How did you get your start?

I was just wondering how people got their start and where they are now. There is a similar thread on P5's and thought it was kind of cool.

I'll start...I used to sneak into casinos and play $2-10 HE. Minnesota has a stupid no NLHE rule for cash games. Now I grind out micro OL MTT's lol.

Began when I was about 16 (4 years) ago. My dad would let me buyin to the $10 home game. After doing that for a bit, I started my own home games with buddies where we played for $5 about every other week. That lasted till 18, then I went to college and forgot about poker till last december.

Got bored one day, so played a freeroll. Started doing it more regularly, and finally cashed for $7. Built that up to where I am now, getting serious in May with a $340 roll and moving to cash.

Mono
Deposit
Busto
Deposit
Busto
Deposit
Profit
Take all monies out
Staked
Take monies out regulary with cushioned BR

I played some home games and a buddy of mine asked me to hold his money in PokerStars (since I had a freeRoll account)... he had $ in an account that got locked and was going to transfer it to me... then open a new one... it didn't work out... for my trouble he let me keep $1 I turned the $1 into about $8 playing .1/.2 HE and playing very low limit 7 card stud...

I built that up to $17... and then added $40. I ran that up to about $120 playing some sit'n'go's but mostly playing .5/.10 and .10/.25 but mostly .5/.10.

Then I quit playing for about 2 years... but dabbled a bit now and again for an hour every couple 3 months... recently I started playing again more regularly 2-3 times a week for an hour or so each time... and in 15 sessions and a total of 12 hours I have made another $46.50 playing exclusively .5/.10 NLHE (6 max).

I have been reading and reviewing my sessions and it is amazing how the more you learn the more you realize you don't know.

I know that is only about $3 an hour but heck... what other entertainment/game can I play that pays me?

I think when I get my bank roll over $250 I'll move up to .10/.25

I started playing $1 tournaments with roommates in college. This is when I signed up for FTR and posted a little bit. When I got done with college I started playing online this summer.

Played a tourney in Vegas on vacation about 1,5 year ago I think. when I got home I deposited 50$ and started reading books/internet etc. and playing 2NL on Everest. Now I've almost got 100x my deposit and playing 100NL and a little 200NL occasionally while working full time.

$50 on party almost 3 yrs ago

busto

$20 on Everest, micro sngs, swicth to cash, still grinding

Put $50 on Party/Empire four years ago when poker started getting popular. Lost it all playing 25NL.

Read a whole lot.

Played in some home games which I killed, including taking $100 off of a guy who plays for a living. Played some more on Absolute and realized I was getting addicted. Took a year off.

Read a whole lot more.

Finally decided I wanted to get goot. Deposited $50 on Stars and started grinding.

$5 house money from pokerstars. grinded it to 60+ and currently trying to roll for 5NL

In the asbusrdly soft Party $25NL 25c/50c game. Then moved onto 2/4 and 3/6 limit. Did ok at 5/10 6 max. Took a shot at 15/30 and ran like total shit. Realized how absurd the rake schedule was at 5/10 6 max and moved back to NLHE with a short run at L5CD.

Originally Posted by Fnord

In the asbusrdly soft Party $25NL 25c/50c game. Then moved onto 2/4 and 3/6 limit. Did ok at 5/10 6 max. Took a shot at 15/30 and ran like total shit. Realized how absurd the rake schedule was at 5/10 6 max and moved back to NLHE with a short run at L5CD.

I hear 5CD is mad soft, confirm/deny?

Started out with the occasional home game, then a buddy mentioned FTP to me... I signed on and played a few play money games... found it fun and thought what the hell? Deposited $50. Played mostly SNGs and held my own for a while, started researching and found FTR. Went busto in my learning process, deposited $50 more. Got some help from Deacon Blues here then built that to nearly $150, so up $50 over the course of about 2 months.

Then joined PokerStars, with a $50 deposit. Started playing SNGs there also, bought into the FTR 500 (or FTR300, whichever is at stars) and won. BR jumped to $220.

Currently playing .05/.10 on both Stars and FTP, total BR is around $340 between the two sites, trying to learn how to start actually moving ahead instead of staying level...

I was born when Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold had a son. The rest is history.

