Reset

When I started this blog last month I kind of jumped in with both feet. I obviously would like to benefit from having a poker blog, and think I already have, but I also have had my eyes opened to a whole blogging community that seems like a cool group to be a part of, and wouldn't mind having some more readers than my 3 friends who are hardcore enough to read about this much poker, and I would like for this blog to benefit my readers.

So let me reset things here a little bit and try and fill you in on my story.

I started playing back in mid-2004. No coincidence it was after I heard about this every day average joe winning 3 million dollars and poker's most coveted prize. If he can do it, why can't I?

Rich and I started playing recreationally a couple days a week at this local place where you could pay $5 and sit in on a tournament. There were a couple tourneys each night at 6 and 8. You didn't get anything unless you won the tournament, where you got just your buy-in back. It was a total sham, but that's where I cut my teeth. I even got out of there with a couple of certificates for wins. Looking back, I wonder how I ever had any sort of success, because I knew nothing about odds or anything like that, and would play any connectors, any suited face+x, and a pocket pair was GOLD. Just really super pathetic starting hand requirements. Quite comical to me now. Late in 2004 we quit going to that game and started building poker tables, and went officially live w/our business in Jan 2005. In December 2004 I started putting a little money in at PokerRoom.com and playing strictly $5 SNGs. I had some success for a while, but basically ended up tinkleing money down my leg for the next 6-8 months. I read the Harrington on Hold 'em books and thought I was on the right track, but I just kept losing. Up to this point I had steadily improved, and it was the only thing in my life I had steadily improved at for such a long period, but I had plateaued at this point, and it was extremely frustrating. 4th and 5th place finishes, and I'd just keep putting more money in and saw the same results. In about July or August it was getting to the point where I couldn't afford it and I was teetering on having a problem, so no more money, and not a whole lot but the monthly low-stakes home game until December. Around Christmas, I put some more money in as a present to myself and lost it bubbling SNGs by Jan 3rd. Then again in March I blew a chunk of my bonus trying to play cash games, and that was it again.

This time, however, I didn't quit. I put together a freeroll schedule in Excel, and I saw hands. A trip to Vegas in April brought more losing, but valuable lessons learned from Jorgen and a 5 hour losing session at my first ever limit cash game ($3/$6). I looked at this 5 hour session as my final learning experience. After this, I was to get serious. I actually spent quite a bit of time up in this session, but then got too loose and too "experimental" and lost it all. For the record, however, I took a pretty gnarly beat on my all-in hand and should've probably stayed alive, doubled up, and maybe turned things around. But it didn't hurt that bad, because it was a blast, and I saw how easy it was to win by simply being a better player than those you're up against. Yes, I didn't win...but I told you, it was above all the final time I'd play poker as an experiment.

I came away from my latest Vegas trip thinking "hundreds of thousands of people who know less about this game than me are able to win at it, so why shouldn't I?". I know a lot about the game, I just needed to figure out how to use it. And the best way to continue learning was to play for a bankroll, w/o a bankroll. So I freerolled for the next 3 months as much as I could. Hold 'Em, Limit and No, Omaha, Stud, whatever was next, I played in it. I started out slow, but eventually it got to the point where my chip stack was trending up at the beginning instead of down, and eventually moreso got to the point where a top 20% finish was pretty routine, and about 1 out of 3 of those would turn into top 10%. It stings to get a top 10% finish in a freeroll and get nothing for it, because with real money in, I'm getting paid for that performance a lot of the time. Poker was a sore spot for my wife and I due to 2005, but she knows how much I love the game, and I just needed to convince her I was good at it. So I kept her posted with my freeroll results, and then this July she said that if I'm doing that well, maybe I should put more money in. She said she was fine w/$20 a month. So I'm back in the game now.

The sad part is that I've since put $100 in FTP and lost it. I lost $50 playing strictly cash games, and then put in another $50 in my saved up cash for our now aborted thanks to corporate America putting a fist in my ass trip to Vegas this fall, and lost it losing 7 straight $5.50 SNGs and 4 $1.25 45 person SNGs. That stung bad, because I'm better than those results. But that's 2 1/2 months worth of play that my wife authorized, and I'm not going to regress to the bad place I put myself in last year. So here I am, after all this, playing on my $10 in freeroll winnings at poker.com, trying to build a bankroll, one $2.20 SNG at a time. Its surprisingly not frustrating. I told myself in April I wanted to build my bankroll off of freeroll winnings, and here I am doing it. Sure, I'd love to be playing $10-20 SNGs, cash games, and MTT satellites to big live events and big cash MTTs, but those levels are only gonna feel that much better knowing I started at zero.

I'm playing the best poker of my life right now. MTTs, something that used to scare the bejesus out of me, is probably my strongest game. My cash game, which I'd eventually love to be my moneymaker, is weak, but I also feel like a high limit player trapped in a low limit player's bankroll (who doesn't?). My SNGs, where I've got the most experience, are getting better. The $2.20s at Poker.com are going really well for me, but I always seem to bring out my worst performance when I try and bump up to the $5.50s. Jorgen has advised me to stick to the $2.20s until I can sweat the variance at the next level, and I will heed that advice. My biggest weak spots are bankroll management and tilt, so any advice there will be well received.

I think the biggest key to my recent improvement is having seen a lot of hands in freerolls and realizing that although I may have a strong hand, it *is* possible for someone to have a better one. It took a year and a half of good hands and going "nah, he couldn't have it" to realize "uh, yeah, actually...he can, and probably does". So I'm getting away from hands when I'm beat, and in tournament play, that means staying alive, which is your number 1 goal. Plus, my post-flop play is slowly and steadily improving, and that's an EXTREMELY important area to improve if you're gonna be a successful player. I'm beginning to read players better, recognize their tendencies, and look at entire hands and the bets that have occured on every street to sum up where I'm at, which helps me get away from hands when I need to, and pounce when I should. Last year, thanks to Harrington on Hold 'em, I learned the game. This year, I'm learning how to play it.

Although my online results aren't exactly flurishing, I've won $85 in home games since I've really started focusing on results the past month and a half or so, and that's encouraging. I'd rather be better live, but I still wanna be good enough to be profitable online.

So here I am with a blog. After I made the Paradise Poker Million Dollar Freeroll earlier this year I decided that I'd like to have some of the cool stuff I see and do on paper to go back and recall. Turns out its more beneficial than I ever could have thought. I've already made improvements just because I can get this stuff down on paper and hash these thoughts out. Not to mention I go back and read it, and can actively work on what I need to. And maybe, someday, when I figure out how to be a halfway decent writer and maybe a little less long-winded, my blog can benefit others. Jorgen has said great things about blogging and about poker bloggers, and I'd love to be a part of that, so if you're reading this, please bear with me, and give me a shot. Even email me and say hello.

So for all of you who haven't met me...Hello, I'm Chad, I have $15.50, and I'm trying to build a bankroll. I hope my journey can be a little bit interesting for you, and I hope to hear from you along the way.