Post Your First Internet Poker Experience

[Moyer]

I'd really like to hear what problems everyone had when they first started, how everyone did profit-wise, what site they started at, etc. I just want to know what to expect and hopefully hear some good stories.

[crockpot]

my first day at paradise, i deposited $50, built it up to $100 in several hours of .50/1 and 1/2, then sat at a 3/6 table and busted. the highlight of the night was when i put my last $25 in with a flopped broadway and two pair filled to beat me for a pot that could have about brought me back to even.

it was a cruel night, but luckily it didn't sour me on poker altogether.

[Foldarama_City]

I started playing freerolls at pokerpages and pokerroom in May. I hadn't played poker before that. I found I was doing pretty well in the NL games at pokerpages - so about a week later I made a deposit at bugsys club. In my first real money tournament I played I won over $100 and finished up going head-to-head with the tourney league leader and winning. I was thinking I was Gods-gift to poker after that. Truth is, I may have had some good instinct but I really didn't know much at all. I just got lucky with loose aggression. I ended up losing about $500 at a few poker sites after that. I especially got burned at pokerstars. Anyway, I decided to put in some hard work, do some reading and work out a strategy to rebuild a bankroll. Since then, I have made many times the amount of money I lost.

[BlueBear]

My first experience was the play money games at Paradise. Found the link when i was exploring rec.gambling.* newsgroups and was wondering why i could never win the play money games. Bought in for $200, got a first time deposit bonus, played 0.5/1, kept losing, tilted it all away. I was a clueless beginner/calling station back then.

[crockpot]

when i see some of my friends try out online poker for the first time nowadays, i'm amazed at their lack of discipline. it seems like the slightest thing puts them on tilt. i probably just can't remember back far enough to when i was the exact same way. i definitely know that i play tighter now than i did then because i had to learn the hard way that certain hands just aren't profitable.

[jek187]

Hi Moyer,

I wrote about my online poker life story back in January. Here it is: jek's poker life story (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=inet&Number=200323&For um=All_Forums&Words=My%20Poker%20Life%20Story&Matc h=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allpos ts&Main=198946&Search=true#Post200323)

Things have since changed in the 8 months since that writing. Maybe I'll make an update.

[Inthacup]

Out of boredom, I typed in poker in google one night. I stumbled across pokerroom.com. Deposited $50 via credit card and started playing 1 2. Worked it up to $250, sat 2-4 short-handed, got worked, and eventually lost my buy in. I bought in for $100 more and haven't been down since.

I was sooo paranoid that the poker site was a scam and that they were going to rob me of my $50. Good thing I didn't try propoker first. My paranoia would have become reality.

[TylerD]

I started out on Ladbrokes. Deposited about £20 ($30) to get their bonus, did well for a bit playing low buyin tournys. Decided to try PL games and lost it. Continued to buy in for very small amounts and lost them. Back then I knew the rules of poker and that Aces were good but that was about it.

Anyway after loosing a fair amount, reading combined with experience started to turn things round and I am now consistently winning playing LLHE and tournys.

Tyler

[mrbaseball]

About 4 years back. I had been studying and learning the game via Jones, Kreiger, and S&M along with Texas Turbo simulations for my first try at Hold'em on a trip to LV.

I had been devouring every possible thing about Hold'em I could find. Including RGP. It was there that I learned of real money games on the internet at a place called Planet Poker.

I was terrified of being cheated and colluded and altogether ripped off. I deposited $200 and very shortly doubled it playing 3-6. I immediatedly withdrew the extra 200 back to my CC. I last a couple more weeks before that additional 200 was gone. I deposited and withdrew a few more times but it never felt clean. Online poker back then felt like a pure gamble even if you could beat the games. Nowadays it feels much more legit.

Shortly after that Paradise began beta testing. The software was leaps and bounds ahead of Planet. Once they went live online poker started to get popular. And now it truly is exploding.

