How Did You Get Started?

[pokerkid 0]

Started playing NL in dorm rooms of boarding school. Cleaned up some, lost some, thought I was the ****. Found FCP through espn.com.I was one of the first members here when Smash was still owning everyone. Learned ALOT from all his hand histories. Posted in strat a bit. Learned ALOT from Actuary, Zach, Screech, PP24, Rise, CM, thecinciKid. Grinded up from .50/1 to 4/8 and 5/10. Now starting to learn how to play other games.Thanks FCP.P.S Somewhere in there i found bodog where 4/8 players are like .25/.50 at stars.

[unclemonty 0]

Good advice. Thanks for the input.

I think this a very legitimate reason to start playing. I think what the commercial is warning about is that if this is the only area for you to socialise in, then it could cost you more to keep playing than it normally would if you had other social outlets. I think when you talk about "costing you more than you can afford", I would think about maybe reducing the time you spend playing. By that I mean maybe take a few time outs during the game. If you let everyone know this is what you are going to do from the start of the evening, they shouldn't have a problem with it. Look at your finances and think about what you can honestly afford to play with and if you lose that nights stake you shouldn't come away worrying about it. If you do you're spending to much. You're playing socialy after all.I play in a pub league here in the UK. The only thing you pay for is your drinks. While there's nothing on the line in terms of money (You play towards a seat in a tournament, at the end of each 3 month season, where prizes are on offer) it's a good laugh and very social. It's a good way to meet new people and has benefited from everyone improving their game, and a real competitive edge has crept in now where people are trying to prove themselves.This article might help you out finding one local to you.http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_news/article/7928I would definately recommend it, who knows maybe you can take what you've learnt back to your brothers game and open a can of whup-***. Hope you find what you want

[ramenandeggs 0]

my best friend is one of the all-in preflop 1k at the 5/10NL play money ftp table donks, and i always liked doing things with him so i joined in and he taught me how to play poker. we doubled up when we could or just kept reloading to play the 2k sit n gos or the 250 90 man sit n gos. after a while, i started learning on my own about poker and picked up a tight aggressive approach that just killed the play money tourneys and i'd ft way too many times, and if i'd hit the ft i'd definitely win. regardless of how little i knew about heads up play. then i built up to my first million play chips and i figured this was stupid and a total waste of my time. after all this reeled me in, my girlfriend's family hooked me because they're a bunch of gamblers. when i first beat them in a $1 home game sit n go, i started depositing money and playing for real. and slowly, i've loosened into a laggyer player trying to play flops with the junk hands that i would've previously not understood anyone playing in the first place.

[NOFX_PUNK 0]

