the beginning

i am just curious. how did yall get started in online poker. when, how big bankroll , overall progress,
if yall wish to reply...

[Losing all]

Played live for awhile, scared of paradise because i heard it was rigged,
found 2+2 and read about everyone getting rich, signed up at party.

[Webster]

Started 6 years ago before RNG's were really perfected. Nobody is rigged. Put $50 in at Paradise (the biggest place there was at the time) 3 times before it caught and never looked back.

thinking back i cant remember exactly. but i played live before i started online. and my first site was pokerroom. i then bonus whored and slowly built a decent roll, i took poker seriously and spent winnings on buying books and trying to better myself.

I've been playing about 3 months now. Turned my initial $50 deposit at partypoker into $1325, as of right now, playing .50/1.00 and now 1/2 limit.

I became interested in poker after watching that fine, quality tv show, "Celebrity Poker Showdown".

$10 on Pokerroom turned into $50 on Empire turned into everything I've made so far.

[primetime32]

Started with 300 on PP about 3 years ago. lost it and uninstalled the program. TOo many bad beats and thought the site was rigged. Little did i know that i wasnt very good back then. reinstalled program with another 200 (giving online poker one last chance). Somehow went on a good roll and then started learning the game. The rest, as they say, is history.

[POKhER]

$20 and played 0.02/0.04, Found this forum few months later after buying ITH and getting bankroll to about $40.

I dropped to $4 and worked it back up, moving to new stakes everytime i had 300BB. Now i'm at 1/2

Pokers great, Looking to get into gambling and go pro next year.

[OrianasDaad]

I had two starts. The first was, naturally, at PartyPoker after seeing the WSOP last summer. I deposited $50, and lost it after about a weeks. My last hand during this stint was with pocket Aces.

After busting out, I bought two poker books: "Winner's Guide To Texas Hold'em" (Ken Warren, C-), and "Killer Poker Online" (John Vorhaus, A-). The latter book led me to RGP, which then quickly led me here.

My next jump in, I took the free $10 at RV (Prima), got that up to about $40 playing .05/.10 limit. I deposited $50 of my own so I could move up to .25/.50. I cashed out $900 around Christmas, and started playing PP in this new year.

I've recently rededicated myself to moving up in limits, since my yearly winnings for mostly .50/1 play is nothing to brag about.

[Adam22]

i saw the WSOP on vacation in hawaii on tv and thought it seemed really cool... took almost a year before i actually got around to making a deposit online though. i read hellmuth's book cover to cover like 4 times ( great idea, i know ) beforehand so i had an idea of how to play... then i injured my back pretty bad so i had a lot of downtime last october, put 250 bucks in on pokerroom and started at .25/.50 and just grinded it up to where i am now, 8 tabling 10/20. what a world. pretty good for a year i'd say.

Hehe, I realized that I could make a killing playing roulette on GTA:SA by just doubling my bet if I lost. Learned all about expected value through that.

Soon after I realized I was making -EV decisions by playing roulette and the only gambling that's +EV is poker. Luckily, I figured this out without spending any money.

Signed up on PP and proceeded to sink $800 in about 3 months (just kept redepositing $50 every week). Went out and bought HEPFAP and noticed the URL on the back. Started breaking even for the next month (playing .50/1), and have had postitive months ever since (playing SnG's).

[playersare]

started with a Mac on Pokerroom and Cherry Casino, then had my friend build me a $300 PC (which I still use today!) to whore all the other sites. dog-paddled at $1/2 limit on UB and Full Tilt (gag) until I started to win more consistently on Bodog and Party. read 20 more books and downloaded 20 more sites, added a 2001FP, now a solid 4BB/100 at $1/2 and getting acclimated with 4-tabling $2/4 and $3/6, and exploring micro NL.

[Botchy Dud]

I started up a poker site and kept everyone's money.