[DrSavage]

Bought in with 500$ to Paradise for "bonus whoring" and lost it all including bonus. Same story later at Party. Read some books, bought in with 200 to party and played 2 2/4 tables, got it to 400 and lost again all but 20$. Bought in with another 280$ and played 3 2/4 tables. Advanced to 3 3/6 tables when i had around 1k, to 5/10 when i had 6k and so on to 15/30 currently.

[jasonHoldEm]

I won my way into playing for real money.

I started playing play money games at pokerroom, I got tired of the silly free ring games, so I started playing the $500 buy-in SNG's (where there was actually some decent players). I did that for a month or so "perfecting" my tournament strategy.

During this time I was also playing in pokerrooms daily freeroll event. I'd usually finish in the top 50-100 although it seemed I could never crack the final table. Sometime in January (it was a Monday) I managed to make the final table as the chip leader and hold on to win the entire event (and $50 real money). I must have been on a hot streak that week because I also took second place a few days later (giving me another $25).

I parlayed the $75 into just under $400 playing $5 and $10 SNG's, and then (of course) I got stupid, playing 1/2 and 2/4 ring and actually moved some money over to Planet to play no-limit before I (nearly) went bust. I found 2+2 in March, got serious, and basically haven't looked back since.

Peace,
jHE

[Legend27]

I started out doing the play money tables (single table tournaments) on party poker and decided to put $50 in since I was doing good in play money. I did a bunch of the $5+1 single table tournies and lost it all. I got a $50 refer a friend bonus from a stranger and decided to try .50/1 instead. I won money consistently there so I didn't go back to the single table tournaments.

After a couple weeks I had won about $300 bucks and I decided to try a $20 multi table tournament. The only reason I decided to this tournament was because it had 300+ people in it and I had never seen a multi with so many people before. I barely made it into the money and with 21 people left I was dead last in chips. I doubled up then and held on to make it to the final table and I was last in chips there too. I won a few hands here and there and when there were about 5 people left I got run of good cards and ended up winning it and $1600. I had about 10 guys in my room watching me when I was at the final table and it was fun having them cheer me on.

After that I tired of .50/1 and moved up to NL 25. I played there for 2 months and won quite a bit of money there and moved up $50 NL. I played there for a few months and moved up $100 NL when party finally added those tables and I've been playing the $100 NL tables and the $50 NL on party and short handed 5/10 on intercasino ever since.

I have a twin and he started playing too after he noticed how much I was winning (He had played on paradise once and lost $100). He moved up in limits like I did and now plays the $100 NL and some 15/30.

This summer a bunch of my friends wanted to learn how to play since they had heard about how much money I had won by just sitting on my ass and playing poker. I taught about 10 of them and 2 have won over $10,000, 2 won over $4,000, 4 won over $1,000, 1 won about $500 so far and 1 broke even and quit after a few weeks.

I'll probably do some 15/30 soon since my brother has been killing the tables this month and he finally surpassed me in net winnings.

[kdog]

I opened a Planet account in February,1999 with $400.At that time they were the only real money room on the net and there would be 1 or 2 3-6 games, a short handed 10-20 and maybe a 5-10. That's it. No waiting lists, you just hovered the mouse over the table if it was full waiting for someone to leave and hoped you were first to the seat.

Anyway...ran the $400 up to almost $2000 in a few weeks against what I thought was pathetic competition.And in hindsight it was but I really wasn't much better. Withdrew $1000, lost the rest back, rebought and decided I'd better learn a little more about holdem(I'd always been a stud player).Started paying more attention to the holdem articles in Cardplayer and coming here and been grinding it out like a part time job ever since.

[Simon Diamond]

Some reading for you if you are genuinely interested : My Poker Diary (http://www.geocities.com/simondiamond_poker/diary.html)

There's eight months worth of writing there, detailing my experiences in the game - until I curtailed my play drastically due to personal probs.