Started online, 3years ago. Back in those days there were plenty of 'no deposit' bonuses to chose from (still remember 75$ at Party) but I blew them all. Then I was chasing freeroll tourneys (fail). Then I found Everest Poker which was running continuous freeroll turbo limit SNGs: 1st got 5c, 2nd 3c, 3rd 2c. As soon as I had 20c (min to buy into lowest $2nl game) I was taking shots till I eventually made it. And that's something I take great pride of: I never ever deposited my own money, but built something from nothing.

A few months ago I got tired of flight simming and virtual ATC and my neighbor told me he won $1500 on PS. I always wanted to get better at poker as friends play about twice a year and I usually break even or worse.

Originally Posted by iopq

I hear 5CD is mad soft, confirm/deny?

2/4 L5CD on Stars was good for over $40/hour playing 2 tables and you literally couldn't run bad because the edges were that sick and it was almost rake-free. Then the regs discovered that playing a strategy that exploits loose/passive players doesn't work so well against TAggs. The holes plugged up and now I just drop by every now and then for fun.

I was born a poor black child............Then I found FTR

Homegames - still play almost every week for over 2 years now. We used to play all kinds of games other than poker, now it's mostly dealers choice single-rebuy sng's... over 30 variants.

Started to play playmoney on PokerRoom when it was still the only site that had official linux support.
A friend from the homegame who won a couple of live tournaments, staked me into a 200NL cashgame, and I walked away with a 200$ profit. Played 200 NL every weekend for a summer and crossbooked with the other guy... wasn't a good deal for me. Ended the summer with a marginal profit and decided to play myself up to a reasonable bankroll online so I don't have to play scared money.
Minimum deposit on PartyPoker almost 2 years ago. The only good thing since then was that I never went broke. Other than that it has been a roller coaster ride, and I'm back at down to 5NL once again.

i dont usually post on here but i usually read the posts here like everyday... started with homegames with friends about once a week. i wasnt very good until after a while my friend let me borrow ace on the river by barry greenstein and then practiced with freerolls online. deposited about 2 or 3 times in may after my birthday. went down to about 27 dollars or so and played mostly .05/.1 and .10/.25 then placed first in about 2 one dollar tournaments with rebuys and found myself at about 700 dollars in about 4 months. i read alot online and learned by taking my time and learning from mistakes.

I played some home games and a buddy of mine asked me to hold his money in PokerStars (since I had a freeRoll account)... he had $ in an account that got locked and was going to transfer it to me... then open a new one... it didn't work out... for my trouble he let me keep $1 I turned the $1 into about $8 playing .1/.2 HE and playing very low limit 7 card stud...

Props to SoboQ4. You're like the rocky of our time haha. That's pretty awesome man. You hit some good runs and kept moving up. :].

For me, I live in Vegas. My friend played a .02 cent tourny on FT where there were 1,500 people, and first place was 100$. He was getting short stacked and tired, so he let me take over for him. I got the final table at rank 7. At one point I had triple the amount of chips rank 2 had, but a set of J's and a low kicker I played busted me down.

Played a few home games, and would mess around when stakes were low like all-in blind. Thought I was the shit and would win the games when they would really matter. How ignorant I was back then...

On my birthday, they bought me into a luxor tournament just a few months back. I got busted out first, but my friends played along with me. The one who let me play his FT won first for 340, my other friend placed second for about 180.

I deposited 111$ into ultimatebet and busted out on a horrible suck out. Put me on tilt, and I broke flat. I took 2 months off and decided I really wanted to learn poker at its core and wish to turn professional. I ran again with another 50$ deposit, made 10$ profit, and trying to get raise bonuses. Lost my self-discipline and put 50$ on blackjack.

I deposited 50$ in Pokerstars (where i'm at now) and my discipline is a lot better now. I play up to 4 tables at once sometimes, and I just entered into the 3$ SnG range. I had 50$ 3 days ago and turned that to 80 on very good runs. I'm waiting to pamper my bankroll a bit more so I can take the fall on the cold decks.

That's pretty much it! My story is pretty boring compared to some hehe!