[FishNChips]

somehow ended up on UB playing free money tables to figure the game out. Hit a "jackpot" and won $2.50. I ran that up to $100 playing .01/.02 (limit and NL) and .25/.50 limit. Went back down to $5. Swung between $5 and $50 for a year. Met some friends, got into a home game, read a few books got better ... still stuck at $50 - $100.

last year OCT Superior Poker (I don't even remember signing up with them) e-mailed and said "here's $5, come play". The place was a gold mine for about 4 months while everyone wasted their $5 and then put in more. I lucked my way from $5 to $500 playing .05/.10 NL and .10/.25 NL against some of the most attrociously bad opponents I've ever seen. Bought my wife a nice christmas present with $400 and left $100 there. In late Dec / early Jan I read the "how to bonus ho to fame and fortune" post from way way back. I had $200 and worked my way up from there --- I'm now multitabling 3/6.

Life is good!
FishNChips

[stillbr]

I started with $100 about 2 yrs ago. I now pay all my bills while going to college with poker winnings. I keep around a 5K BR. I've gone nearly broke only once in the beginning.

[pzhon]

About 19 months ago, I started on the play money tables of Yahoo and Card Player Poker, a skin of UltimateBet. I switched over to UltimateBet, where I now have 902,667.00 play chips. <font color="white">Also, they gave me $5 for a royal flush on a play money table, which I turned into $700 in 6 weeks, and about $15k in the first 6 months.</font>

[dink]

I started playing online blackjack (for the bonuses) in it's heyday, around Aug 2001.

I remember casinos with playthroughs of 2x, that was easy money.
About 12 months later while in the UK, I had pretty much milked all the online casinos (twice, once from Aus and once from the UK) playthroughs were also increasing, paypal stopped dealing with online casinos etc etc.

I tried some online poker.

I had only ever played in home games before that. Bought some books, moved back to Aus, found 2+2 and have never looked backed since.

I am not a big fish, but I make some nice pocket money, mostly from bonuses.

It's a great hobby and it is possible to make $$$

and the online poker rooms are not rigged.

and if they are I don't care because I am winning.


Dink

[Sciolist]

I'd played a few penny home games, then saw Late Night Poker on C4 in '99 (the first poker show that used under the table cameras, dunno if it was shown anywhere outside the UK).

I lost my first $150 on PS in 10c/25c NL, which was the smallest game at the time. Put $50 into Paradise, turned it into $1k playing SNG, cashed most of it out and lost the rest. Decided that there was a cashout curse, deposited $50 on PS, turned it into lots.

I bought a book on the game before I understood how tournament levels worked. I now know there's no cashout curse :]

[MyTurn2Raise]

December 04, I'm working at Borders during the holiday season to clear some extra cash to go with my grad assistantship. I used to spend breaks reading books. I was dabbling in the chess section and saw HPFAP. Picked it up. 7 months later, I'm playing B&amp;M for a living. My book smarts finally pay off. Deposit at UB and play at home for fun, get my @$$ kicked. I'm half convinced it's rigged. Stumble upon this site February 05. Lurk for awhile. Find out how online limits do not equal B&amp;M limits. Reinvest at party. Since then, steady, comfortable income for me. I'm still a low-limit bonus/rakeback whore. I'm building my roll in a very cautious risk/reward strategy. Plan on making my big splash in 6 years. I'm on the 7 year plan. That's how long I was in college for, so poker cannot be any easier than that. I'm still learning....it's fun

[lane mcbride]

I got the free 2 dollars from paradise when they offered it. played .02-.04 for awhile... eventually moved up limits... played at paradise for six months... turned that 2 dollars into 2k or so. set up a neteller account and then diversified to party and all the rest of the sites I play at.

[DrPhysic]

It was all my wife's fault.

Watching poker on TV in Sept of 03, she said "You've always enjoyed playing poker, why don't you try that?"

I put $500 on Stars. Played poorly for a month or so until somebody kindly pointed me to 2+2 and their books. Bought TOP, GTBOI, and HEP and started studying.

Played ring, SNG, MTT, in limit and NL HE over several months to find out what I liked and could do ok at.

Two years later I have 50+ books on the shelf, consider myself to be a sophomore learner, and am about break even after two years. When I finish learning the game to my own satisfaction, I'll either retire and use poker as a supplementary income (nominally 4 years from now), or play poker at low buyins just as a hobby.

Doc

[MicroBob]

I've kind of gone through my own personal time-line before....but I'm good at repeating things so here goes.


