My story ( LONG)

[bruin]

***I reference to the money I've made in here but I really haven't made that much relative to any of the posters here. My profits are really beside the point in this instance. I wrote this in about 45 minutes or so with minimal editing so go easy on me.


It all started a little over a year ago. My friends and I had seen the World Series of Poker on ESPN and we wanted in on the game called Texas Hold 'Em. We started having poker nights once a week or so. I was god-awful. I just couldn't win no matter what I did. Of course, I thought I was God's gift to the poker world but I was absolutely horrible; I simply didn't know what I was doing.

Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I've always had gamble in me. I've bet on horses, sports, and even on my friends SAT I score (he won with a 690 on the math section). Sure, all of the stuff I had done in the past was weak (five dollars at the most), but I've always had gamble.

After a few months of losing at our weekly poker game where the buy ins were just a few dollars, I decided to make a change. I went to the library and looked up the books they had on poker (thank god for tax-payers dollars, huh?). I started reading about hand selection, pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds, protecting my hand, bluffing, pot equity, folding equity. It all went over my head.

I did take a few things from my foray into the Public Library: to win at poker, you must play tight. So, at our next few poker games I started to play noticeably tighter. The results didn't show. I seemed to always go all-in when I had the best hand, but my opponent would always luck out on me or put a "bad beat" on me, to use the lingo. I continued to lose for the most part.

Then, while I was at Borders for whatever reason, I found the Super System by the legendary Doyle Brunson. I was changed. I realized that poker and especially No Limit Hold 'Em didn't matter about what cards you held, it mattered about what cards your opponent had. If he was weak, you could push him off his hand regardless of what you had. No limit hold em was a game of agression.

I was enthralled with this bit of advice. I immediately tried my new "aggressive" style on my friends and I saw immediate results. I won the first time employing my new style. As time wore on, I got better and better. I thought about poker hands. "Should I have folded getting 2.5-1 odds on the turn?" "What could that 1/2 pot sized bet on the flop mean?"

I was becoming confident. I tned to be a pretty cocky person especially when I'm actually good at something, and I thought I was a badass at the poker table as far as I was concerned. If anyone beat me, they just got lucky. I played up until the end of the school year with mixed results: I definitely started to see an increase in my wins and profits, but I had been cheated out of a good shot at a 100 dollar tourney pot during Spring Break (myself and others know this for a fact), so it all wasn't that great.

Then came the two days that still haunt me. It was the day after the last day of school. My friend (who will go unnamed) had become a regular at Morongo, telling me of the easy money that he made there week after week. I decided to take a trip down with him and two other friends. We were stuck in a traffic jam all the way there which proved to be an omen of some sort. When we got to the casino, we signed up for the 2/4 game that was open. This was great. I was going to finally feel what it was like to play some real poker. Boy, was I wrong. 2/4 at Morongo is a fairly simple game. The game is loose, and full of fish (bad players, or the feeders as we refer to in the business), but you must have a hand that is capable of showing down. Pot after pot, I lost. If i had top pair, my opponet had a set (three of a kind). I flopped a flush and was stung by a rivered Full House after I had gotten all my money in on the turn. You can be the best player in the world and still lose in a single session if you're running bad. I was running bad.

I was panicking. I hadn't ever lost money like this before. Then, a lady cop came near me and starting standing over me. I was uncomfortable with her presence but didn't think much of it. Then, she tapped me on the shoulder.

[censored].

I knew I was done. She asked me for my ID, and I couldn't choke up anything more than "I don't have one."

"You'll have to leave," she said.

I nodded quickly, grabbed the chips I had (about 50 dollars from my original 100 dollar buy in) and left. My friends were still in the poker room and I decided I'd just leave, go to the Cabazon outlets and call them up after they were done. Then, the bomb dropped.

"Who came with you? If you don't want to cooperate, we're just fine with calling in the deputy sheriff."

My heart dropped. I was going to have to go around the poker room, get all three of my friends and tell them that we had to go. I was sick. On top of losing 50 dollars, I had to embarass myself in front of the whole casino. I felt like a donkey, and I was.

The very next day, things didn't get much better. It was my friends graduation party, and we decided to play Blackjack. Being the brave soul that I am, volunteered to be dealer. I went on to lose 60 dollars dealing low limit Blackjack. For one streak I probably busted on 9 out of 10 hands. I was crushed. I didn't know what to do. I had just blown all the money I had. My friends who had taken my money, felt bad for me. I was at rock bottom.