To the OP, firstly make sure you're making friends with cardplayers and not a cardroom, I know you seem to understand addiction but I know a bunch of people who hang out at cardrooms because they claim they have nothing better to do but when I ask them out for a beer they tell me, sorry man I'm off to the cardroom.... I got started in my second to last year of college, me and four mates went to the bank and each got a quid in pennies and someone taught us 5 card draw and 7 card stud. I played that in free periods for about 18 months and we even started having home games for a fiver but at the end of the night everyone pushed in on the final hand and the best hand won all the dosh, fun if you win, not fun if you have grinded 18 quid from your five but hey it was a cheap evening in comparison to a bar! My dad also knew a bit about stud and draw poker and we used to play on holidays with those cheap colourful chips u get with toy roulette wheel! Funsies!When I got to uni I looked up the poker society and found out one of my flat mates was already a member so we planned a game for one night and he invited 5 guys to join us from the society. They asked me if I knew the hand rankings etc and I told them yes and they dealt out two cards face down. Assuming it was a stud misdeal I grabbed the deck and dealt three people a face up card before they yelled at me! It has been a sore spot ever since! But I learned the basics of holdem in a couple of minutes and we played a 0.01/0.02 cash game with 5 on the table and a maximum of one 5 reload if you busted. I ended up a pretty big winner with about 15-16 quid or so and found out early that stud is a handy game to know if you play holdem!ANyhow, I went to the poker soc for a year and then was voted, with my flatmate, president and secretary of the poker soc and have been ever since. We play NLHE on a sunday night in a league environment and we have regular cash games during the week, usually 5-10 quid SnGs with 15 minute blinds and one rebuy or addon for an hour. About the end of the first year I started playing online and promptly dropped about $500 through bad bankroll management and all the damn noobs and fish calling down with junk (or so I told myself) I grabbed a couple of books and read some strategy, then proceeded to lose another $300 trying various (as I called them) bankroll starters. I then took $100 and a 4 month summer break and turned it into almost $2000 by Christmas that year. I cashed most of it out and bought some good presents for people and of course myself!I now 'KNEW' how to make money at online poker and managed to drop almost $800 that first month of 2005 through AGAIN bad bankroll management. I was trying to make money too quickly and recover losses too quickly and as such was losing more than I needed to through tilt and high(ish) limits. I started reading some stuff on FCP in late mid-late 2005 and joined up whenever my profile says I didThe long and the short of it is that I have been working on my game religiously now since about mid 2005 and through some nice live scores, a couple of decent online scores and a shed load of cash games I can attribute the upkeep of a (small) car, a large portion of my degree's expenses, an xbox 360, a laptop, a $4600 watch and a decent bank balance (for a 21 almost 22 year old) to my poker career. A large portion of my poker life has died in my last year of uni as I do intend to get a good degree and as such my activities have been limited to cash games with my friends and the odd tourney or couple of hours online in the past 3 months. Although that said I have won as many MTTs in the past 3 months as I have in the rest of my 'career' so perhaps takinng a break between games gives me more determination!? Who knows! LolI never plan to 'turn pro' and to be honest I don't think I would make a very good professional poker player, although I would dig the late-night, lazy day, piles of un-declared cash lifestyle! If anyone wanted to read something about Rob 'NOFX_PUNK' Hurst then here it is, if you didn't well go to hell, I only wrote it for my Die Hard Fans!Rob

[Waffles2003 1]

To the OP, firstly make sure you're making friends with cardplayers and not a cardroom, I know you seem to understand addiction but I know a bunch of people who hang out at cardrooms because they claim they have nothing better to do but when I ask them out for a beer they tell me, sorry man I'm off to the cardroom.... I got started in my second to last year of college, me and four mates went to the bank and each got a quid in pennies and someone taught us 5 card draw and 7 card stud. I played that in free periods for about 18 months and we even started having home games for a fiver but at the end of the night everyone pushed in on the final hand and the best hand won all the dosh, fun if you win, not fun if you have grinded 18 quid from your five but hey it was a cheap evening in comparison to a bar! My dad also knew a bit about stud and draw poker and we used to play on holidays with those cheap colourful chips u get with toy roulette wheel! Funsies!When I got to uni I looked up the poker society and found out one of my flat mates was already a member so we planned a game for one night and he invited 5 guys to join us from the society. They asked me if I knew the hand rankings etc and I told them yes and they dealt out two cards face down. Assuming it was a stud misdeal I grabbed the deck and dealt three people a face up card before they yelled at me! It has been a sore spot ever since! But I learned the basics of holdem in a couple of minutes and we played a 0.01/0.02 cash game with 5 on the table and a maximum of one 5 reload if you busted. I ended up a pretty big winner with about 15-16 quid or so and found out early that stud is a handy game to know if you play holdem!ANyhow, I went to the poker soc for a year and then was voted, with my flatmate, president and secretary of the poker soc and have been ever since. We play NLHE on a sunday night in a league environment and we have regular cash games during the week, usually 5-10 quid SnGs with 15 minute blinds and one rebuy or addon for an hour. About the end of the first year I started playing online and promptly dropped about $500 through bad bankroll management and all the damn noobs and fish calling down with junk (or so I told myself) I grabbed a couple of books and read some strategy, then proceeded to lose another $300 trying various (as I called them) bankroll starters. I then took $100 and a 4 month summer break and turned it into almost $2000 by Christmas that year. I cashed most of it out and bought some good presents for people and of course myself!I now 'KNEW' how to make money at online poker and managed to drop almost $800 that first month of 2005 through AGAIN bad bankroll management. I was trying to make money too quickly and recover losses too quickly and as such was losing more than I needed to through tilt and high(ish) limits. I started reading some stuff on FCP in late mid-late 2005 and joined up whenever my profile says I didThe long and the short of it is that I have been working on my game religiously now since about mid 2005 and through some nice live scores, a couple of decent online scores and a shed load of cash games I can attribute the upkeep of a (small) car, a large portion of my degree's expenses, an xbox 360, a laptop, a $4600 watch and a decent bank balance (for a 21 almost 22 year old) to my poker career. A large portion of my poker life has died in my last year of uni as I do intend to get a good degree and as such my activities have been limited to cash games with my friends and the odd tourney or couple of hours online in the past 3 months. Although that said I have won as many MTTs in the past 3 months as I have in the rest of my 'career' so perhaps takinng a break between games gives me more determination!? Who knows! LolI never plan to 'turn pro' and to be honest I don't think I would make a very good professional poker player, although I would dig the late-night, lazy day, piles of un-declared cash lifestyle! If anyone wanted to read something about Rob 'NOFX_PUNK' Hurst then here it is, if you didn't well go to hell, I only wrote it for my Die Hard Fans!Rob