1996 - Stopping off in Biloxi on a long trip. playing advantage BJ (counting-cards) which I had only recently picked up, I hear an announcement for 'seats open' at poker. I don't even know what hold-em is (and never heard of it and am afraid to ask the person at the deak 'what does hold-em mean?').
I play stud for a couple hours and lose $100 or $200 or so. I probably played close to 100% of my hands to 4th and 5th streets and it never really occured to me to be selective and to occasionally stop chasing with nothing and actually fold.


Jan, 2003 - Living in Memphis area. Playing BJ in Tunica, Miss and the WPO poker-tourney is going on. Poker players are freaking everywhere. Some poker player is killing time at the BJ table (has black leather jacket and also ace-of-spades tattoo on his fore-arm). I mention that I might like to try playing the low-limits there but I really don't know how to play and knew that I would lose money to the good players (still didn't know what 'hold-em' meant).
He mentioned that I can play poker and learn on the internet....even for real-money.
"You mean you can play against real people on the internet?"


Feb, 2003 - On a google search PokerStars is the first to come up so I go there. Never heard of it.
They had "up to 2000 players at one time during peak hours." I also google 'hold-em' and 'poker strategy articles', etc. I was already a member of BJ21.com which is like the 2+2 for blackjack card-counters so I had an understanding of EV and 300 unit bankrolls and variance, etc.

Somewhere before reading any articles or finding 2+2 I'm just playing on my $50 deposit at Stars.
I didn't know whether a full-house beats a flush or vice-versa...and also didn't know what the little NL, PL or limit designations in the lobby meant but then notice that I have a little slide-bar and get to bet a lot more on some of the tables...while I can't do this on others.


Apr, 2003 - Eventually read up a little more after work and find 2+2 as well as Phil Hellmuth's book. Had never heard of Hellmuth before (or Doyle or anyone else). Played my first couple of SNG's, I think I busted out on the 1st or 2nd hand in 3 or 4 in a row.

May, 2003 - You mean the guys that run this 2+2 forum also have some books on poker too?

July and Aug 2003 - Now have HEFAP and TOP....starting job as BJ dealer. Still only playing on Stars though because I just didn't have additional money to shuffle around to other sites.
read on 2+2 that other people are hitting up all these bonuses at various sites and that virtually nobody ever has any trouble cashing-out from most sites (this was a concern to me).

Also, I remember finishing 5th in a $1 MTT on Stars that month for $75 and I was pretty damn excited with my huge score.

I'm trying to play tight but am still bad in cash-games.
Go to Tunica a couple times and play live.
One hand I post in SS forum (where they used all this lingo that I didn't understand).

In the hand I posted there I have 66 on board of 4678 and I fold because it was bet AND raised before me so I KNOW I have to be beat (and it was a small pot, so not worth calling 2 bets right??).
River was the case 6.
The kind folks in the SS forum proceeded to tell me that I was a total retard.


Sept, 2003 - Start new job as blackjack dealer (fired from my previous profession back in 2002). Deposit for first time on Party because everyone on 2+2 says the players there are really bad.

Oct - Dec 2003 - Grind it out at 1/2 and 2/4 on 2 or 3 tables at Party (which was still the max at the time I believe).
Making a little more than my dealing job actually, while also running well.
My computer would frequently freeze-up if I played 3 tables.

Jan 2004 - New laptop. Purchase pokertracker (old computer couldn't handle it).
Continue grinding out supplemental income at 2/4 and 3/6 mostly on party/empire when not working my 'real' job.
Still making more playing 3-4 tables at home then I am at work. I was about $20/hr at home....$14/hour (before taxes) at job. Minimal expenses. Grew my bankroll.

Mar, 2004 - Decide to turn-in 2 week's notice and try to give poker a full-time go. Never break my ties there because I suspect I'll need to return in a month or two if I run badly. I caught some breaks along the way and haven't needed to go back to 'real' work.

Mar, 2005 - In the money on the PPM cruise, my first live tournament of significance. ($10k buy-in....I had played 2 tourneys of less than $100 several months earlier).