I decided that I needed to get a job. I was done with gambling, or at least I thought so. I got a job at Fuddruckers and started earning a paycheck the honest way. I soon had around 300 dollars after my first paycheck, which was accessible through my debit account. Oooh, debit account.

Somewhere in this time, my friend alerted me of a promotion that Powerplayer was running. They were giving out a free 25$ with a bonus code. I decided to take my shot. Within a few days, I had run my 25$ deposit up to $150. I was badass. I was crushing this juicy pot limit omaha game night after night. These guys were such douches. Their money was mine. I really thought I was out of the hole. Then, it all came crashing down. Again. I tilted off all my money playing Pot Limit Omaha after I got rivered in one hand. I was heartbroken.

"At least it was a free promotion," I thought. Technically, I was right. I hadn't invested any money and didn't lose any. But I had had 150 dollars in the bank at one time. How could I be so stupid?

After this time, I started reading other poker books. I read Hellmuth's book (which is crap), I read Harrington's (which is great). But what really changed my thought process was Sklanksy. I understood the concept of positive and negative expected value, which is absolutely imperative to the success of any gambler or poker player. I really thought I was getting poker, for reals this time.

I got my second paycheck and now had a little ovre 500 dollars in the bank. I decided to put 200 into epassporte which is basically an online middle-man where you can store money from your debit or credit card. I decided to take a shot at Party Poker. I put in 50 dollars, and played a 5 dollar three table tournament. I started catching cards, and before I knew it I was at the final table with a decent stack. At the final table, the table was full of tightwads. I started raising pot after pot, and they were folding. As the blinds increased I was a clear chip-leader, running this table over. I went on to win the tournament and win 45 dollars (which was huge for me at the time).

From that moment on, I never looked back. Sure, there were the swings. I won and lost so much money for a high-schooler that it was sick. I decided to quit about ten times, coming back each time because I knew that I could beat the game. I started to read more Sklanksy, and found the internet site twoplustwo, which was amazing in furthering my game. People posted their hands and discussed what the optimum play was in each situation. My post-flop play improved immensely. I started to play Sit-n-Go tournaments and soon became an expert. Things started going my way.

I've played shorthanded no limit, short handed limit, pot limit omaha, sit n gos, multi table tourneys. You name it, I've been there. I've played pots with sickening amounts of money to a high school kid (I had no business playing at these stakes). I've been on both sides of it. I've had the highest highs, and the lowest lows. I've wanted to quit so many times and thought I was a professional the very next day.

As it stands, I've been playing poker for 13 months, and I've made a lot of money. How much, mind you, I would not like to say. But it's more money than any high schooler would need.

Aside from the money though, I have matured so much through poker. The poker table is a microcosm. I almost liken it to Samuel L. Jackson's Ezekiel 25:13 analogy in Pulp Fiction, where there are two main types of people in the world: the tyrants, and the weak. When playing poker, you better not be the weak or else you're going to get run over. People come to play from all walks of life for their own reasons. Some for fun, some for their ego, some for pure monetary gain. At the poker table, you are all on your own. You can't call on your mommy for help. You can't copy your friend's homework in first period. You must defend yourself. You can't be pushed around. If someone's trying to raise my blind then I will push back; he has to know that I'm not going to lay down and play dead to his bets.

Most of all, poker has taught me that no one owes me ANYTHING. When I first started playing, I thought I was just unlucky. People were always putting bad beats on me. But as I've progressed both monetarily and with my game, I've realized that luck has nothing to long-term results in poker. You make your own luck, as Emerson once said. The only reason that I've been able to have success in this game is because of the hard work, reading, and thinking that I put into my game. That's the only way to get better unless you're some sort of natural prodigy like Phil Ivey, but I bet even was bad at one time.

Life is good. Poker has matured me in so many ways. It's made me sick on so many days, but as a whole, it has made me a stronger, more focused person. I'm proud of what I have accomplished. I've saved the money I made and ultimately plan to invest my winnings. It's just side money anyway, but I love having it nonetheless. I might donate some of it to charity (which is definitely a good idea) since I really don't need the money anyway. As of right now, my poker career is off and on with my college applications.

I really don't know where poker is going to take me, what my potential is in the 'poker boom,' and whether or not I will ever make it big, so to speak. Maybe I don't need to know, though.