[droolie]

My goal is to be able to pay for daycare for my two children off poker earnings. This will mean cashing out roughly $1200/ month. I have no idea what limit or game for that matter this will have me playing but that's my goal. Lofty but I think achievable if I get good enough.

I've been playing cards my entire life. My family is a card playing family. Cribbage is my favorite game and I've literally been playing since I learned to add and subtract in first grade. I went to prep school in high school and played tons of card with my friends in the dorms. Spades, hearts and cribbage mostly. I tell you this because I think it has helped my poker game to be a card player in general. All those games help with poker because you begin to learn to read tendencies and tells of you opponents. The, "He knows I know he knows I know this about his game," thinking is second nature. I hope this will help as I go up in limits and see more of the same players all the time.

I started playing online poker early this summer. I had never played hold'em before but fell in love with the no limit game on TV. The idea that you could get rich playing cards was very intriguing. I quickly realized that the way to poker stardom was to start at micro limits online.

I followed Chris Moneymaker to Pokerstars and after playing a few thousand free and .05/.1, played roughly 25,000 hands at the .25/.50 building an original $50 deposit into $400 or so. My wife has hated this project all along and I had to promise her that after the initial $50 deposit I would never deposit money from our account into the poker account again. I had one chance and thankfully I didn't blow it. I think this ultimatum has affected my play and my progress as I am very conservative due to fear of busting out.

I moved to Party Poker in early September and logged 13,000+ hands at 7.24BB/100. I felt like I was not running hot with good cards but running hot with good tables. I was coming up against terrible players so regularly that the cards didn't matter. I only had one downswing of over 100BB during that time and the rest of the way showed steady progress. I earned 980BB at .50/1 and with bonus whoring cashed out a total of $1000 to keep my wife happy and make some home improvements. I don't include any of my bonus whoring in my bankroll as I don't think it counts as won $$. I withdraw all bonuses and evaluate my bankroll progress on its own merits.

I recently moved up to 1/2 and through 2300+ hands I'm up 100BB and am winning at a 4.34BB/100 clip. I want to play 10,000+ hands at this level and if I'm still winning and have at least 400BB's I'll move up to 2/4.

There are three primary reasons why I feel my game has improved...

1) Reading poker books. I started getting good enough to beat .25/5 at pokerstars after reading Lee Jones WLLH. I read a slew of other books but the most important one was without question SSH. I went through a long breakeven phase at .25/5 while learning the concepts outlined in that book adjusting from the "I'm looking for a reason to dump this hand" Lee Jones mentality to the, "the pot is big how can I win it?" Miller philosophy. Without those books I'd still be a VP$IP of over 30% playing .25/50 at Pokerstars.

2)Radek dragging me to this messageboard here after a particularly troubling pokerstars session we were both at. (thx dude) He dropped the brown trout line and I had no idea what it meant. I had been 2+2 a few times thanks to the inviatation on the back cover of SSH but wasn't that into the messageboard. People seemed rude and hostile. When Radek dropped the trout line I figured it was a code so I googled it and 2+2 came up I figured it out. I said "2+2?" in the dialogue and he PM'd me here. I haven't left since. This messageboard has been invaluable to me. Almost everything I am as a poker player right now is thanks to the ideas and posts of the other members here. I still have tons to learn and my game is growing every week. It's very exciting. I really want to thank all of you guys who have challenged me and made me think. Hopefully I can pay it forward to the next generation of 2+2ers.

3) Poker Tracker. This tool is so powerful I can't begin to describe how great it is now that I feel like I'm getting the most out of it. It really feels like cheating! Being able to scout my opponents before moving up to 1/2 helped my confidence immeasurably. I now open tables an hour or so before playing so I have good stats on the tables I'm considering playing. 1/2 is tougher than .50/1 but there are still many bad players there. If you think you're good but are intimidated that the competition is too good for you, dont be. Get a good BR and get in there!

As of today my initial $50 stake has grown into $1800 in earnings through winning and mild whoring. I feel like I'm understanding the game better everyday and can't wait to see where this journey takes me. WPT? Divorce court? Who knows...