Lets see...my brother taught me how to play NLHE when I was 14. Played in a bunch of home games with his friends (which i did awful in naturally). never really got serious about it until last June after I turned 18 and went to the casino and won $150 playing 3/6 limit. Thought I was the man after that and proceeded to dump my paychecks regularly. Then I started playing some more home games with friends. Did ok, nothing too spectacular. Got online and started reading some strategies and whatnot and decided to enter into a monday night tourney at the casino. 120 entrants and $65 a pop. Got 2nd place and took home $1080. Got REALLY into poker after that. Started playing online when I moved to college. Read some books. Online I started out at PartTimePoker getting staked for Pokerstars. If you havent done it, you should try it out. I've made a $100 BR outta $0 of my own money, but anyways not here to promote. Thats about it! :P

I got online playing the old daily party freerolls. Got my account up to around $1.75, then one night I got knocked out early in like 4 freerolls, got pissed and bought into a $1 tourney. Finished in like 18th for $9.75ish. Took my ~$10 and built up a 2kish roll playing FR NL moving when I felt like it. Then playing .5/1 I hit a Monster BBJ table share for ~$3500, then 2 weeks later I hit it again for ~$3600. Party closed and I took my roll to Stars, where I struggled for a couple months learning 6 max and just a lot about poker in general. Got better along the way and now we are here...

Pretty much explained in the first post of my Op thread.

I was hit by the moneymaker effect.

Sign up through affliate in 2005, get $100 on Party Poker, grind it up to $500, suck at 25nl and bonus whoring and cash out around $700 when poker gets "banned"

Early 2008? get bored deposit $100 grind 5nl for a sick win rate, get to 10nl beat that pretty well get to $500, discover 440s get down to $400, beat 10nl to get to $500 lose $150 playing 2.2 180 man turbos and other toruneys, get to $500, play $5 and $10 SnGs get down to $400, and now I went on a sick run at 10nl and back above $500. And never will I dip below $500 again.

Going to play 10nl till I can afford to lose a few buyins at 25nl and still stay rolled for it.

My hubby had been playing a local tournament pretty regularly and had mentioned a few times I should try it. Then we were planning a trip to Vegas in December and I decided that was a good time to try it. So I got on PS and learned the basics then went with him to play for real. The first time I was out fairly early but the second time I beat hubby and made the final table. Now I'm hooked and it's usually me dragging him to play.

read an article in the economist about how poker requires skill

was bored one day and just decided to deposit on pokerstars.

I was talking to one of the friends that I used to work with this past summer, and I found out that her now ex-boyfriend had quit school and was a professional poker player for a living who makes 250k+ per year, lives in a dope apartment in Santa Monica, and basically has a sweet life (except for being a douche).

I had wrote it off as exaggeration, until she showed me her account one day on PS and she had around 2.5k in it from playing 50nl. Apparently, her boyfriend had taught her a few things and she would play every so often.

I decided to make a deposit on FTP, and armed with the advice "just play at night or on the weekend when people are drunk", the rest is history.

Now I am just making sure my fundamentals are solid and slowly improving my play and bankroll.

Originally Posted by xptboy

read an article in the economist about how poker requires skill

I think I read that article as well.

it all started off when i was 13 watching my grandmother play poker 3 times a week at my soccer teams clubhouse then she thought me how to play then i started playing some games with family and friends when i turned 18 i started playing in clubs n playing the odd tourney and now im using online poker to improve my game n hopefully my bankroll cus its easier to find the games whenever i want 2 play. we will c wat happens next .............. to be continued

I clearly remember one day about three years ago flipping through the ESPN channels and coming upon Phil Hellmuth going postal in a tourney after taking a beating. Got a big laugh out of that and quickly learned to hate Hellmuth. Watched a little bit more and saw some cool guys I liked-- Negreanu, Juanda, Lindgren-- and thought, hey I should find some online site where I can play this for fun. "Sign up and play for free," all the commercials said. I always enjoyed playing dealer's choice with my friends (maybe 3-4 times per year), so went to FullTilt and got some play money.

I think I played the play money games for about a month, got around a million chips, and felt I was ready to buy in. Put $50 in my account, grinded for a while at .05/.10, made the bonus, and soon after that, busted and cashed in my points for the FullTilt hat.

About a month later, went to Stars and put in $50. Busted at .05/.10. Still wanted to get that bonus, so put in another $50. Busted again. Another $50, and I finally managed to make the $50 bonus. Continued grinding and eventually made it to $500. Moved up to .10/.25 and still play there or .25/.50. Ridiculously overrolled for those levels now, but haven't moved to the next level yet. Since coming to Stars around 2 years ago, I'd guess I've played about 95% of the days for at least an hour a day and made what I consider to be quite a bit of money. Guess I have Hellmuth to thank.

