my dad would tell freaking everyone about it.

My next attempt I may have overcompensated a little, but I read 3 books on poker in addition to a bunch of twoplustwo posts before depositing 40 dollars to play .01/.02NL on stars and that obviously worked out a lot better.

My god, didn't anyone on 2+2 start BEFORE the internet. I'll give my story of my first days:

The first time I sat down to play poker at a casino was a 1-5 7stud game at the woods. I had gotten sick of playing (losing) blackjack and decided to give poker a try. I sat down and I can't remember too many actual hands but I do remember this:

It seemed like all the players were 50-75 year old men. I do remember I think I made like three gutshot straights in a row and these guys were just disgusted with me.

I then turned to the sunday stud tourney at the woods. It was 30 bucks and they gave you a 10 dollar food coupon. Those were the days. This is how I spent my Sundays (non football season) for at least a year. Playing the sunday stud at the woods or mohegan with my dad and brother. These were good times and was before even the thought of even limit hold em at the woods. Nevermind NL. I remember my first revelation about poker was to raise a big pair on 3rd street. My brother and I thought we had unlocked the secret to the game. Really funny to think about that now.

The only early degenerate moment I can remember is when I discovered the tuesday night NL tourneys (this was at least 2 or 3 years into my poker career.) This is where I first started to play with Fossilman and Carlos and some of the other regulars. I learned a ton from them.

Anyways, I was working as a paralegal at the time and would often leave work early to get there for the tourney and sometimes play all night and call in sick to work. Felt like a huge degenerate when I would do that.

Peace

Goodie

First time I ran a bankroll over 500 I lost it in 2 sesions playing 2-4. I called a raise in the LB with K4s flop comes AKx I think second pr, Im 4 flushed, Im good. Eventually get it all in. Turn and river bring blanks(was up against AAA). BYE BYE $300. Went on tilt and after work lost the rest of my roll a little at a time over like 30 minutes.

Ran up $20 into $1700 in one afternoon playing caribbean stud. I just raised every hand and I guess I was just running like God against the dealer. For that afternoon I believed I had found an atm. The next night I dropped the $1700 back in 20 minutes while on ubertilt playin caribbean stud again. I ran the bonuses I got from playin the casino games back up to $600 playin VP a few days later. Then lost it again playin caribbean stud. I gave up caribbean stud after that...

Dont even get me started on some of the stupid things I did when I 1st moved to Vegas

might as well add my own stories:

-my friends and i would play the play money SNG's on Party. you couldn't even get a seat. table would fill up in a nanosecond. we did ok in those so thought we were pretty good (LOL).

-once i deposited on Party all i ever played was SNG's. found my way to a cash table once and simply couldn't win a hand. but when i did it was magical. the PARTYPOKER FIREWORKS that went off were something else.

-cleared 2 bonuses to get sets of pokerchips. did not know what a raked hand was.

-read Lee Jones book on low limit HE. studied this book for weeks. went to casino. played 1/2 HE and lost my $100 in about 30 minutes. couldn't believe how bad the players were. basically when the bet got to these people they didn't have a decision to make, it simply meant it was their turn to put money in the pot. and yeah, i got killed.

First experience playing online was at Bugsy's Club. I would join the freerolls and eventually placed top three in one. I cashed in my Bugsy points which was the equivalent of $1 or so. Ran that up to $40 and I thought I was rich. Considered withdrawing, but ended up playing and losing it all.

I would deposit $30 on pokerroom using my dad's creditcard. I remember having no idea what I was doing and tried to win every hand. I felt devastated after losing.

I would also deposit $50 on pacific and sit at a nl 50 table. After getting my stack up to $90, I would move up and try to get to $1,000 and cash out. One time I got to to $700 and was sitting at a 3/6 table. I raised the button with AKh, BB 3 bet. Flop 2 7 10, 2 hearts. I call flop and turn bet, leaving me with around $100. I felt pot committed and called his river all in bet with ace king high. He had dem rockets.

On another occasion I tried bluffing someone who called me with AA. I then proceeeded to berate him for making such a "bad" call.

repeatedly ran up microdeposits to 4+ figs, never cashing out or even thinking to, just keeping all money in play simultaneously, playing higher and higher until eventually losing it all. This was playing PLO, too.

First time I went west a couple of years ago I drove through Phoenix, found the Harrah's out in BFE and just randomly sat down at the first game I could find. Took me about 2 hours to even figure out that it was a limit game (I didn't know what was 'limit' and 'no-limit' lol), as I kept trying to make big raises and the nontalkative dealer would just throw back chips into my stack except for the amount needed for the raise. I didn't understand why I couldn't go all in like on Stars.

Wow, the bliss of ignorance.

started with 20 bucks on pacific, won a 2.50$ limit mtt for 250 and my roommates thought i was ballin hard.

played nl10 with a 30 bankroll
played FR as 30/2/1
played 6max the same way at nl10

LoL, that really put a smile on my face.