July, 2005 - Played $3k event and main-event of WSOP.
Didn't make the money but I was on national TV officially 'spotting Johnny Chan'.

Oct, 2005 - I still suck at this game....but am still getting by and am still learning.

[AASooted]

A friend was playing NL on Empire, and it sounded like fun, so I signed up and deposited $100 in January, figuring I could afford to lose it if things went horribly. I played slightly losing NL for a while, but the bonuses kept me above water.

I cashed out the original $100 and was really proud that I was now "playing with other people's money". Lost their money after a while and put my $100 back in. Finally found 2+2 and LHE in June of this year and was able to cash my $100 out for good, mainly from learning to play tight pre-flop at $.5/1.

I'm now playing the $1/2 and building my BR with bonus and casino whoring. I don't know a fraction of what I need to know about the game, but I'm pretty sure I'm beating $1/2 after 10k hands. I just took delivery of a new PC and 2001FP that was paid for using "other people's money".

The next step is to get serious about learning the game so I can move up as far as I can.

[Peoplez]

I had been doing semi-serious sports betting for few years and was aware that you can beat some games like sports betting and poker. I was already familiar with concepts like +EV and such. Then these sport betting sites started joining poker networks and offer poker and I naturally tried and realized I could probably be a winning player if I studied hard. This was something like a year ago. Since then I've studied, read books, visited this site among others and player poker almost every day.

Now poker is my only income although I don't make THAT much but I have small expenses, don't have a car etc. and don't have to pay taxes for poker winnings in EU.

I love poker!

[Bosox]

Fall 2003 in the Ivy League: two kids down my hall are a sophmore and a junior and making boatloads (10k!) for their rolls playing nl200 and 100 SNGs on party (it seemed so much back then). They get me hooked and i start playing tournaments with borrowed money from transfers on partypoker.

Every time that distinctive guitar riff came on TV to signal the WSOP playing, even if i'd seen the episode, i had to gambool. Up and down for two months until, 500 in debt, i finally "figured out" the 10 dollar SNGs on Party. Went up to plus 500 over Xmas break and started purchasing literature.

I spent a year taking shots over my head, skill, and 'roll. Made a few thousand but would reinvest it in taking my shots and trying to find my game.
Last spring, party opened up nl400 tables and I had a heyday. Bounced up 4k in one week and haven't looked back. Played fulltime over the summer, part time at school and investing the profits in the Market. Life appears good.
5/10nl short and MTTs for now.

By the way, buy partypoker stock so mine goes up. I decided diversification is for pussies and put a chunk into party so they can screw me two ways instead of just one. I'm smrt. I rule.

[Python49]

Well I guess everyone does a poker timeline/story eventually so i'll do this one and just copy it for any other time I want to tell mine /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Started playing poker october of 2003 in live games with friends. I had been in college for a few months at this point and met a few guys who invited me to play cards with them and they seemed cool so I did.

I was the typical fish in this game starting out because I really didn't know how to play. I only knew what hands beat what from playing yahtzee and 5 card draw.

We started playing alot, i started loving the game, after I tasted victory I was hooked. It started off as just something fun to do on a wednesday night, play poker, drink, hang out, shoot the sh*t.

Around april of 03 I actually found out about online poker and deposited $50 online because a friend of mine played. He was the best player out of all of us and was making small profits grinding out $2/$4 limit online, he always talked about how much he'd won and this made me want to win as well. I first deposited online and ran insanely lucky, I ran $50 up to about $500 just by one strategy alone. I joined short handed .5/1 limit tables with only 2-3 people and raised every hand every time, every street no matter what because i'd seen people fold so much. I didnt learn about aggression or how to actually play yet but did notice this worked. I ofcourse lost alot of this but managed to cash out some profit. I took horrible beats and was suspciuos. Throughout the summer I played like every day back at home with friends.

These games were more about fun than skill. You'd be surprised at how much fishes can actually enjoy playing poker because I remember loving to play and not being any good. In our games everyone would check/call the entire way and nobody would really ever bet. But anyway I started getting somewhat more knowledgable around this time but not really.

