Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

I am just curious as to when people started playing poker and how it affected their decisions.

I see that a lot of people here are in university or started at that time - I think that is a great time to start, as long as you are responsible in your time and money management.

My situation is that I am 32, married with no kids (yet!) and a house with a small mortgage. I have a well paying job that I enjoy and my wife is currently working as well.

I am just making my first online deposit - and it is going to be for a whopping $100USD. I am going to start at the .10/.20 tables for now and move up as my bankroll allows.

For me to take a larger portion of my income for poker at this point would be irresponsible and unfair to my spouse. I also recognize that poker is a marathon, not a sprint. Even if it takes me 10 years to move up to limits where I can reasonably supplement my income in any meaningful way with poker, that should still give me many years of enjoying the fruits of my labour.

I would be interested to hear how other people handled this situation and how they looked at it when they got started.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

My father was a degenrate gambler with many "friends" in the same boat. They would have a 1-3 stud game every friday night (this is in the 70's), and when I turned 13, they invited me to join. Actually, I begged them, cause I had been making a killing with the neighborhood kids playing .25/.50 stud, and figured I could rape the 1-3 game.
Rape it I did and after a few weeks, I was "uninvited" to the game.

I joined the service after high school and made more money playing poker than my base pay every month.

Now I play 80% online and 20% B&M and live very comfortably.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Hey Hank,

I'm 31 with a wife and a 10 month old kiddo. I've been playing for around six years now.

I think your plan is a very good one. If you goal is to have a good time, then have a go at the micro-limits. You have a job, and poker should be fun. Poker is far from fun when you lose money you can't lose.

When I started playing, I was that post-college kid. I studied pretty hard and enjoyed playing and talking about the game. I could afford to dump a lot of time and money into it. And actually, I didn't have a choice. There was no such thing as a .10-.20 game six years ago. I think that it's vital to define what you want from the game. Playing for fun is a very different proposition than playing for money or competition or to get better at something.

At this point, I play for competition and the challenge of learning then I do for anything else. I can't get hung up on the money because poker really should have zero effect on my family's financial situation. Because of this I'm very strict about my bankroll.

In any case, it sounds like you are being very responsible.

Good luck to you,
Marlow

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

[ QUOTE ]
In any case, it sounds like you are being very responsible.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I must admit that it would be tough to support a high priced poker habit, what with all the crack and whores I spend my money on.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Hank,

Your start up situ and style mirror my own quite closely (read: I like your plan). I went in with the very cautious attitude, "how much am I willing to spend on my new hobby". To which the answer was $300 initial deposit, plus $50 p/month thereafter, or equivalent. Starting off at 0.5/1 (after a couple hundred hands at the super-micro limits to get my hand in). I knew poker was a beatable skill game, but I didn't want to prejudge my own abilities. I've since taken out the symbolic $300 (never had to add to it) and now play on winnings alone - so every time I find myself down I console myself with the thought that it's money I wouldn't have had if I didn't play poker.

If like me you end up playing less than 5k hands a month, be warned that bad runs can seem to last a long time.

Good luck with the plan. And don't forget to get bonus whoring!

RH

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

I started with $12 of "their" money and my goal was never to invest any of mine other than in books. At .02/.04, it took quite a long time to move up, even to .10/.20...about 4 months of part time playing. After a year, though, I'm safely bankrolled for $3/$6.

The nice thing, I think, about being conservative in your approach is that you never have to "kick" yourself (or have someone else kick you) if you lose it all. Also, and equally as important, I think I learned a lot at the low, loose levels and the experiences I got there paid off as I played progressively higher. I know that $3/$6 is no big thing, but it was my goal and that makes it big for me.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Hank, I had an interesting start to B&M poker. I had played for years for fun, but then my wife got a job in Phoenix Arizona and we had to move. I gave up my jobs, packed up the house and made the run.

I was 30, two boys (from a previous marriage) and alone in Phoenix. I decided to focus on my advanced degree while there. We had a small condo and were meeting our expenses, but we were eating ramen more than I had been accustomed to.

I had always done relatively well at BlackJack, playing correct at least. I started out playing blackjack and winning about 100-200 weekly playing $5.00 blackjack, but my stake was always at test. A man there realized I was playing great black jack and realized I had a knack for knowing what cards should be coming.

He introduced me to casino hold em games and I was hooked. Interestingly, I had no idea the forums or books were out there at the time and I learned a lot of rough lessons (increasing the ramen dinners again) but ended up making more that year than I had while working in Salt Lake, where we lived prior.