-Started playing 2.5 years ago on stars and had no idea what the hand rankings were except for a pair and two pair. Would get pissed when the dealer shipped the pot to the guy who had AK against my A4 when the board came Ace high. I even went so far as to send an email to support saying there is a constant error at the table and that it should be a split pot since we both paired our Ace. Had no idea it was the best 5 card hand. lol

-I also had no idea for months that you could deposit real money online. I would sit there for hours playing play money and thought I was the man since I ran my play money of $1K up to over $100K and started playin 100/200 play money!

-Finally deposited $100 and went bust playing .50/1.00. Didn't know anything about bankroll management.

I now sit back and laugh about those moments.

Grindin them 1$ SnG's with a 17$ bankroll. I still remember taking down first place for a whoopin' 7$ was the best that could ever happen to me.

Before internet, I played in friendly $5 or $10 tournaments at people from school's houses. I had like no friends at that time so actually getting out and doing something with other people was something different. I won $5 in the first tournament I played, was quite thrilled, played at other people's houses after this. I think I was up about $70 total when I went to someone I didn't know well's house, won $120 at $30 max buyin .25/.50 playing like a total idiot and running like God (and sitting to the left of a massive LAGfish and getting hands EVERY time he made a move). Eventually I found internet poker.

Grinded 1k in play chips to 2.3M on Stars playing STTs. During this time I thought it was correct to fold KK to a pre-flop open shove first hand. After a while, I got a $20 transfer from my friend to play.

Played (one tabled) $5.50 STTs, won about $150, cashed out $100, ran like ass for a week. Eventually got another $100, cashed it out, ran like ass for a week. Actually, whenever I cash out I run like ass, without fail. Even now. I don't get it. I loosened up my all-in pre-flop calling range to like AA, KK, AK and played a few more hands pre-flop, raised more often, etc. Didn't learn push-fold for a while.

I eventually hit a "massive" 100 or so game break even stretch, got pissed at STTs, stopped playing on Stars. Played STTs on Full Tilt instead, ran ok, hit a "massive" 50 game break even stretch, got pissed at STTs in general. I moved to no blind increase $21.50 HU SNGs, where I played like a total nit and won anyways because everyone either sucked or got bored. I think I had a couple matches last 2 hours+. After I got sick of those and learned to raise a lot more pre-flop, I moved to normal and turbos, eventually dabbling in PLO with a "whopping" 10 BI roll. Went busto on Stars taking PLO advice from someone who hacked into my friend's AIM account and managed to scame me out of $250 because I'm a titanic idiot.

Now play mostly on Full Tilt, have weeks of no losing days, then lose it all back in one day. Repeat endlessly, try to cash out, lose 70% of your roll in a day. Repeat, again.

cliffnotes: tl;dr

I started off by playing live and done ok against some very bad players (i was not quiet as bad as some of the others) and discovered online poker. I made deposit after deposit on stars and continued to lose sitting with my whole deposit at 1/2 or 2/4. Must have got through at least 1k-2k when i used to do that... but then i started to understand BR management and i discovered cardrunners

I started at TexasHoldem.com which was the coolest thing ever, freeroll sit n gos. I couldnt believe i was actually playing poker. I then moved up in stakes to the UB Freerolls (king site of all freerolls). They would run huge MTTS like every hour. I Finished top 100 for there Million$ tourny and got an entry to the next qualifier. In the next one which i played for over 7 hours, i was 2nd in chips with the cheap leader in position on me (had not idea what that really meant) l at my table, 90 people left, top 75 got an entry into the final million$ tourny. I just had to sit and fold for another 45 min. or so. Of course I got KK and limped, flop was something like x8x. Leader shoves and i instacall, he had a set of 8s, i was out.

I was so devistated I closed every account online i had and didnt play poker for a good 3 months after that.

But i still suck and play micro stakes constantly depositing $50 at a time. But one day i will be a sick sick grinder repeadetly 1-2 teddying all of you and living the high stakes dream of not having to do physical work for a living. Suckers.

Me and and my friends played a 5-10 cent home game a few years back and I remember this one hand when I folded K2 and the flop comes kkx. I said to myself in my head "man i have got to start playing more kings"

1. win a bunch of free play money playing MTT's on FTP.
2. lose that bunch of free play money at highest level free play cash games, playing like a moran.
3. mini deposit on PS, donk off @ $1 SNG's playing wierd because of the value of money (too tight, too loose)
4. finally find optimal personal style and success w/ LL MTTs.
5. come to brutally honest conclusion that personal cash game skills are, in fact, rubbish and in desperate need of rehabilitation.

hah, good level.

would shut my door to my dorm room, turn off aim, and focus

on a 9-person, $6 sng

i one-tabled them

I won my first ever sng online..It was a $.10 buy in and was way too happy with myself about it. Omg Poker is ez etc.

lol i didnt have internet at my apt when i first started playing online poker.
i 4-tabled 50nl on pokerroom at the library for 2 hours. then i'd use my friends library card number for another 2 hours of computer time. only one time some old librarian asked me if i was playing for real money. i said yes -- she said cool. lol

i was getting 6 months of unemployment which helped me shake my gills and not go complete busto.

this was my routine for a few months until i moved and got internets and now i never leave the house.