I had been up and down online playing with my winnings, running lucky and then cashing out always saying online poker was rigged. Interestingly enough looking back at it now, I actually had the intution to recognize I was not a long term winner at the game (i thought it was rigged so just placed blame on that) and would cash out my money whie I was ahead.

Next school year starts and I had played online enough at this point to decide I was done with it and it was rigged. My friends had all decided the same thing, we didn't know any better. They still would try to play online though anyway. I had quit poker for life but its interesting how I got back into it.

When getting back from winter break, around march of 04 my friend borrow'd $50 from me to play online poker and he had a bonus pending that he didnt complete and he lost the money online. In order to pay me back he wanted me to just jump on his account, clear the bonus and transfer it back. So i did this but the money couldnt be cashed out for like 8 hours I believe. So ofcourse I decide, whatever ill just play for fun.

I end up losing my $50 and getting pissed and deciding i'm going to deposit the $500 and get the deposit bonus. It was here that I had ilke a revelation on how to win at online poker. I was clearing my bonus and decided I was going to just play 4 tables online at once to help clear it faster, and I started playing position and it was having amazing results. I was winning money WHILE clearing my bonus. Obviously to good players knowing about position is nothing big, but to a fish who had never read a book or had anyone good tell him how to play, learning about position on your own was truly like hitting the lottery.

After clearing my bonus I had made money and decided to cash out my $500 i put in for the deposit, and cash out my original deposit since I was always big on playing with just my profits in my accout. I ended up dwingling down to about $2 in my account and had told myself if i lost all my profits I was closing up my account and it was back to quitting online poker forever. I was all in with j/4 or some garbage and rivered a guy at the cash tables. Took this $6 and went to a SnG tourney, and miraculously built my bankroll back up to around $200 or so.

It was around this time that I found 2+2 in march or april (hell whenever it says that i registered), and I also started becoming a player who read about the game and thought about what he was doing. I read books, read 2+2, and filled my brain with as much knowledge as possible. I ended up building my bankroll very very quickly at $25 nl, then $50 nl, then I hit a nice score in a MTT that doubled my bankroll to about $2700 or something. I was also pretty good at sit and goes so I did well at steps and made money there.

Around when I had 2 grand for a bankroll, friends were suggesting stuff like "dude cash out your money, spend it on something nice". I had read enough on poker theory in books and on 2+2 though to know the error of this mentality. I decided to save it up so I could play 100 nl. And when I got to 100 nl, my bankroll took off. The time it took me to get from $50 to 1000... is about as long as it took me to get from $1000 to $5000 at 100 nl.

I was playing ALOT around this time because this kind of money was foreign to me. Before leaving home to around may I had built my bankroll up to over 10k. This was the summer of 2005... not long ago, back in may, june, etc. In may I played and started having my first real glimpses of what variance was. My confidence was shook. In June I did not play as much because I had finally made back losses from huge swings and I did not want to deal with the stess of playing. In july I went on vacation for an entire month with my cousins living it up in atlanta/mississippi/florida and didn't play either.

When I got back from my vacation I got on 2+2 and wanted to get direct help from good cash game players to help analyze my play and fix leaks in my game. This helped tremendously. I made almost 10,000 in the month of august just playing $100 NL with shots at 200 nl and some really really bad losing stretches in there. I did have a nice sample size though so I knew my cash game was alot better. In june I had played alot of sit and goes and some cash and got up to around 20+k or so, I cannot remember exactly.

In august when I had made up to almost 30k from NL and rakeback I started feeling like a much much better cash game player. I also was entirely too overrolled to be playing 100 nl so I finally man'd up and moved to 200 nl. I played alot in august because I was going back to school after that month and hadn't played much all summer with vacation and in june not playing much. Also I knew that variance can be stressful as all hell and I did not want to deal with that and school work so I took a "break" in september which turned out to be one of my biggest months to date.

Since I didn't want to grind cash tables I just played a few MTT's here and there since I always found them fun. I ended up trying to adjust my strategy to be much more aggressive late game when everyone else was tight and passive. I ended up getting first place in three MTT's in a row. It was pretty surreal but true. The first two only totaled to winnings of 567+750 but the third one was worth $10,250. Also in this month I logged maybe 2000 hands total of 400 nl and ran insanely hot as well for about $2500. I finished it off by getting 2nd place in a another MTT for another $3k as well which pushed me to around 47k total in winnings but I had spent about 3k so the bankroll's at 44k.

