durron597
07-10-2005, 08:54 PM
So, I'm finally posting again. Carpal \'Tunnel! Woot! It's been somewhat of a rocky history. I guess I'm not one of those poker prodigies that this site seems to be fraught with. I think I'm a winning player at the lower stakes but I have this tendency to make one bad move at the wrong time, perhaps let a LAG put me on tilt, and end up not doing as well as I could.
A brief history: I started out playing some poker home games with my friends at school, and I was really a noob back then. My first post was a bad beat post where I ask about bottom two pair, and how I lost a big pot with 64dd on a T64 flop to 98o, and then another one where I have 87o on a A87 board and a guy with AT draws out on me too. Woo fun times. My second post was me getting in an argument with Al Capone Junior about why I raise small pairs in a loose passive game, and needless to say I was wrong /images/graemlins/smile.gif I've come pretty far since then, and I actually think that I know what I'm doing a decent percent of the time now.
In January 2004 I bought a mac laptop, and around the same time I decided to start playing online Poker. So I started with PokerRoom since I could play that on my laptop. I played the play money games there for awhile and thought that the ring games were really boring allin every hand fests, and I tired of them quickly. However, the play money sitngoes had about 70% people who actually didn't play like *total* scrubs so when the allin first hand people busted those games were slightly resemblant of real poker. I made about 110k play money chips playing 500+50 SnGs, and it was at this point that I decided that I might actually be able to win some real money playing online. Another friend of mine who is a poster on this board (name omitted, he can reply here if he wants) also bought in at the same time. We both quickly realized that his talents are very different from mine, and he was spending most of his time playing at first NL ring and shifted to limit ring, and I stayed in my Sitngo groove and never really left except for some forays into cash occasionally. I ended up making about $600 on PokerRoom from a $200 investment including one MTT second place where $6 turned into $255. But I was busy with college and later looking for a job so I really didn't have that much time to play.
Eventually the job search became paramount because I really didn't have enough skill and/or confidence to go pro. So I cashed out and basically quit poker for several months. Some of the posters on this board may remember when that happened (probably adanthar does). Recently, though, once I was stable in my job I decided to come back to poker for a chance to win a seat at the WSOP. I put $300 on stars and quickly lost about $65 playing $5+R turbo satellites to double shootouts (I won 1 seat, busted 1st table) and then about another $100 playing the $15+$1 turbo SnGs starting off with a 6 OOTM streak mostly because I wasn't adjusting to the blind levels properly I think. Boom, half my bankroll gone in 1 day. I'm the sort of person who won't rebuy, in the theory that I'm throwing good money after bad and if I can't win it back I shouldn't play.
Eventually my bankroll reached a low point of $70, with one intervening point where I won Atlantic Trout (took my BR from $100 to $170) but then proceeded to lose it all and more getting too desperate too early and losing races. Also I was playing in the Quad Shootouts and Triple Shootouts daily and never cashed in any of them, which was hurting my Sitngo profits.
However, things were not all lost. I became better friends with Chief911, gcDanno, Yugo, and GoldenHorde over AIM, and eventually managed to figure out where that sweet spot between tightness and aggression is. I hit 2499 posts and decided I wouldn't post again until I had broke even on Stars. Well, early this afternoon I finally hit $330 on Stars which doesn't include the signup bonus but does include the Neteller rake, so I consider myself decent enough (read: a winning player even at low levels) to make my 2500th post and be Carpal \'Tunnel!
I hope you all enjoyed reading this post if you got this far and enjoyed reading the story of someone who isn't a poker prodigy like raptor. Though I hope to get there some day /images/graemlins/smile.gif
Edit: just wanted to add here that I have some fun hands coming that I wanted to post but was on my posting hiatus /images/graemlins/smile.gif
A brief history: I started out playing some poker home games with my friends at school, and I was really a noob back then. My first post was a bad beat post where I ask about bottom two pair, and how I lost a big pot with 64dd on a T64 flop to 98o, and then another one where I have 87o on a A87 board and a guy with AT draws out on me too. Woo fun times. My second post was me getting in an argument with Al Capone Junior about why I raise small pairs in a loose passive game, and needless to say I was wrong /images/graemlins/smile.gif I've come pretty far since then, and I actually think that I know what I'm doing a decent percent of the time now.
In January 2004 I bought a mac laptop, and around the same time I decided to start playing online Poker. So I started with PokerRoom since I could play that on my laptop. I played the play money games there for awhile and thought that the ring games were really boring allin every hand fests, and I tired of them quickly. However, the play money sitngoes had about 70% people who actually didn't play like *total* scrubs so when the allin first hand people busted those games were slightly resemblant of real poker. I made about 110k play money chips playing 500+50 SnGs, and it was at this point that I decided that I might actually be able to win some real money playing online. Another friend of mine who is a poster on this board (name omitted, he can reply here if he wants) also bought in at the same time. We both quickly realized that his talents are very different from mine, and he was spending most of his time playing at first NL ring and shifted to limit ring, and I stayed in my Sitngo groove and never really left except for some forays into cash occasionally. I ended up making about $600 on PokerRoom from a $200 investment including one MTT second place where $6 turned into $255. But I was busy with college and later looking for a job so I really didn't have that much time to play.
Eventually the job search became paramount because I really didn't have enough skill and/or confidence to go pro. So I cashed out and basically quit poker for several months. Some of the posters on this board may remember when that happened (probably adanthar does). Recently, though, once I was stable in my job I decided to come back to poker for a chance to win a seat at the WSOP. I put $300 on stars and quickly lost about $65 playing $5+R turbo satellites to double shootouts (I won 1 seat, busted 1st table) and then about another $100 playing the $15+$1 turbo SnGs starting off with a 6 OOTM streak mostly because I wasn't adjusting to the blind levels properly I think. Boom, half my bankroll gone in 1 day. I'm the sort of person who won't rebuy, in the theory that I'm throwing good money after bad and if I can't win it back I shouldn't play.
Eventually my bankroll reached a low point of $70, with one intervening point where I won Atlantic Trout (took my BR from $100 to $170) but then proceeded to lose it all and more getting too desperate too early and losing races. Also I was playing in the Quad Shootouts and Triple Shootouts daily and never cashed in any of them, which was hurting my Sitngo profits.
However, things were not all lost. I became better friends with Chief911, gcDanno, Yugo, and GoldenHorde over AIM, and eventually managed to figure out where that sweet spot between tightness and aggression is. I hit 2499 posts and decided I wouldn't post again until I had broke even on Stars. Well, early this afternoon I finally hit $330 on Stars which doesn't include the signup bonus but does include the Neteller rake, so I consider myself decent enough (read: a winning player even at low levels) to make my 2500th post and be Carpal \'Tunnel!
I hope you all enjoyed reading this post if you got this far and enjoyed reading the story of someone who isn't a poker prodigy like raptor. Though I hope to get there some day /images/graemlins/smile.gif
Edit: just wanted to add here that I have some fun hands coming that I wanted to post but was on my posting hiatus /images/graemlins/smile.gif