I'm telling my story because I think it's cool and I like hearing other people's poker stories... please don't look down on me as a braggard or anything. I honestly want others to see the benefit of working hard to realize your goals, finding your niche, and taking time off from the game... AND I'm telling my story because I'm excited about my recent progress as a player.

PLEASE POST YOUR STORY AS WELL!!

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Anyway, here goes mine... online poker is a hobby of mine that I started in Nov of 2004. I worked my ass off from 11/2004 to 8/2007 to become good at it. I'm not a poker savant like some of the super-freaks on this site, but I have a good work ethic when it's something I really want. I have full-time job as an IT Manager and a family so all my work was done in my spare time which meant frequent long nights with 4 to 5 hours of sleep during those 2 years and 9 months. I read books, analyzed my hand histories, joined PXF (two different times) and just played to gain experience.

My wife is a stay-at-home Mom and I wanted her to continue that role because I thought it was best for our kids. I live in one of the most expensive places in the world... Northern Virginia, so, to make ends meet I frequently did programming jobs on the side. Well, after 3 or 4 years of programming all day at work and then programming at night, I quickly got fed up with that. So, I turned to poker for extra income. I also knew that I would have to pay the learning curve before the game would begin to pay me back, but I have a good job so losing a up to $3K in a year wouldn't be too bad. All I really wanted out of the game was an extra $4000 to $7000 per year. It sounds cheesy, but what I got was so much more.

Over the 2 3/4 years I went from "SNG player" to "MTT player" to a "Cash Game Player Who Plays an Occasional MTT". I tracked my results with Poker Tracker for all cash games and tracked my combined progress through a spreadsheet. By the end of 2 years, I found that I was a pretty sucky SNG player, a decent MTT player, but I excelled at cash games. My total profit went from a gut wrenching low of -$3600 to a high of +$6500. I remember one issue that was hard to deal with. I REALLY WANTED to be great at MTTs, probably from reading this web site too much :) After a few months of forcing the issue, I remembered my original goal which was to make that extra income, so I put aside what I really wanted and began the cash game grind. I got my account up to +$6500 and was really beginning to enjoy myself when I hit a cold streak and dropped the account to +$5000, but there was no doubt about it; I had found my niche.

My poker tracker stats showed that I was very profitable at the 1/2 and 2/4 levels. I was even profitable at 3/6 although the sample size was pretty small. I was so stoked!! One night, I even ventured into a 5/10 game, which was way over my bankroll, but I really wanted the experience. I doubled up. Then, the next night I tried it again and got my ass handed to me by none other then Rizen :) I remember not caring so much about losing the buy-in, but it was just SO COOL that I was sitting at the same table as him... lol! Anyway, when my account dropped to $5K I decided I was happy with myself and my progress, but that I needed some time off from the game.

So, in 8/2007 I withdrew my $5K and felt very happy with myself and my progress. I wasn't sure if I was going to come back to the game or not.

Well, a couple weeks ago I decided to deposit $100 and see if I could build the account back up through grinding out some low stakes games and earning a shot at an MTT. I played .10/.25 for one day until I doubled that $100 to $200. The next night, I jumped onto the .25/.50 tables and got the account up to $300. My goal was to always keep at least 4 buy-ins at the lower levels. These were levels at which I was VERY comfortable, so I felt like 4 buy-ins was plenty. I didn't play for a week, and finally on 2/2/08 I decided to risk some of my winnings on a couple of MTTs.

After donking out of one MTT, I began to play really well in the other. It was like all my work and subsequent knowledge had solidified itself over the 6 month break. I gained a big stack early through a combination of good hands and aggressive play. But previously, I would lose that big stack by getting conservative or getting myself into bad situations. This time I kept up the pressure. I was playing the player. I was watching stack sizes so that pre-flop raises didn't commit me to call an all-in shove if I didn't have a hand. I was making people play for their tournament life. I was timing my raises well to keep my image credible, and, I was making great reads. It just all came together. Granted, it was just a 603 man $22 MTT, but I was in the top 5 for 95% of the tournament and in 1st place for 90% of the tournament. I ended up winning the whole thing for $2875. I was so fired up!

