I thought about posting this in the new Beginner's Winner's Circle thread, but decided against it (I dunno why).
This is in part a testimonial as to how important FTR has been to my development, and in part a testimonial to all of the beginners who read the Beginner's Circle forum as to what is possible with practice, time, and a little luck.
I have been playing poker with actual seriousness for about 3 months now. Prior to that I was really just fucking around and spewing chips. I saw the tournaments on ESPN, and played at my local bar poker tourneys. I deposited like 100 bucks into Party late in 2005 and pretty muched pissed it away. I had no idea what BR management was, and I played 10$ and 20$ tournaments with a 100$ bankroll. Needless to say my br was gone within a week or two. Then I redeposited 200$ and played tourneys at SNGs (10$, still way out of my roll). I actually was a winner at the sit and gos, but then i would play 25nl 6 max ring and lose most of what I won. I played like 35 percent of hands and pretty much sucked. In the mean time I was reading every piece of literature I could get my hands on (Super System, HOH, HOH2, Hellmuth's crappy book, and many many FTR posts). I was down to like 150$ in January, and I was getting really frustrated. I read and read, and eventually moved the roll to PokerStars where I learned to play a set farming nit style at the 10nl games. I won (albeit slowly), and after getting my roll up to 200, I decided it wasn't happening fast enough, so I put the money in Party again, and deposited more.
I started out fresh with a 550$ bankroll, and played the 25nl games. I bought Pokertracker, PokerACE hud, and anything else I needed and gave it a go. I read EasyT's 25nl bonus guide and relentlessly whored my way up to 1k though Party, PokerNOW (now dead), Prima, and Paradise. I continually would try out 50nl and would always start out running bad. Eventually I began winning there and rode a massive rush all the way to 100nl. There were a lot of losses after that though. I had a really rough transition with 100nl and decided to try 6 max (bad idea) and lost a lot of money. I think it was something like 900$ or so that I lost at 100nl before I started feeling frustrated again.
I kept at it, played a little out of my bankroll :( (played 100nl full ring with 1500$), and I eventually started to swing up again and its been great ever since.
As some of you know, I hit the 10,000$ bankroll milestone this weekend. This is a huge mark for me, because it means I can start cashing out (I haven't cashed out a dime until now). I don't know where I am going from here, but I definitely hope this rollercoaster keeps going up.
I had a moment of personal reflection (and decided to write this post) when I looked at my pokertracker console with all 80k hands I have played in the last 2 1/2 months. In all the wins and losses that have occured, I played 233 hours, and averaged $33.88/hour. So in all of my free time spent on this project, I made approximately twice what I make at my dayjob. WOW.
This isn't a brag post. I posted all this to let beginners know what is possible. I started at a mediocre player, and while I think I have gotten much better since, I am still very green to this game.
However, I think its fair to say I have graduated from 'beginnerhood.'
Thanks FTR.
