Deposited 10 dollars on stars like 5 times and played 2nl, went busto, finally ran one deposit up goot to like 100 dollars, lost a huge pot with AK that was like half of my roll taking a shot, was devastated, i still suck, nothing has really changed except i haven't deposited in like 6 months.

- Took screenshot of first MTT win, printed out and stuck it on the fridge.
- Posted on crappy forums, because I thought 2p2ers were too rude.
- Sunglasses and chip shuffling at computer obv.
- Tried to go pro 2-tabling $20 SnGs for a couple of hours a day, with pretty much no bankroll.
- If I raised preflop, it was 3xBB, regardless of limpers, position etc.
- I think others mentioned it, but check/calling monsters to trap then go nuts on the river.
- Put my opponents on one specific hand (usually one I could beat), and playing accordingly.

Now that I think about it, poker was so much more fun back then. Playing with your friends when none of you had a clue, it really felt like the best "soul reader" was going to win every time, and of course I knew I was the best soul reader.

Wow. Great thread. Started in 2004.

I remember when:
- the timer on my one 10 man table seemed to be to quick.
- Tripling my play money in a few minutes and then thinking...if I played real money I would be rich
- thinking my hole cards were being shown to others
- using a hand ranking chart beside my computer
- seeing my first pot over $50 was HUGE
- I discovered the continuation bet
- thinking there was a cashout curse
- that everyone must be colluding

i used to take screen shots every time i had a hand better than a full house. all play money btw.

also, most hilarious screen shots to come!

oh god you dont want to know

Would stay up till 1 AM to play in the hubble play money tourney on stars.

deposited $100 into party a couple times and would sit at 2/4 limit. Imagined all the great things I would buy after I won $100 in one day. Lost $200 the next day.

Oh one more I forgot - I used to have an actual picture of my face as my avatar when I played at Stars.

first time i played online i used my full real name for my screen name

first time i played live (17 sneaking into Canterbury) i sat at a $6/$12 stud/8 game (my best game) and one of the old guys joked that there was a 65 year old age requirement to play in that game. i posted my ante, brought in, mucked to a raise and three-bet, then asked the dealer to color me up and walked straight out the door without cashing out.

Haha I did this too, except mine were at least real money. Just looking through some of my old ones and I took screenshots of the most routine hands like AA against KK, and flopping a set against top pair!

This one is particularly pathetic:



As you can see, having won an MTT for a whopping $400 and change, I made sure to include the cashier screen in the screenshot to show how rich I was. Note the desktop background. It is a photograph of the actual desk my computer sat on, with some cards and chips on it. Ah the memories...

Played full ring at about 21/6, never 3-bet anything less than KK+, and thought I was good.

Started playing on JetSet Poker years ago while unemployed. I was terrible and didn't bother to make myself better because I already "knew" how to play *HURFDURF* and I incurred a ridiculous amount of C.C. debt (which I'm still paying off 'till this day) just to prove how amazing I was.

Now being such a supreme poker master, I took a trip to the Bike to play in a LIVE poker tournament, a 125 I think. Early on I get dealt aces in EP2 and I throw out one black chip without announcing. Oops, that's not a raise? The flop comes 654. I throw out more chips. Oops, I just bet out of position. One old guy to my right calls and starts laying into me about not knowing how to play. The turn is a 6 and now I'm terrified that he has a set, so I bet like a tiny portion of the pot and he calls while laughing in my face. The river is a 6, he checks and gives me a speech I won't ever forget: "Son, why are you so eager? I think you have aces. You know you want to bet it, but you got to learn how to play the game. I will even call you if you promise to learn how to play." I felt so embarassed and the table laughed and clowned the hell out of me, but he did call my shove and paid me off with 88.

I decided then if I could be that terrible and still have someone pay me off, maybe learning a thing or two from a book or article might not be such a bad thing!

WAT? I take shot when I reach 50 buy-ins for the new level. But atm I try to play (and play) with more than 125 buy-ins.

[x] Took screenshots of me leading a 5+0,5 300ppl MTT after 45 minutes.
[ ] Cashed in that very same MTT
[x] I think Annie Duke is hot
[x]*Didn't want to play a 50 cent homegame tournament because I think I wasn't ready enough to risk that sum of money in gambling


tl;dr warning!

My story:
In November 2005 I was smoking pot at friends crib when a Finnish tv-channel SubTV had just started airing this program called World Poker Tour. Before that I didn't even know poker was a game of skill.
I didn't understand what was happening, but all I remember Paul Darden was playing. Vince Van Patten called him Black Motamba, or something.

