As for me, started playing .5/.10 in the frosh dorms with $2 max buy-ins, played for 5 hours with my roommates, never won mainly because:
[x] JTo > JTs (can make two flushes with this hand, ldo)
[ ] understood position
[ ] stole blinds
[x] lost a small pot and went on massive steam
[x] bluffed every chance i had
[x] said, "**** it, I'm all in!" to end every session busto
(1) After watching WSOP on TV I used google to find a java-client site with play money. My first day I ran my $1000 play chips up to $17,000. If that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't be a poker player today.
(2) Charted all the freerolls at all my sites and and made sure to play in them. Yay $11 first place score!!!!!!!!!!!!
(3) Same thing every day: sit at a single 10nl table, and once I won $5.50, buy into a $5.50 MTT. It took me about 3 weeks to realize I'd buy into the MTT (like on TV!) even if I lost money before I quit messin' with the 10nl before hand. It took me like another 3 weeks to realize I never, not once, monied in an MTT. $5.50 STTs from there on out.
(4) 25nl on $200 BR lol. Learned to play from a video game (TJ Cloutier's World Championship Poker or something). Preflop rules: Raise any pair and AJo or better in any position. Call a raise with any pair and AJo or better in any position. Sometimes you can limp some stuff in late position. I was 23/7 awesome!
This is all pre 2+2.
After I found SSHE and 2+2, I 4-tabled the .15-.30 LHE games at Ongame @ 8bb/100 until I had the BR to move to .25/50 LHE. Then I bonuswhored for an entire year (!) 4-tabling .25-.50 LHE (and a pot odds chart taped to my monitor the whole time). Made two grand without making a bet over $0.50 lol. Started thinking about going pro.
Another one... Pokerroom would have these nightly freerolls that filled up so fast. I remember having my cursor over the "join now" button so I would be able to register in time. Unregistered players would often promise the registered players real $$$ for their seat to thefreeroll. I believed someone one time... never got my money.
I would have to take a 3 day break if I dropped 3 or 4 buyins at 1/2 fullstacked.
Then I was all CHOO CHOO and the rest is history.
Yeah right I'm sure after misplaying the turn and river in a huge pot where you lost 80% of your stack you got all in on the flop the very next hand before reloading with aces against some trash and decided it was easier to rathole and shorstack than to play real poker bleh blah
-started with 10 free dollars, a sign up promotion with royal vegas(prima), ran it up to 120 playing .05/.10, 5 dollar max buy-in. if i had ever busto'd that first 10 free dollars i would have probably quit.
-kept track of my bankroll history in a .txt file with the date and my br at the end of the day
I used to play for hours with Good2cu at a friends house after we got out of class in high school .25/.50 like real ballers. I remember thinking that any pocket pair was worthy of getting my stack in pre flop
I literally got mad at people when they raised preflop. I remember typing into chat "why are you raising when you only have 2 cards?"
Deposited $5 to $20 into TigerGaming repeatedly, ended up losing about $200 before I finally started winning on PokerRoom. Final tabled a couple of $5 MTTs on PokerRoom, made about $400.
I'm actually still starting out (well, still my first year of poker), and I'm happy I didn't make mistakes such as overplaying my "bank-roll" (I like to think of it as a training budget). But here goes:
[x] Took screenshots of my great successes in playmoney SNGs on Stars. (I'm still particulary proud of winning a Triple Draw, Stud/8, Hold'Em and Razz tourney on the same day.)
[x] Won 15 euros in a 1/2c home game (NLHE), nearly exclusively by raising preflop and taking it down with a c-bet. I quote: "You're going to bet anyway, aren't you, even if you haven't got anything" + fold. (= good news)
[x] Thenceforth tried to c-bet players who always "took one off" (= bad news).
[x] Was a zombie one day because I played a *coughs* Razz freeroll on Stars all night.
[x] Uttered the phrase "but in the long run..." against below-average pennystakes opponents.
[x] Second-guessed myself for 10c. Whilst holding the underfull. In Hold'Em.
lol depod 12 dollars like 4 times then shipped 2nd in a 12 180 PS turbo (LOL donkament) reeled that up to 4k by playing over my limit and tilted at 5/10 and lost aa to jq all in after flop of jq4 rainbow redoped and read a book and 2p2...
on my last $100 deposit I sat at 1/2 nl full ring. utg opens, two mps call, and I raise to $21 w/JJ. all call and flop comes 7 high and I get it all in and am called by AKo, turn K. get really pissed and contend that online poker is rigged.
go degen and during that summer deposit $50 of the $120 I have to my name. decide to use bankroll management, start from the $2 sngs and grind it up. lose it all takin shots at the $5 sngs.
with $70 in my bank account, I again deposit, and grind the $2 sngs 2 tabling up to $200, then $5 sngs up to $600.
add more tables, move up stakes and you have me now.