I am a fan good luck with school

[Tiltinagain 973]

I had watched poker on espn and found it intruiging and had railed some games in Reno and Boomtown, NV when I was there but really had no idea what was going on, I didn't understand the game in the least. Still, I always seemed drawn to it when it was on tv or at the casino.The summer of 2005 I hired this guy in his early 20's that just moved from LA and talked poker all the time. It turns out the store I put him in has a casino that shares the parking lot where they play poker. He'd go over on his lunch breaks and watch the daily tournament that started at 12:30 and play in them on days off. I tagged on a couple of times and he'd explain what was going on, blinds, button, etc... while we watched.One day he was going to play the tourney and stopped by to see if I wanted to come. I said I'd go watch for a while and he said "watch? you should play". I reminded him that I had never played and would be throwing my money away. We get there and it's $22 to enter, lol. He somehow convinces me (honestly it didn't take much arm twisting) that it was only $22 so, if I got busted out right away, who cares? Next thing I know I'm sitting at a table playing this tournament...scared shitless!! First hand I remember playing was A4 (can't even remember if it was suited). I guess I played it just because of the A but I have no idea. The flop came AAx and I about **** my pants cuz I figured three aces was just about as good as it got. lol I somehow found my self in late position (though I didn't know what that meant at the time) so there were two or three other guys in the hand that would bet, raise, whatever and I would just call all the way cuz my three aces were the shitz! I don't remember why but I remember at the river saying...and I swear my voice cracked while saying it, I was so scared LOL, "I'm all in!" We get to the showdown with two others in the hand, they flip their cards and look at me like "what the hell can YOU have?"I flip over my A4 proudly and their jaws drop and the dealer says "full house, aces full of fours". LMAO the other two start talking to themselves..."omg, he FLOPPED it!" I was so excited that two aces came that I didn't even realize that the 4 flopped too! LOL I ended up lasting longer in that tourney than the guy I went with but didn't cash. I played a couple days later and went busto quick then the third time I'd played in my life, I found myself at the final table, then heads up, then WON (KJ suited is still one of my favorite hands, LOL) I cashed for about $400 and have been addicted like a meth head ever since. Late summer 05 is when I found this site but I can't remember how. I signed up right away (it was during the "charter membership drive") but never posted and by the time I did couldn't remember my login info so had to resign up which is why my profile shows early 06. I play micro limits online some but truly suck at online poker. I just don't have the patience to sit in front of my computer for hours on end, get bored and end up playing way over my head and/or donking off some money just for fun. I play live once or twice a week, tourneys mostly, and have won 11 times to date...though I've been on a bubble boy streak for about 4 months I think. I'll never play more than recreationally since I have a wife, two kids and a mortgage but I enjoy the hell out of the game and try to improve through forums, books and playing as much as possible.Sorry this went so long......