Well, we have moved back to Salt Lake and there are no casino's here, so I am making the first foray into online poker as well. I am trying to find the right "balance" between family, job and poker. I am VERY fortunate becasue my wife is so supportive of my poker play. she managed our finances while down in Phoenix and kept me on a pretty tight bakroll, knowing what others are playing with now.

I wish you the best of luck and hope to see you accross the felt sometime.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Got high, got bored, watched 'Rounders', got pumped to play poker.

For fun at first, so I dumped a whole lot of money there then I decided I wanted to win and I started playing competitively. Started at .25/.50 with $50 (I didn't know better). Did some reading and now I at 1/2 with a good bankroll and trying to build a database of 100k hands to spot any leaks.

I started a year ago when I was 17.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

I'm 37, married (no kids, yet) and I started playing about a year ago in a small B&M near my home. I did about break even for the first couple months or so I went to Vegas and played and lost my a$$! Well, that's all it took to get the OCD side of me going. Read several books, started playing online at the micros, and I'm seeing my game slowly turning around. I'm not looking to get rich quick, don't really have any lofty aspirations of big tourney wins (I prefer ring games), but most importantly I'm having a blast learning an extremely challenging game that'll take me many, many years to learn well.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Hank.....

I am an almost-51 year old woman.....now single, no kids....who started playing in February this year with $100 on Pacific. I took a four day weekend over President's day. I had done a lot of reading and study prior, had a good starting hands chart, so I played .25/.50. Made $125 that first 4-day weekend. Yeah....started with a bang!

As of now, I am playing 1/2. Tried it Memorial Day weekend and over the next few weeks dropped 125BB's and dropped back to .50/1.00 to work on my game and rebuild. Now giving it a shot again and having modest success.

What is interesting is how much I have made this year....$2400. There is $1000 in my bankroll, and I have cashed out $1400. I wanted to enjoy some fruits of my labors [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] and took out $500 last month to cover some car repairs. Hated that, [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img], but glad the money was there.

How did I do it? Bonuses.

In the beginning you won't have enough to successfully chase. Once you get the BR up to $200 you can take advantage of the Granny Mae Paradise bonus. Believe there is a link in the classifieds. Once the BR hits $500, there are a lot of places you can chase at. Research the forums here for advice, check out the Bonus Whores web site, and take advantage of what is out there.

Good luck to you!

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

my dad started playing and said i should give it a try 6 months ago..we both like to play games and used to play a lot of large Magic the Gathering tournies together...since then Im up $7000. Read a few books and once you realize how dumb a lot of the low limit players are you will be up to 3/6 in no time.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

I'm right in the bag with the university crowd. I started less than a year ago when a friend put me on to pokerstars. I played play money for months and eventually started playing for cold, slimy cash eventually. I play break even poker mostly with some large tourney payouts putting me in the red. I liked what you said about you don't care if it takes ten years to move up in limits. I don't think that way but maybe I should. I'm always eager to try the higher limits.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

I killed the informal games in college but did not play again for over 20 years.

a year or so ago, at age 46, I watched TV, read a book, bought in $100 and ran up to $250 immediately playing .5/1 and decided I should turn pro...

Of course I then went broke. Read everything I could find, played play money, played the Turbo software, and bought in again. I then fluctuated for awhile, but began to win modestly but steadily.

I bought Poker Tracker and a poker library from my winnings and used player view (it was free then, and still is for use on a single table). I played 1/2 very briefly while watching a lot of 2/4 (loading observed hands in Poker Tracker) and reading this forum. I then moved into 2/4, then started multi-tabling.

Ive been very cautions with my bankroll. I presently have $4200 after paying for software and books from my bankroll and playing a few hours a week, and am still only cautiously moving out into 3/6. This is probably more careful than you should be, but I, like yourself, intended to never have to put any more money into the game after that second buy-in.

What helped me most:
Poker Tracker is an absolute must.
TABLE SELECTION AND RELATIVE POSITION ARE PROBABLY AS IMPORTANT AS YOUR ABILITY.
Player View is extremely useful once you start multi-tabling.

Reading: Small Stakes Holdem, Holdem For Advanced Players, Theory of Poker (all by Sklansky with collaborators).
All excellent.
Lee Jones and Lou Krieger: their books have some useful material, but they basically reinforced my early (and recurring) weak-tight tendencies.
Phil Hellmuth: awful trash. 300+ pages of "aint I great?"
Ken Warren: utterly useless, other than a nice section of odds and probability in "Ken Warren Teaches Texas Holdem".

The new book by King Yao is also superb.
I have never read super System, so cant comment.

