From RIGGED to somewhat educated

After being a lurker for some time, I felt it was time to loose my virginity(first post on any forum).

I like many started playing poker because of ESPN airings between 1-2am the 02' wsop. My friends and I would play some highstakes $25 freeze-outs. I won atleast 75% of the time and decided to go big time.

I opened an online account and deposited $200. Started off playing 2/4L and was soon up $200. Moved up to 5/10L and was up around $500. Closing in on $1000 moved up to 20/40L. A day later was playing 50/100L and winning $1500 pots.

Within a month of opening an account I was up almost $10,000. It was amazing to my girlfriend and I how easy poker was. I had a six figure job, but coming home and making a couple grand playing poker online for a hour or so was a perfect supplemented income no matter what you earn.

At this time I was nervous about actually seeing real money and went through cashing out $8000. Two days later confirmed what an amazing thing online poker was.

Before playing online I would play live tournaments at our local dog track and indian casino and was consistently in the money. Vegas maybe twice a year and did decent. All good and fun but nothing compared to online.

So now I have cashed out and have $2000 left and all the confidence in the world. Time for N/L. I won't bother with the kiddie 1/2, I'll play 10/20. One hour later I'm down to $1000. Bad luck, I'll play tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and I'm at ZERO with a broken mouse. How can I be so unlucky with my skill and experience? During the next month I lost most if not all the money I originally won. I changed screen names atleast 5 times. I knew it was because I cashed out and no other reason. They were out to get me however they could.

Thats when I found this site. My first searches... online poker rigged, online cheating, cashout curse. I could totally sympathize with all OP's. It killed me that every one was flamed. "Anyone that disagrees must be cheating with the site" I thought. I stopped playing online, I couldn't stand being cheated.

I was always on this site looking and studing any conspiracy theory. All the supposed educational stuff was nonsense. What does skill matter if the site is going to screw you.

Still playing live, I went out to Vegas to play in some WPT preliminaries. It was there I was befriended by a known pro. He pounded into my head what a different game online was and that I needed to read as much strategy as I could, buy online books, and get pokertracker.

It took a good 6 months of still loosing my butt, but the more I came here the more I realized how ignorant I originally was. Present day...although still green with alot more to learn, I am becoming a consistant winner. The hardest thing for me to learn was the earning rate. Because of my profession, my expectations were so high and therefor I pushed hands way to hard and was always out of position with trouble hands.

I guess my reason for this long winded post is to say Thank You to all of the knowledgeable people who contribute on this site. The insight that some allow us to see along with pokertracker is indispensable. Ignorance allows people to put blame on anything but themselves. Most of us are ignorant at some point, but the smart ones learn from it.

Looking back, if anything was rigged, it was how good my cards were. I still laugh how I got up so much, so fast playing way outside my limits.

One things for sure, I'm glad I never had the balls to post some of the conspiracies I had. Some of the poker sites would have hired at hitman for me.

cg04