Discovered poker when channel surfing at 12am. Found that WPT show with Shana Hiatt.

Learnt the game of poker from watching it over the course of 6 months.

Didn't play a game of poker, real or online, until a year later when I was invited to play with a new friendship group.

Came up against 6 average players but 1 very good player who won the home game tournament in 45 minutes so another tournament followed. He won again, and once more after.

Got home, started reading proper rules, strategies, etc and became addicted to poker.

Signed up to Full Tilt Poker and lost my $50 deposit after a couple of weeks.

Scoured the internet for more reading.

Deposited again and am currently grinding 0.05/0.10 with that bankroll. Doubled that money and continuing to grind until I can move up to 0.10/0.25.

My dad taught me how to play right before the huge Money Maker Boom, he was playing regularly at UB.

I went back to moscow, and played a few tourneys with friends that I organized, and I found a 3/6 limit cash game in Moscow that was just juicy as all hell....

Could beat that game at a pretty good clip, but I'm still struggling with NL.

I got into poker after watching the WSOP on tv. I figured out the rules of NLHE just from that, the hardest part was figuring out what blinds were. After that I read as much as I could online and in books and played home games with my friends. I played a lot of play money because my dad is vehemently opposed to gambling of any kind. Ran up a million in play money and went bust twice lol. Eventually I convinced him to let me deposit $100 and I've never looked back since.

pokerstars gave me free $5 and i ran it up to currently $390 over about 40k hands

2nl (super crushed) -> 5nl 6 max (failed) -> 5nl FR (crushed) -> 10nl FR

Deposited on Paradise via credit card (back when you could do that easily). Due to change in computer availability, cashed out a small profit and played in home games for a while before getting back into the on line scene.

My dad taught me to play NLHE and other poker games when I was pretty young. Didn't really play much until the moneymaker boom when I started to play home games with friends from school.

Eventually I started playing online for play money and continued this my first year of college while playing in different home games. This pas summer I deposited $100 on stars and have since doubled it.

I also joined FTR this summer, got active a little bit, and then stopped playing poker for a while during first semester. I'm back at it again, continuing to learn and grind.

My "friends" at a Muzzle Load shoot took all my $$ while teaching me to play NLHE. The next year I took theirs. I LOVE poker and FTR is a great help to me.

$50 depo on PokerStars in 2005. Up to about $600 now. Slow grind up. Feel lost trying to get to the next level! I have a watchful eye on the Ranges and Combination posts of late.

In '05 I played in a once a month $100 tourney amongst friends. I opened a Party Poker acct. and practiced with play money.

In Dec '07 I depo'd $50 on Stars & burned that on micro LHE. Depo'd another $50, I've worked my way up to $180 grinding SNG's.

A friend shipped me $11 on Stars in 2006 to play a private SNG. I finished 2nd on pure luck playing every Ace. Ran it up to $40 playing 2nl and .10/.25 FL before busting. Deposited $70 in May 06 (my first and only deposit so far), lost about half, then read Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and some others and slowly learned fundamentals and how to beat the $3 turbo STTs. With $100 in June, and right before the US laws changed, switch to FL HE exclusively when I discovered Bonus Whoring. Paradise Poker was beautiful back then, and hot as anything in Aug/Sept, I grinded my way to a $1000 roll through .50/1 and 1/2. I then spent a couple of months BJ bonus whoring, back when you could do such a thing, and had a $2800 roll by the end of 06. I switched back to LHE after exhausting all the good BJ bonuses, with the occasional STT thrown in. Cashed out a big chunk when Neteller went down and it looked like it might be the end, then worked my way up to 3/6 by the end of 2007. I took a shot at 5/10 last year when I was rolled for it (but it didn't work out). I cashed out another good chunk and, back at 1/2, went through a ~300 BB slide in the Fall of 08 (crazy LHE). I took November and some of December off to refocus and am back at it and doing well, with Stud and STTs offering nice side distractions.

So, on an initial investment of $70 and a couple of poker books, I've managed to grind out/whore just over $7800. Nothing fancy, but it's like a $10/hour second job that I actually want to work at. There are worse hobbies...

i got started using aokrongly's starting hands... working so far.......