Simon

Disclaimer : The diary is from my personal poker page, which is a non profit making website, with no affiliate banner adverts - the only adverts are Yahoo's for using their free web hosting service.

[William]

I had been playing at differents clubs at night for some years. I t was a hard life as where I live poker is illegal and you meet all kind of undesirable people at the underground clubs. Then last X-mas my children came to spend the holydays with me and as they wanted to play PC-games online, I established an online connection and bought a computer. As I couldn't leave the appartment for a couple of weeks, I borrowed 100$ from a friend at Paradise and after a week realised that I never needed to set a foot again in those horrible clubs. Today I make a decent living playing online poker and I enjoy beeing able to play when i feel like it, not only at night as before. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[SwordFish]

I started out winning a $40 satellite tourney, from which I eventually won a seat in the World Series Of Poker. The WSOP was my first "live" tournament and much to my suprise I won it all - a 2.5 million dollar payday......
Oh...wait...that's Chris Moneymaker's story.

Here's mine..... My Story (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=inet&Number=275823&Forum=A ll_Forums&Words=3373&Match=Username&Searchpage=2&L imit=25&Old=allposts&Main=275823&Search=true#Post2 75823)

SF

[RydenStoompala]

Great post. I love these stories. I funded an account at Paradise with $100, fresh off binge reading every book on Hold'em and a three-day low limit binge in Vegas. After running the money up four times, and believing it to be a devine indication of my skill, I blew my brains out by playing hands that I would normally fold regardless of betting action. After re-funding the account and moving over to Ultimate (just a software preference) I use online for two purposes: grinding out minimum wage in the 1-2 kill through 5-10 games and, more importantly, to tune up in pot limit Omaha low, stud and Omaha games where my brain is forced to get in the game. I have also discovered the joy of tournaments where no limit skills come into play. Live poker is still my favorite place to be but the internet does offer some real value.

[Guy McSucker]

I have never played poker on the internet.

There's this game I play where little cards appear and you click the buttons and every so often people say "nh" and slightly less often you get a check in the mail. But it's nothing like any poker game I ever played.

Guy.

[tiltboy]

I played IRC.poker for several years, then bought into planet for $100 almost 3 years ago and lost that the first day. I then went back to IRC and was happy playing for free. Pokerpages starting having some freeroll tourneys and I actually won a first and second round of one of these giant 250+ player tourneys to win a whole $25. My first cashout online! I'd heard about Paradise and so I bought in there, lost it, rebought, lost it, and again. I was addicted I think. Finally, I decided to actually get somewhat serious so I bought Lee Jones' book and actually started to eeke out some wins but I was still in the hole nearly a grand. Limit HE started to drive me mad so I bought Zee's book and Wilson Turbo Omaha/8 and after a while moved to that game, won back my losses and was up a couple of thousand playing $2/4 when I decided to give the PL and $10/20 games a shot. Bad idea. I was quickly back to being in the hole and ready to give Paradise a rest.

At about this time I discovered 2+2 when looking for more poker literature and a post here clued me into ACR where I was able to buyin and get a nice bonus, cashout my buy in and eventually ran that up to several thousand in profit in a few months, wiping out my Paradise losses and putting me overall in the black. Believe it or not, there actually used to be some decent ring game action at ACR.

I've used the ACR money to stake myself and bonus whore at at least 10 different sites where I've shown a profit at all except Propoker where I lost my $75 buyin and never went back and Stars where after many hours of play I've just broken even. I'm still down my initial buyin at Planet and I guess I always will be since I really don't like that site's software or the good ol' boy network I feel I'm playing in when I'm there. Now I'm splitting my time between ICP and Party/Empire (Note to Empire: it's about time for another rebuy bonus isn't it?). I still have some promobucks at ACR though and check every so often for games but that place is pretty dead right now.

Whew. More than you wanted to know I'm sure, but hand to god, that is my online-poker life story.

