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I have been playing poker in home games for over ten years and recently started playing and crushing the local B&M $2/$4 limit. I had never played online and was kind of leery. I started out in February of 2004 with a $100 deposit at Paradise to play the .5/$1 limit games. Well within my first two weeks I lost most of it-including something dumb I did. I sat at a .25/.50 PLO table with $40 and no Omaha experience. Lost the whole $40 with the second best full house.

I was literally down to my last $4 and pretty much ready to give up online. I noticed that Paradise had .01/.02 NL tables with a $2 max-buy in. I figured this would be a good way to play the game they showed on TV, and these small stakes were pretty menaingless. I took what what was left of my online bankroll and sat at two $2 tables and had a VERY lucky session and now I had $12 after just a few short hours of play. I played .01/.02 and some $5 SNG's and after two months of play I had surpassed my initial deposit and actually had $200 in my account. That's when I moved up to .05/.10 NL. I played there until I had $500 and then I took a shot at .10/.25 NL. I had a rocky start but eventually managed to make some money. I took a shot at .25/.50 but decided to move back down after losing $46 on a semi-bluff where I flopped an open ended straigh flush draw against a flopped set. We got all-in on the flop and none of my outs ever came. Right after that I withdrew my initial deposit-so basically I was freerolling on other peoples money. I now have about $1100 and I'm planning on taking another shot at the .25/.50 NL games when my balance reaches $1250 (25 buy-ins).

I feel I'm a good enough player to probably beat the .5/$1 or even the $1/$2 but I feel better working my way up in limits. I have a good job and I could certainly afford to take a shot at the bigger games, but my goal is to get there and not have to use any of my own money.

My goal for 2005 is to build enough bankroll to start playing the .5/$1 NL games online.