[Outlaw4033 0]

I played sports all growing up and am a very competitive person in general. My little brother actually got me into the game after the Moneymaker win. Everytime it was on TV he would have it on and I would watch. Then he bought SuperSystem II and started using all of these technical terms. So naturally I had to read the book so that I could argue with him about what we were seeing on TV. All the while he was playing online too. Once he moved back to Colorado for college I deposited $50 on Full Tilt so that I could play with him. I've run that initial deposit up pretty nicely in the 6 months I've been playing online. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I can win a seat to a WSOP event.

[canadarules 0]

Rounders/WPT/Party Poker playmoney

[UncleCollins 0]

July 29th 2004: Me and a friend went to a Nickelback concert

Fold pf.Now, as far as contributing to the topic goes...Back in the fall of 2004, my buddy and I were baked one night and went to McDonalds for some grub. As we were eating he started talking about how it would be cool to be a professional poker player. "hahaha Professional poker player? Wtf? You're kidding, right?" At the time I had no idea that professional poker even existed, nor do I know people played it for a living. Since I didn't know what texas hold'em was either, I just couldn't imagine how people possibly played 5 card draw with jokers and wild cards professionally. Because I had never played poker any other way I didn't know any better. "That sounds stupid, you're crazy man" is all I kept saying to him as he attempted to describe texas hold'em and the world series of poker to me. I thought the idea of a world series of poker absolutely hilarious and I couldn't figure out why the hell he was so damn interested in this game called texas hold'em. It just seemed so silly to me. About 2 weeks later I was home one night watching tv. I turned on the cable guide to see what was on and there it was, the 2004 world series of poker was on TSN. "Oh this ought to be good" I said to myself, "let's see what this texas hold'em is all about." I turn it on, expecting to change the channel within a minute, but immediately it caught my eye. It was nothing like I expected. Fast foward a few minutes later and I'm actually on the edge of my seat, eyes glued to the tv. The next day I talked to my buddy about it and we set up our first homegame for the following weekend. After that, I was hooked, and from that point on my life had changed forever.

[MyPlayIsRAB 0]

i first saw NLH in about 1996 on TSN. late at night theyd air old WSOP broadcasts and it hink i saw the one dan harrington won. it seemed like a cool game, but no one i knew knew how to play. fast forward to 2000, in grade 11 of high school, some friends were sitting around having a few playing 5 card draw and i told them about NLH. i didnt remember all the rules, but we used the interweb to look them up. we played a few 5$ games and ive been hooked since. started playing online in 2002 when i got a credit card. lost about 250$ before i realized the ins and outs. im still a sporadic player 5 years later; but i dont play enough volume to get overly good. i can say though that on the overall, im up about 7-8k, and ive never played anything with any regularity above 25/50c NLH and 10$ MTT/sngs.

[fitzinabox 0]

what got me started .. . ahhh . .. i was aplay money player playing the high stakes 50 K sitngos on stars. This was a little over 1 year ago . . while i would play my play money games i'd watch my friend play in real money sitngo's / tourneys. My buddy made the final table of a 20+2 180 man . .. then hooked me up with 5 bucks for railin him.Since then i have turned that 5 bucks into 5 final tables and close to a 3000 $ profit ina year ... Don't get me wrong, it has been a lot of fun but still , online poker has also cost me a lot ... as i am not in college anymore and whatnot . .. pretty sick i know but i am going to be going back this spring and give it another try.

[NOFX_PUNK 0]

BUMP - I think this is an interesting topic!

[7s7c 0]

My Dad used to play 10/20 stud at his Elks club in Asbury Park, NJ in the early 90's while I was in HS. He was a solid player and taught me the game, then the Hold Em explosion happened.....and it was good.

[pokerfriendly 0]

Daniel inspired me!!