[yabastid]

I was thinking of making this same post these last couple of days- so, thanks.

I started playing poker almost exactly a year ago and I was a hellacious donk. I knew nothing of position, pot odds, blind stealing, implied odds, resteals, situations>cards, bubble play, identifying draw heavy boards, putting opponents on ranges, etc. I saw my two cards and that was it. When I first started playing (cash games no less) I thought it was appropriate to call PF with pretty much any 2 because "you never know what could happen on the flop." I thought aces were just another pair and would often just call with them. I thought it best to be be deceptive checking my set or flopped straight to river hoping to spring a big "trap" and didn't understand how I could possibly lose to a bigger set/straight or to a flush/fullhouse (what free cards? [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]). I was "dead money" as one player at a table called me- I was given winning hands as a function of clicking "call" but never manufactured a winning hand. So one day I found TPFAP and then 2+2 on March 5, '05. MLG was kind enough to guide me along in the early days, often taking time to answer what were, no doubt, trivially easy posts (Thank you, MLG, for all your patience, sir!). I had invested just under 3K before finding 2+2. Today in my 3 accounts (UB, Party and Stars) I total just about 9.8K. I play almost entirely SnG's and MTT's and I am very risk averse. I have a wife, a new born son, a full time job, and own an apartment in NYC (oh, how I wish I was 22 again!) so any tourney with a buyin higher than $22 stresses me out a bit. I do plan on stepping it up after the New Year. I still suck at poker, but not with the same voracity as before. I'm still a donk, but sometimes I can find a bigger donk than me at the table. I still loose a lot, but I can go back and usually understand how.

These boards are why I now show a profit for the year and I thank all of you for that.