Learn something besides holdem. I am horrible at stud, so I tried Omaha high-low and there are more crossover insights than you might think, and it is a great change of pace.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

ya..ken warrens book is a piece of [censored]. There are a considerable ammount of probability errors too. I dont know how that one got published.

Anything by slansky/malmuth will do the trick.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

First off, Interesting topic!

I'm 40, single.

I started poker a year ago. I knew very little if anything about the game. I didn't know about the concept of bankroll. Load up 50, lose 50, load up 50, lose 50.

I was spending money I shouldnt have been spending. I'm figuring I lost A LOT that first 6 months. I stopped playing for awhile. I read books. Found these forums and switched from limit games to SNGs. I put in 500 bucks in my bankroll. moved down to the party 11s. I've been doing moderately well ever since. I've cashed out about 300 bucks for personal reasons. My game is getting better and I'm making small cash. If I can get my bankroll up to 30 buy ins for the 20's I'll move up [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Don't make the mistake that I made. I started out at micro limit holdem and moved up very rapidly. One day I found myself looking at a $500 loss in 2 hours playing no limit. That was truly horrifying to me and I started to think I was a compulsive gambler even though I never gambled before I started playing poker and I am in my 30's. I quit gambling completely, told my friends about what happened, and we all decided that I just got in over my head and there is a chance that I was a victim of collusion. After a 3 month break I started playing again at low limits B&M and won steadily for 3 months. Then I took some of that money and started playing low limits at a different online site that I think has a lot of security features to keep the amount of cheating low.

I have 3 warnings:

1. Track your performance even if its a piddling amount of money.
2. stay at low limits well beyond the time that you think you are ready to move up.
3. be very conscious of table selection. Even at low limits it is possible to run into very good players and/or collusion.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Started the game at 15.

Learned the game at 16.

I was always astounded at how crappy people played when I was in college and at home games. Truth is, I was not that good either. I got good later, along with the rest f the universe.

I prefer B+M to online, but play quite a bit online, NL only and seldom in tournaments.

After three decades, when has it been most enjoyable? Definitely now. I have the money to play at the limits where the skill level is very good, so it's a rush. And...if I get crushed in a session, it's meaningless. When was I best at the game? Definitely now. Experience really does count even if you do have a Stu Unger IQ at age 18. The younger guys are definitely better in the longer sessions. Stay in shape if you are going to park your butt in a B+M game for any length of time.

Now that I've seen what Doyle can do, I'm looking forward to retirement.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

Hi Hank. Interesting post, I had a good time reading the various responses.

I'm 30 now and single. When i was 18 I worked at charity casinos here in Toronto. It was such a great time. Met a ton of great people and generally had a lot of fun working there. We would also get a bunch of our coworkers after work and play home games. Unlike the home games today, everyone we played with were either dealers or regular players from the casino so everyone was pretty experienced.
I also met some "pros" at the time who confessed to me that this was what they did for a living, playing poker. At that time all I could think about was what a pathetic existence. It's funny how things have changed for me now.

I've always been pretty good at gambling and at that time I've already understood the concept of money management by figuring out myself. I was good at math and always like strategy games.

At about 19 or so I use to hit the underground clubs quite a bit and was starting to get quite a reputation for myself, I was constantly winning. I spent a lot of my time there. Of course, my grades started to suffer. I remembered being in class at university and I just couldn't concentrate because all I could think about was poker. I started missing a lot of classes because I was always at the clubs.

All my life I was an honour roll student and now for the first time I'm failing a lot of my classes. I hated where my life was heading because I felt like I was addicted to poker. I was making quite a bit of money at the time though but all this didn't seem to matter.

It was soon after that I met the love of my life. There was something different about this girl than the other girls I've dated in the past. I was really in love for the first time and finally knew what being "in love" really meant. I gave up on poker and spent every waking hour with her. This really was the best time of my life as it gave me a new focus.

Flash forward a few years and I've jumped back into poker, only this time it's online. I'm quite dissallusioned with my job and I hate the "real world". I'm also quite lazy, I've never found much passion in anything except for poker to this day.

I have made up my mind and will definately walk away from my job within the next 2 years or sooner to go pro. I am currrently multitabling the 30/60. I'm playing a lot smaller stakes than my bankroll will allow but I'm very risk adversed.

I can't wait to start the next chapter in my life, because I do want to go pro and just start travelling and doing the things that I want to do. I see the next two years as really saving for the future.

Re: Starting Poker at Different Stages of Life
 

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Now that I've seen what Doyle can do, I'm looking forward to retirement.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me too, though I estimate you will have an 8-10 year head start on me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]