[Uppercut]

After winning $117 in Vegas while playing 2-4 at the Palms, and after a month of steady winning on the 3-6 play money tables at Paradise, I foolishly believed I was ready to tackle 2-4 online at Paradise. I deposited $100 and promptly lost it all in 2 hours. A week later, I deposited another $100 and moved down to 1-2. This time, it took a few days to go broke. A week later, another $100 deposit. This time, it took two weeks to go broke. (I'm really seeing improvement here!) Finally, I deposited another $100 and started playing .5-1. After about two months, I had just about made my initial losses back. Last week, I switched to Party .5-1 and have made $158 in the past 4 days. I think I finally found my comfort zone.

[MrDannimal]

I somehow came across the WPT on the Travel Channel (I'm so unique). It had to be the tourney that UB sponsored, because I ended up at UB and it must have been their hype that got me going.

Anyway, I was playing for play money for a bit, looking around, terribly worried about dropping any money into what could be a black hole. Also, couldn't deposit off credit or debit cards, and the first few options in UB's deposit area take days to get there (NetTeller, FirePay). Finally got to Citadel, which was more or less instant. Put in $200 (which is more an aspect of my paranoid bankroll-itis because I wasn't going to play more then $.01/$.02 and $200 is tremendous overkill there.

So I played, and was all kinds of happy with being up a dollar or two. Eventually, I got tired of stupid loose play and the fact that you can't make money at $.01/$.02 (not that you can't beat the games, but you're making $.25/hr). Because I'm anal about money, I put all the big poker books on my Amazon.com wishlist, and got WLLH for a birthday. I read it about 10 times, wrote out starting hand recommendations several times to help remember them, and moved to $.25/.$50. Did well there, started keeping track of stats (an excel sheet or session stats and copying the stats UB provides), and was up $100 to $300.

In time, I moved to $.50/$1 and am now dipping my feet into $1/$2. The bankroll is now $400, and I've got an additional $200 at Party (started with $100 bumped $70 through deposit bonus and TAF and $30 in winnings).

Fun times.

[TazQ]

Well, after reading a few books I took the plunge and sat in my first ever real money hold'em game at PokerStars. 3 hours later at the .02/.04 table I ended up $1.01.

Not very exciting, but hey, it was a start!

[MrGrob]

I had already hit every single online casino for their free money (no deposit needed) that year, and ended up buying mine and my wife's wedding rings with the promo's + profits. I then rented and watched Rounders (I know, I know...) and thought, "Hey, I wonder if there is an internet poker site out there somewhere?"

1st stop, and only stop for the longest time, was Paradise. I donated about 1000$ in about two years playing .50 / 1, 1/2, 2/4, 5/10. After the 1st few hundred, I figured there had to be something to this Hold'em thing that I don't know as I am getting crushed...there has to be a book or two out there, right? Well, I found them, read them, re-read them, etc, and finally, with the help of a Paradise GAME# bonus, pulled to alomst even. Then I started to play other sites, and chased some bonuses etc.

It wasn't till I got some things in my life well, that I really started to have better emotional control, and started to play better. It has been mostly all good stuff since, as I have made back 100% of EVERYTHING I invested in poker, books, chips, cards, etc, and am now turning a profit. I am stuck in the 1/2, 2/4 games right now, due to having to raid the roll, but I have had no trouble beating any site, up to the 2/4 to this point. I hope to get to the 5/10 level again soon (as I am sure some of the posters who read the FEW hands that I have ever posted do too /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[David Ottosen]

I was a total beginner to poker and a friend advised me to try out Paradise to get a feel for how the blinds and button worked prior to playing casino poker. I opened a play money account and got the hang of it. Played exclusively casino poker for a couple of years, then tried a deposit on paradise. Ran it up fast, cashed out a bunch, promptly went broke. Ended up getting down close to a K on paradise and quit playing there and went back to live games. When I went to teach english overseas, I had no choice but to try out paradise again, and played .5-1 and had made back about half my losses before I returned home. Further examination and improvements led me to win back all the losses and build an actual 2-4 bankroll until I left Paradise.

