What's your poker story?

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amemex

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Hell fellow CCians!

The premise of this thread is simple; I want to know why you play poker. I realize that not everyone may have some deep story about how or why they came across poker, but for those with interesting reasons (funny, accidental, unexpected, etc.), now's the time to share! I'll begin.

Some background: I recently turned 21, and have since looked into playing online poker. I started about a year ago when a friend casually taught me and I realized I had a natural intuition for it. I do not have friends that are regular grinders or even friends that are regular recreational players. Most of my experience comes from Play Money cites (888, ACR).

Coincidentally, I began facing some severe mental health issues (depression/anxiety) around the same time I learned to play. It got so bad that I recently withdrew from all of my college courses. The only thing that I have been able to grow at this past year is poker. Anytime I had a rough day, I'd hop on ACR and play PM cash games or their Freeroll MTTs; it is about the only thing that can immediately bring me out of my dark thoughts. I do not plan on returning to uni until winter semester of next year (Jan.) so I have decided that until then (while working a day job, obviously), I am going to invest as much time and studying into poker as I can. I genuinely want to grow into an excellent poker player and see if I can make it into the big leagues. I would like for it to eventually become a side-source of income, and that's the dream.

What about you?
 
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ugetbetsy

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mine is simple my dad taught me to play poker before walking. he always won. if the one time a year he didn't he would cut me cards double or nothing on the poker winnings and never not win that every time face cards. so now I'm just trying to get as good as him. I wont say his name but if I did u would know it.
 
blanktheman

blanktheman

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a friend of mine played poker, i refused to gamble with real so we used play money instead. All i knew about the game was the 10 winning hands of poker. I realized i was quite good so just kept on playing. Back then i would literally call whatever pair i had. The more I played, the better I got. Eventually I got into freerolls and won some money that way. I even came 2nd in the ACR $10 on demand freeroll.
 
alienat3d

alienat3d

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Well for me poker till about 2005-2006 was just somekind of casino games, like black jack or something, where people are just gambling at and nothing special happens. Like maybe it is for the most people who havn't play it before. But then while accidentally zapping my TV, i have found some of wsop broadcasting, which i started to watch and that's basically how i been hooked up into the game lol. The action, charismatic players and the ambience of best Las Vegas casinos were fascinating and i started to watch the whole serie of it. I have learned rules of the game just by watching pretty fast and then heard there are also online poker rooms, where i can try myself in it. But i am a person who is not eager to investing money in somekind of games so i started to play at the play money section first. Been playing there for months from time to time and i loved the game! And i also found out that my play money bankroll is growing dramatically from week to week. I was a newbie of course but i have beated my opponents badly! And after i have reached highest play money limits of the poker room i have thoughts: "hey! if you are good here, why not try real money section?"
But on one hand i still didn't want to invest money, on other hand didn't want ordering credit card specially for that. So i started to seek for ways playing it real for free. Then i have found a poker school website "PokerStrategy", which offered at those moment of time 50 bucks to play at partypoker with to anyone, who have passed their poker quiz. That's what i've instantly done after second try and looked forward to play it real from now on. After 2 days i have received my first real bankroll, but stupidly started to play at cash tables, where i blew away all of 50$ pretty quickly, as i was unexperienced player and played weak.
Surely i was kinda upset of wasting such opportunity, but on other hand i have learned that i must have a bankroll management and not playing so reckless as i did. I have bought a book of Dan Harrington on Hold Em, which also kinda opened my eyes on that point, that poker isn't a game of luck at all and i have started to study playing better. I started to search other ways of building my Bankroll from scratch again too. Started to play every freeroll i could find and was happy it was december and there were a lot of them around. I had few times luck going deeper and could collect my first 30$+ again.
Then i started to play lowest SNGs with it, but keep playing freerolls of course too and trying to earn enough sum by that to go at further limits of SNGs. Honestly i am doing the same thing since then, just with the difference of that i am playing higher limits of SNGs and only freerolls, which i think have good value and are not totally waste of time. Over the time i did also added more poker rooms where i play it and started to keeping eye on their promotions and reload bonuses too.
 
A

amemex

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That's a similar way of how I am starting now! I had the same philosophy of not wanting to invest but having the burden of being above average enough that eventually (last week) I just made my first deposit of $50 into ACR (mostly because of the cash-back benefits, of which I've received $42, and have a $50 bonus waiting for me in two weeks). How long have you been playing, since beginning to end?
 
