My story (my turn)

[fireman664]

I have enjoyed reading everyones story's so much, that I thought maybe someone would draw some interest from mine.

It started for me about 2 years ago. I am on a major midwestern city's fire department, and was at a busy station looking to kill some time on a friday night (this house is rather busy, and we usually dont get much sleep on a weekend in the summer). I got on a computer, and ran accross Empire Poker (somehow). I kinda dabled in the play money games to kill some time, and figured that was that. A few days later the WPT was on tv, and a few of us got into a heated discussion about whether it was luck or skill. I decided then that poker could be profitable if people really believed there was no skill involved. The next day I bought HFAP (still hadnt played online, but I did know the basics of the game)

I read, then re-read that book....and realized I didnt understand a thing. I knew what I was missing was the experience to understand alot of the concepts. So I deposited $300 at Empire and jumped in. It wasnt long until I had the bankroll to play $3-$6, mainly because I played tight....and the deck hit me in the face for about a month. you all know how it goes, when you are winning consistently you feel like you cant loose...like its easy.
Well I decided to cashout most of it to take the wife on a trip. Needless to say I have made this mistake a few times. I come back, dont have near the bankroll left to play my limit....then go broke. At this point I really wasnt working on my game. I would get a new book every now and then....and lurk here, but never really put alot of time into it other than playing.

If you dont know a firefighters schedule, we work 24 hours on duty, then have 48 hours off. We also get a "kelly" day, which is a free day off every 3 weeks (which actually gives us 5 days off) this schedule lends itself perfectly to poker for a part time job. Unfortunatly, as I said, I didnt commit myself to really "learning" the game. I did ok the first year...the extra money was great, and we used it for fun stuff...but never really needed it for anything. That is why on several occasions I cashed most (if not all) of it out to buy tv's, furniture...ect. (I feel like frank the tank from "old school" with the furniture thing)

Well fast foreward to this April. I had decided to pick up a 12 hour shift of overtime on a beautiful friday (first really nice day so far). The day had been real uneventfull, and other than a good 6 mile run (if there is such a thing), we hadnt done sh**. I was about 2 hours away from getting relieved when we got a fire run.

Pulling out of the staion we could see it was a "working incident". It was a typical double residence fire...not much to it. Until things kinda went wrong quickly. To make a long story short I had to jump off the roof to the street below (wearing about 90#'s of gear) Needless to say, I bounced!

I F#@*ed up both feet....luckily that was all (just 2 months before 5 FDNY guys jumped out a 5th story window, and 3 of them died.....so really I got lucky) Anyhow, I had surgery on my right foot, and was expected to be down for about 3 months. No driving, or walking...just me and.........POKER. I decided to devote myself to learning the game. I figured I had 2 years of self teaching/experience under my belt, and that it was time to take a serious shot at actually looking to poker as a sort of part time job.

So far the experience has been great....I have had ups and downs (as I have over the last 2 years), but my understanding of the game has changed immensly in these last couple of months. I have had poker tracker for a couple years now, so I was pretty sure comming into this that I was a winning player, but now I have know doubt. I also feel I can get better, and have a real shot at moving up limits.

Which is good, because with the extra time on my hands, I have managed to knock up my wife [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] This will be our first! She is a teacher, and does not get paid maternity leave......so in comes poker!! atleast that is the goal, and she is more than happy. Right now the plan is to not depend on poker as a steady replacement income, but to save poker earnings until she takes time off...then she will become a stay at home mom until poker no longer provides enough income (along with 9 months of poker savings) My goal is just $2000 a month (since this is close enough to a teachers bring home pay) I think this is very managable (even at $3-$6)

This puts some pressure on me....but I am excited. I need to work on playing more, and sticking to a schedule. She has agreed to let me play more during peak hours and such...so this will help. I also want to move up limits in the next 9 months....but we will see.

Anyhow, that is sorta my story (everyone's got one) Hope I didnt bore you too much

FWIW, I took my first steps this week in over 2 months...so I am on the mend...unfortunatly I have another surgery in the near future, so I cant totaly loose the crutches yet [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]