Then I responded to a post on 2+2 about jobs at PokerStars and now I'm in Costa Rica...

[happyjaypee]

My new girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) introduced me to her friends when we started dating. The guys where actually watching ROUNDERS. Just caught the end of the movie and had never saw it before. After that I played my 1st game of poker, dealers choice whit 0.25$ ante. We played Hold'em once or twice a night back then and no one had a clue. I won 25$ in that 1st game and I was hooked.

After beating there game for a full year, I somehow had a attraction to Hold'em. I was the only one calling the game from time to time. So I did a research on altavista. I was really just looking for poker articles but ended up clicing a paradise banner.

I played playmoney there for a full 3 years, building my 1,000PC to 27,000PC. By then me and my girlfriend had broke up and I lost track of the poker playing bunch.

I then came across a old friend (I had move out of town and back) and he too had played poker in dealer's choice home game. We decided to start our own home game (still dealer's choice). We then decided to try an "Hold'em only" night in a nerby pool hall where they have a nice 8 handed poker table. The game was an instant succes. We went to play four handed but 5 more persons came during the night to try it. We where playing 25c/50c NL whitout a clue how to play. Pre-flop raise were'nt even allowed! After that 1st game, we agreed to play every wednesday night at the same place. The game has been running for two years now.

I won nicely in the bigining but I wanted more. I found PokerPages and read every single article there and tryed there multi table playmoney ligue in april 2002. I finished in the top 10 that month and top 50 overall.

Then I thought I was ready for real money online...

I boought for 50$ on paradise and lost it playing 0.25/0.50 limit, toke it to 90$ but got crushed. Bought another 50$ and lost it too. I decided to play one last 50$ and, if I lost it, to never play online again...

Lost half of it...

I decided to play a 5$+1$ tourney since I did good in PokerPages tourney. I place 2nd to saved my bankroll. Played a 10$+1$ and won 2 in a row! I started to keep stats on those tourney and Played over 200 in the next 2 months. I covered my loss plus about 500$ over and bought books on Amazone whit it. I came across twoplustwo around that time over a year ago and have never looked back since.

I still play low limit 1/2 on Party or 10c/25c NL on stars. I won one 10$+1$ NL tourney whit 283 entrant (Thx Lori for cheering me on that one) and got runner up in the CCOOP (Canadian Championship Of Online Poker). I now have reach 9,500$ in net winning (close to 13,000$cnd) in 22 months, enought to clear half my scholarship depth. If everything goes right, I'll have cleared my depth by march and I may be able to buy myself a car next spring. I'm gonna place a stickier on the rear bumper that reads "[censored] Happens" /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Wow, I just wrote a book.. hehe, well that's my story

Thanks for bearing whit me


-Happy



PS: Pls don't be hard on me about grammar errors, english is my 2nd language.

[MaqEvil]

Well, last December, I had been skimming RGP, and mentioned in our home game some of the things that I had read about on the net. One of the people there asked me if I played online. I said no, but wondered why not? A few days later, I checked out a few poker sites and played for play money. This was pretty boring, and I soon found freerolls. I downloaded any site with freerolls that you could win cash from. The first week, I got in the top 9 in a pokerstars freeroll and moved to round 2, where I won a big $10. I must have gotten real lucky here, as these tourneys were huge. I promply lost that money.

A week or so later, I won $20 in PBs on ACR and lost that before I could get their $25 PB bonus for playing 200 .25/50 hands on certain days of the week. Then, a couple weeks later, I won $50 on ACR and told myself that I wouldnt lose it before getting that bonus. With the large bankroll infusion from ACR's PBs, I was able to survive and read some books, and actually won some money at the microlimits. From there, I moved up on limits, and eventually on to other, fishier sites, growing a sizable roll.