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sarniack

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For me it was actually quite simple: my friend invited me to a home game and I liked it a lot. It was not so that long ago (maybe like year and a half), but when I think about that first games I am like:

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So I read some internet posts with some garbage advice like "To be successful in poker, you must read your opponents" (which are garbage not because they are false, but rather because they are so meaningless for someone barely knowing hands order). But of course I thought I knew a lot :) It is so funny when I remember like I tried to look my friends in the eyes and I was like "have you hit your flush or not? I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, CALL!", which was based on some shitty guessing.

But then I started to read, watch hand reviews, some televised tournaments, I realised how much you need to know to understand the game. The progress I made in that time feels huge, but I have a lot more to learn. I don't play that much (just recreational, not a grinder), but I definitely loved the game :).
 
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Bagdalac4ever

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I started to play poker when I was 15 years old. I played with my friend who was older than me. He taught me all the rules of poker. Than I started playing on facebook and to play every day. Now I can say that i am very good player. Poker is profitable for me.
 
0546474

0546474

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About ten years ago I got into an accident and broke my leg !!! And since I do not do anything and I started playing poker !!! This game I really liked! For a long time (about seven years) I played in social networks for conditional money !!! But then I accidentally saw the advertisement of pokerstars, I downloaded the client and registered !!! That's all))) this is my story! So began my poker career))))))
 
Jankou36

Jankou36

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I'm fresh player. Didn't deposit yet, but I won few dollars, I won STT with $0.50 free ticket from Pokerstars school. Currently I'm on the downswing as hell. I lose a lot of premium hands, lose vs weaker hands like KQ vs K9 and I started thinking that Pokerstars is rigged... Now I don't play too much cause this is irritating and bad for my low bankroll. I was decided to make my 1st deposit, but now I think I'll never deposit here.
 
alienat3d

alienat3d

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That's a similar way of how I am starting now! I had the same philosophy of not wanting to invest but having the burden of being above average enough that eventually (last week) I just made my first deposit of $50 into ACR (mostly because of the cash-back benefits, of which I've received $42, and have a $50 bonus waiting for me in two weeks). How long have you been playing, since beginning to end?

Well i am playing online poker since 2006 about. I can't say i am a pro, as poker isn't my job. But i have played a lot of hands over 11 years and that i keep study my poker skills brought me really ahead. I'm still playing only with the money i have won and at higher limits, than at the beginning. I also do deposits from time to time to get cash-back benefits, like you did. And i think it really worth to do from time to time! Someone will call it "bonus hunting", but why loosing such free opportunity, if poker room offering it? But be careful with this, don't overuse deposit/withdraw for bonuses. Poker rooms do hate that. It's okay if you do that from time to time, like after a month or two, but not at the same week. But also don't forget to follow the rule "don't hold all eggs in one basket", meaning don't have all of your bankroll at one poker room. Better having part of it at skrill or neteller or on a Bank Card. It also keep you safe if something bad happen with your poker room. (Never forget of black friday at full tilt poker ;()
And in addition i do really recommend you to organize your poker time, like most poker books authors recommending too. 80% for playing 20% for study. Of course you could increase your study time if you feels like you need more, but the main thing you really do that, because only playing poker will making you a better player over the time through experience, but way too slowly. And you will become a better player way much faster, if you start to analyze your questionable hands after the session, also read articles, books about type of poker you play. Watching videos and trying to understand the way of thinking of poker pros. Some poker twitch or youtube channels could help you with a lot too. Have a look at pokerstrategy channels at twitch, also https://www.twitch.tv/dougpolkpoker
There are also nice youtube channels, which could let you better understand advanced poker thinking:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyI7FNTudkyALBh9N7hwI9Q
https://www.youtube.com/user/thepokerbank

In addition, when poker will become your second nature, you could try to install some HUD and learn to use it's advantages too.
You could try trial versions of most known HUDs (30 days for free each): PokerTracker 4 or Holdem Manager 2
or could use some others, like Hand2Note for example, which is even absolute free for micro and low limits, however doesnt have much tools for analyzing hands, as the others two programs.

Good luck at the tables and happy grinding! ;)
 
Jonatha007

Jonatha007

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Poker is a passion since the year 2012, I only made 1 deposit in the amount of 25usd I reached up to 70usd playing SNG and spin go. Due to financial problems I had to withdraw all my bankroll. Currently I won a promotion in party poker I played progressive ko ticket $ 11. I won 9.43 yesterday I played 1 ko micro buy in 0.55 and now I have 10.43. PS Freerolls just like the CC events, these are pretty healthy to enhance the game. I hope to have a source of income from poker one day.
 
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