We are now in October and i've been playing online seriously for about 7 months now, well really just 6 since I took a month off. Ever since I got to 100 nl I have advanced pretty quickly. I currently am not playing often nowadays because of school work and college but when I get back into it I plan to go fully into 400 nl logging a good 25k+ hands to get an idea of where i'm at skill wise. I've probably logged about 5-6k hands at 400 nl so far this month and last and hit a losing streak today, but probably just balances it out from running at huge bb/100 the times before. Oh well, that's my story /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Python49]

Crap, I got dates messed up but can't edit it now
[ QUOTE ]
Around april of 03

[/ QUOTE ]
Should be 04 obviously since I had just said October 03.

[ QUOTE ]
Next school year starts

[/ QUOTE ]
This was 9/04. Just trying to make sure the years make sense since I confuse school years and actual years alot.

[ QUOTE ]
When getting back from winter break, around march of 04

[/ QUOTE ]
This shuold be 05.

[ QUOTE ]
It was around this time that I found 2+2 in march or april

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually I started reading it around then, didn't registere to post it seems until may 05.

K, just wanted to fix those dates since a few friends I showed the post to noticed it.

[ QUOTE ]
i am just curious. how did yall get started in online poker. when, how big bankroll , overall progress,
if yall wish to reply...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll play...

I had to go to Orlando, Florida to take a certification test for my job. Instead of making the hour drive at the early hours (the test began at 8:00 a.m. and went until 12:00 p.m.), I figured to arrive the night before to rest up. The night before I went to a bar/grill for dinner because the lame hotel didn't have a good restaurant. I ordered food along with my favorite beverage and I saw on ESPN this game called Texas Hold 'Em. I made a joke with the bartender that this is ESPN for SPORTS not a game like poker. I asked him to change it - he refuses - I still tip him.

Later in the summer, I see Moneymaker on Dave Letterman and they shared he won two-point-something million playing in the WSOP. I realized that was the same show I asked the bartender to change. I saw that ESPN showed reruns so I watched it to see how he won. I was hooked.

It's now 2004. About this time I started watching the WPT; I saw every episode that year. I found out that a colleague watched it too and said, "We should play!" We got the rest of my department and their spouses together to play. We sort of knew what to do (blind structure) and thought we were cool because we were playing no limit, but we were so cheap that losing $10 would have been a big deal. Anyway, GAME ON - that's all that mattered to me.

Picked up Hellmuth's book (tried to sell it last summer at a garage sale - no takers) and saw him act like a jerk. I hit my hand against my forehead that I gave this joker my money. Saw Rounders - saw the Super System book and I picked that up.

Then, I picked up Hold 'Em by the fine folks at 2+2. Still played my monthly game, but when the summer of 2004 came around I found that monthly game wasn't enough. I deposited $50 at Party Poker.com because I wanted to play in the tournament that had the cruise. I made the semi-final, but lost around mid-way, when my AA were cracked by a set of 6s made at the river. However, I was hooked even further. I learned about bankroll, made sure I had enough for the .50/$1.00 game. That was in November of 2004. I also saw that Poker Tracker helped me keep stats so I bought that and learned it can help me in other ways too. One of the best investments I made to improve my poker game.

Since then, I never had to redeposit, flirted with three tabling of $2/$4, but I tried to do too much too soon and dropped to $1/$2. I play part-time, but the playing is what matters. Those I played with are still in Florida (live in Arizona now) so I am missing my monthly game. However, they know I know how to play this stupid game - I learned that others should know I play terribly, not that hard to do.

Now, I don't have enough time off to go on a cruise (started a new job, same profession, different location, not enough leave time), and I don't play tournaments that much. I bought the Harrington books so I'm currently reading them - maybe I'll try them again soon.

That's it.

[Solovon]

Originally started playing with my friends, then started playing online for play money. Eventually deposited $50 on Stars and lost it. Redeposited $100 and ran it up to almost $600 before losing half my roll and cashing out.