I was eager to try out poker online, so we played some free money games at Yahoo. Later I found my way to grinding play money at Ongame, which became my home for the next years.

After about two weeks I got free 20 EUR online, which I recycled through roulette to get my first poker bankroll started - it was hefty $25 dollars or something.

I don't remember whether I started with NL10 or 5+0,5 10pl SNG's but but first cash game experience was when I dragged a pot over 40 dollars in NL10 table. I was up like 5 buyins in less than hour. I thought this was a goldmine. Later that weekend lost back a bunch.

The smallest tournament at the time in Ongame Network was $1 Lucky Dollar Tournament every Saturday with 2000 runners and $2000 added and I was hellishly eager to play that every weekend. One saturday I was at bar with this one girl, and left pretty early just so I could catch the Lucky Tournament. Sadly I busted out before the first break.

One point I had like 60% of my bankroll riding on a 5+0,5 10pl SNG which I won for $25 after one majorish suckout. If I would've busted my roll at that point, I wouldn't be playing anymore as I would never have had the courage to deposit online to these vile rigged sites.

That was the start of my roll.

By January 2006 I was trying 10+1 SNG's and thought "there is a significant skill difference between players @ 10+1 and 5+0,5" - later realized that truth was more like 1+0,2 = 200+15.

In June 2006, right before I left to army, I was multitabling NL25 full-ring although I was semi donkish cash game player.

That was also the time when I dragged in my first pot over 100 dollars. Boy, the rush of seeing a black, high society, chip dragging towards you at online felt - it was ****ing awesome.
In the hand I was 200BB's deep with one guy @ NL25 who had KK and I flopped set of 66's vs him.

During my army days I played mostly tournaments but made a decent progress from 10+1 -> 20+2 -> 30+3 and even early spring 2007 when I returned from army I was playing 50+4 MTT's. My bankroll was nearing 5k, but I had a downswing of more than 2k.

April 2007 I started to play NL100 5max and made a pretty fast progress. In June 2007 I was taking a shot to NL200, in August to NL400 and my first NL1k hands were dealt I believe somewhere around October-November 2007.
Been there ever since.

Biggest month so far is 22k USD / 13k hands. (February 2008)
The most devastating daily loss is like 8,5k from November 2007.

started with $50 given to me by a high stakes friend, played $10 nl until i got $300, played $25 nl until i got $500, played $50 nl until I got $750, played $100 nl until I got $2,000... that process took about 5 months all together. now i just withdraw everything over $3,000, but i should be working on moving up again. laziness is teh ghey.

I think you're missing the spirit of the thread.

QFT. I called my stack off in my first NL10 days with lone eight of spade in my hand in four-flush board. (AK24 spades or something)
Villain had like jack of spades and I said to chat I was going to inform the site about faulty software since we both had ace-high flushes and it still wasn't a split pot.

I 2-tabled NL25 with my 50$ deposit. At some point I was down to like 8$, then built up to 1100$, then I deposited on Stars.

I was set mining, never 3-betting, stacking off with top pair all the time, wasn't using PT even though I had it thanks to a friend who bought for me, and I was making posts about silly questions that I thought were very smart.

LIMP MEDIUM AND SMALL PAIRS TO LET WEAK RANGES FLOP HANDS THAT ARE HUGE DOGS TO WIN AGAINST A SET.

FOLD IF I MISS AND BANK IF I DO, ALL AT A CHEAP PRICE.

OH WAIT, I STILL DO THAT.
AND ITS STILL CONSIDERED NOOB.
LOOKS LIKE THEY KNOW ALOT.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...=208854&page=5

heh poker may be one of the reasons i don't play competitively anymore (never really liked to practice though)

Things I did when I started out playing poker:

Pwned

this was probably a winning strategy on party in 2005

Back then, at Party 25NL, I just open shoved my Aces UTG for 100bb every time. I usually got one caller with 99 or AQ. Good times.

Used to play the old PartyPoker play money MTTs (not the freerolls). Took a screenshot whenever anything happened. One time I was the chip leader for a bit and went ballistic IMing everyone on my buddy list.

Also used to play the 100k buy-in play money tables (IIRC it was 50/100 blinds), shoving preflop every hand to "build up my stack". Then I started playing real money and somehow didn't lose, luckily found 2+2 pretty quickly and blah blah blah.

50 BIs at microstakes is considered really deep

Impressive story, from 10NL to 1K NL in less than 3 years! And great BR management, 125 BIs is great. Seems like playing cash was the most important part in moving up your BR at a good pace? nh.