How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

Successful being at least winning money overall. How much did it cost you too? Any interesting stories?

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

About 2 hours. I've cashed out and redeposited for bonus purposes many times, but my initial $50 is now in the range of $3,000, although I've famously never spent a dime of my poker winnings (it's just sitting in my bank account).

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I broke even for the first few hours, and have been ahead every since.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

not to sound cocky, but pretty much since i started. like i always say "i'm not that good, but they're so much worse."

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I burned about $1000 when I first started playing about about two years ago. I read Hellmuth's book (btw, burn in hell Hellmuth), put in $100 at Paradise, ran hot for the first 500 hands or so, and thought I was God's gift to poker. Then I lost it all redeposited. And redeposited. And redeposited.

Took a break, played off and on for awhile, then decided at the beginning of this year to figure poker out. Discovered these boards and SSHE, worked my way up from .25/.50 and now I'm beating 2/4 for 2.5BB/100 and looking to move to 3/6 when I get 15k hands under my belt (although I'm bankrolled for 5/10--woo hoo!)

It takes time and an almost single-minded discipline to get good at this game. But it's worth it.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I broke even for the first few hours, and have been ahead every since.

[/ QUOTE ]

I won @ the .5/1 after I read SSH and got poker tracker. Before that I dropped $50 like a hot rock.

I just took a major beating at .5/1 of over 100BB. I am pretty sure it was just variance (some marginal play, but I am confident my win rate at that limit is 2+bb/100 with that same marginal play).

If i had been cold decked so hard when I started, I wouldn't still play.

So profitable from the word go is possible, but variance could wipe out anyones first 50BB deposit.

You need at least 10K hands, and better yet 50K to say if you are profitable or just on a hot streak for sure.

-D

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

[ QUOTE ]
not to sound cocky, but pretty much since i started. like i always say "i'm not that good, but they're so much worse."

[/ QUOTE ]

word.

same for me, though I got plenty of practice playing unhuman amounts of limit play money [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] (to be fair, as soon as I turned 18, I started real)

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
not to sound cocky, but pretty much since i started. like i always say "i'm not that good, but they're so much worse."

[/ QUOTE ]

word.

same for me, though I got plenty of practice playing unhuman amounts of limit play money [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] (to be fair, as soon as I turned 18, I started real)

[/ QUOTE ]

I did the play money thing, too. I'm naturally very risk averse, so I wanted to make damn sure that poker was a winning proposition before I played for real money.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I read Hellmuth's book (btw, burn in hell Hellmuth), put in $100 at Paradise, ran hot for the first 500 hands or so, and thought I was God's gift to poker. Then I lost it all redeposited. And redeposited. And redeposited.


[/ QUOTE ] Heh I know what that feels like, I bought Hellmuth's book too and took a beating at 1/2, lost $100 of a $200 deposit after I stopped running hot. Stopped playing, bought Lee Jones' book, won my money back, and have been slowly improving ever since. SSHE is probably the best investment I made for my poker game.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

assuming that now I am playing winning poker (I suspect that I am, 14k hands in at .5/1 running at 2.7 BB/100), it took me about a year to do it. And it wasn't easy.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I read Lee Jones book, which I borrowed from a friend, before I played my first hand of holdem on the internet about two years ago. My first year I played very rarely, and broke even (thanks to bonii). After that I became more serious, improved my game, and started winning a little.

It takes some time. For me it took a long time because I didn't play a lot. Play many hours, and play conservatively, until you start to understand what you are doing. And keep one thing in mind: everyone says you should play tightly, and you should. On these forums, as well as in SSH, there are recommendations which are less tight, and therefore appealing to a beginner, since the natural inclination is to play many hands, but these recommendations are made with the assumption that you are a good, experienced player. Until your postflop game is up to scratch, you have to be tighter to avoid losing money.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I also bought Hellmuth's book first. It's a very good book if you're interested in learning about Phil Hellmuth.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I took $60 and started playing on planet poker about 1 1/2 yrs ago. I started playing .05-.10 NL and am now playing $1-2 limit. My initial bankroll grew from the $60 to now over $6,000. I have decided to keep this is a hobby and pulled money out of my account leaving only $2000. I have been making about 500-600 month. Opted to stay at this level because when I looked at the variances I decided I didnt want to deal with them at higher levels. At the $1-2 level I recall one time loosing $500 in a couple days. At the 2-4 that would be $1,000 and 5-10 up to 2,500. In order to make any real money I would venture to say you need to be palying either $10-20 or $15-30 limit. So guess what that variance would have been... $5,000 - 7500. I couldnt deal with loosing that kind of money so..... here I am enjoying the game as a hobby making a few hundred a month.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I first started playing in little home games at my fraternity and did well so I decided to take a shot with online poker. I started up at Royal Vegas because I was sucked into their College Poker Championship. I ended up placing third in the first qualifying tournament that I played in, and thought I was God's gift. I made my first real money deposit soon after (at Royal Vegas because I was obviously soooo much better than everyone else on that site) and after running that hundred dollars up to $280 in one month I played break-even poker over the next year while (now I realize) having no idea what the hell I was doing.

I had a cake semester in Fall '04 which lead to entirely too much drinking which was unhealthy for both myself and my bankroll. I'd play, lose my money, swear, and redeposit. I dropped probably $400 my last semester of college, which was alot of coin for this college kid.
A
fter I graduated I decided I wanted to play better and only when completely sober. I've lurked here at 2+2 (one of these days I will become a much more active participant) since early 2005, discovered SSH, and have worked my way up from .25/.50 to $2/$4 in the past half a year.

That's my story. Anyone who wants to put in a little effort, read some books, and (hopefully) participate in these forums will play winning poker. I am proof of that.

Thanks to everyone who posts here; you guys really do make all the difference in the world for guys like me who are looking to learn. Your efforts are really appreciated.

Re: How much time did it take you to become successful?
 

I've never been in the red, and never had to refill a bankroll because I busted out. I'm currently +200 after 14000 hands of serious playing at realistic limits (.50/1)