Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
For me it started by playing a few friendly games with the lads, went online to improve my game and now i dont get invites , ok sometimes but i know they play "secrete" games without me. After beating them nearly every week i thought i was a good player so played more on line, freerolls, freeplay etc and worked my way to the money.(iv never dug in to my own pockets) I thought i was a good player untill real money got involved(online), some ppl just dont want to lost 2 cents lol, tight buggerrs is what i thought etc. Keep losing my money to casinos, sometimes plaing poker but most to casinos and would try to win it back, playing over my bankroll, but then i had no clue what a bankroll was, to me i just had money to play with and choose a game/stake at random. I had to lose my hard earnd bankroll before looking in to bankroll managment and all outher poker related stuff, then got a no-deposit bonus and took it serious, well semi-serious, still losing to casinos and playing after a few too many beers. I now know i knew nothing off poker and every day i can learn to play better. Thankfully iv a nice bankroll now and can play how i want to play, not trying to compleat offers(playing for points rather than money), and the learning curve starts again I love poker and poker loves me, but sometimes wish i didnt have to play with my serious head, sometimes i want to let lose and be a donk but for somereason wont play the free chips anymore(am i poker snob ) Now and forever im hooked, so what got you started playing and how do you think you have changed in your game etc...
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Ireland
Age: 48 (M)
Posts: 399
Nice story.
I learned to play poker when I was 19! the shame!!! I come from a long line of gamblers, especially on my father's side, but it was my mother taught me how to play. That was 5 card draw, the game most popular around my way at the time.
From there I played regular games at friend's houses, we didn't use chips back then, just plain old cash. We only played 20c to open, pot raise games. On a good night you could win around £40 (pre-euro, about €60)
I heard about Texas Hold Em but thought it was a modernised version and wasn't interested. Not until I met my current missus did I really take note of it.
She was already playing online poker when I met her, just casually, she liked Live games too. Before we lived together we'd chat a lot on MSN, she's always be playing a sng or whatever, I'd hate when she'd not reply for a bit because she was involved in some final table
When she moved in with me I watched her play a bit more and still thought it was all rigged and a waste of time and money - until she let me play a $2.30 10-seater sng on her account. She went off to watch tv and left me to it. I hadn't a clue what I was doing but after a little while my 5 card draw experience came in handy, i started to notice semi-bluffs and fishy calls, and recognised the fish at the table.
I won the game and topped her account up $10, she was happy, but if only she knew then that I'd create many accounts online afterward and get hooked so much I started to ignore her in person, never mind MSN, she wouldn't have let me play it in the first place perhaps
3 years playing online now, I spend any free time I have at it. Even when I'm losing I can't get enough. WTF is wrong with me????
Joined: Nov '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 2194
I saw my friend winning some serious dough and thought this cant be to hard i mean my m8 aint the sharpest tool in the box....hope he dont find out..lol I havent really lernt the game yet but i still dream of the big time HAIL THE POKER DONS (its all about the maths)
Joined: Feb '09
Location: Hungary
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 318
My friend wins ~600$ per month so I said him to teach me It was on last summer. Today I'm not a good player yet... But on freerolls I usually get some cash.
Joined: Nov '08
Location: Romania
Age: 33 (M)
Posts: 49
I started playing when a friend bought a poker set, we would just play for fun back then, I wasn't even in high school then. When I got to high school I had my own poker set and I used to bring it to school and we would play in an empty classroom after hours. I wasn't until we started playing for money that I felt the excitement of the game and the fact that it could be profitable (although I wasn't winning much then, but we were playing really low stakes). So I started reading poker strategy and I started folding 27o , and raising pre-flop (which seemed to annoy other players ) Then I found the poker community in my city (really small city) and switched to higher stakes, I make a nice profit in live games because I know how everyone plays and some of their tells but I struggle with online games because I don't have the same patience while playing online but I am improving
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 1118
pretty boring here: there was not enuff football and snooker on tv. a friend told me it would be pretty exciting to watch poker on tv. i gave it a try and liked it a lot!
Joined: Dec '07
Location: Denmark
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 2644
Short version:
Long version: Saw it in telli, thought....hey I can do this...tried it and found out it wasn't as simple as it looked on telli, started studying the game and got better and better. Primary or only reason I do it is to make money
I started playing because I was bored and a friend of mine was making some money playing poker. So I searched for some no deposit bankrolls, played a few, lost it all. After a while I started playing more seriously and now I'm a poker-addict playing several hours a day. the ussual
Joined: Dec '08
Location: Finland
Age: 33 (M)
Posts: 35
This is what I LOVE, and CAN'T STOP loving! I like to live in my OWN WORLD! F**k regular life...F**K A 9-to-5 job. I'm told to enjoy every moment, every hour, every minute. Why should I take life so seriously? I just want do WHAT I LIKE TO DO. Cause I can't stand society This is my own world, I just want to hear the music. I think the whole system fucking sucks, everybody is working their fucking ass off during the week, getting totally fucking stressed out. So what's wrong and what's right?
First GF watchin TV in evening me bored surfing the net for porn Then found intresting poker world and started on the shastas (Everest Poker) Then member of BRM and got littl more serious cos gettin great feedback from a lot off people. Starting playing ultra grinding mode, nowadays i open up a littl bit and starting to understand poker a littl bit.....
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 401
I started playing a small and a bit dumb homegame with friends. About half a month later I was zapping and caught a WPT show. Few days later I was already a Freeroll rounder, never won much. Now I'm learning and taking BR offers.
I am sure I will be a profitable player, and that's one of the things that moves me on. The other is the passion I developed for the game. How far I can go? I don't know, my goal is to take a good money from poker, but if I become able to reach high stakes, better.
Currently I spend more time studying the game rather than playing it, about 60/40. But it is being worthy after 3 months of "hard" work.
I have always played card, but only played 5 card draw poker before I got an invitation to Texas Hold'em on Facebook. I got hooked and accumuleted alot of points, and was thinking, way not try to earn real money.
But I did not want to risk my own money, so I got some no-deposit bonus and burn the two first one in a couple of weeks. Startet to study poker, got a new no-depost bonus and finaly cleared it and were hooked on online-poker.
, ok sometimes but i know they play "secrete" games without me.
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