The VERY next night, I was ready to utilize my newfound bankroll to go back to the $1/$2 cash game that was my bread and butter prior to the 6 month break. I quickly doubled up a couple times for a profit of $400. I was on such a heater that I decided I should take a shot at a $3/$6 game. Again, I doubled my buy-in when I had to make a tough call with AA against a loose crazy player who was representing trips on a J K K board. So, on the following night after I had just won the MTT, I had one of my best cash game nights ever raking in $1500 in profit! I was, and still am, so pumped!

So, that's it. That's my story. Now, I am not naive enough to realize that I am currently on an incredible heater. +$4500 in two weeks may not be a lot for some of you, but for me it's a serious heater. However, I also firmly believe that the 6 months I took off was extremely +EV for my game. I really believe your brain works on things behind the scenes (subconsciously) when you give it the rest it needs. Basically, for 6 months my brain had been stewing on everything I had learned and all the experience I had gained during that 2 years and 9 months. The evidence of this was how I payed in the MTT, the reads I was making, and the confidence I felt.

I hope this post helps others to learn that hard work, finding your niche, and taking time off WILL help you reach your poker goals.

Great story man, I love stories like these. Keep it up, gl gl

Sounds like fun.

I started out when I was 17. While my mom was on vacation, I convinced my dad to place a $50 deposit on party poker. I had played a bit with my friends, so I figured I'd give it a shot (btw, I knew nothing about bankroll management). I started out playing $5 sngs. I had an awesome run and built that up to $300. From there, I moved up to the 10's, taking the occasional shot at 20's/30's when I was running well. When I turned 18, I ventured over to Pacific Poker. Here, I crushed the $50 6 persons and ran my roll on that site up to about 1500. I took my sng player mentality to the high stakes cash game tables. Every day, I would sit at the $1000 NL tables with the min buy in of $200 (lol at bankroll management). I would wait for a premium hand (AQ+) and simply go all in preflop. If I lost down to $100 before I picked up a hand, I would quit. Usually I would get called by a big stack with $2500 behind him. If I doubled up, I quit. If I lost, I quit and went to play tournies. Looking back, I realize how lucky we were to have these soft sites. I was an awful player compared to what I am now, yet I still won money. It makes me wonder what life in the online world would be like today is party, pacific, dise were still open to US players...

When these sites closed because of the regulations of the UIGEA, I moved my bankroll to Absolute Poker. I became a site regular at the 33 and 44 SNGs. I made somewhere around 5k my first year playing about 10 sngs a day and mixing in the occasional cash games. After a while, playing strictly sngs became too much of a grind. I ventured into MTTs. I struggled at first, since I had the sng mentality of tight/aggressive, I usually failed to accumulate chips early in the tournament, and I sucked at playing for the win, I was always just content with cashing. I worked hard to develop my game, reading forums and HOH I and II. This paid off when I got my first win for $3200 in the nightly 12k (which is now 10k). I had a couple other decent cashes and began moving my money elsewhere. I deposited on BoDog and Ultimate Bet. I had a little success, but could never keep things going (due in part to my discovery of PL Omaha) and eventually went broke on UB. After leaving the site for about 6 months, I decided to redeposit. As luck would have it, I hit the bad beat jackpot that very day for $61k.

I enjoyed the money, but sort of felt like I didn't deserve it. So my goal for 2008 was to duplicate, or even improve on my winnings from 2007. I got off to a good start, winning my first sunday tournament last weekend. I got 1st in the $75k guaranteed on AP for a little under $19k.

I still grind sngs on all three sites, but my passion is for multi tables. I hope to elevate my game to the point where I can rely solely on MTTs as my source of income. I am a competitor by nature, and even the biggest cash game pot or the sickest SNG streak cannot compare to the feeling of winning a multi table tournament.

party poker at age 18 (2004). Went 50$ => 900 in one night playing cash. Busto a week later.

Played on pokerstars depositing 50$ via firepay. Played 9/27/45 man regular 10$ sngs. Grinded up to 200ish, played occasional mtt, first final table was a 10$ rebuy for around 700$. Played more Mtts, a few more rebuy fts, roll peaked at 2.4k around spring (2006). Took shots at 50$ rebuys/100$ rebuys + 200$ cash games = busto over summer (2006). My dad had some money in his stars account so he xfered me 50$ and I started regrinding again that summer.

Grinded playing low stake sngs, and very low stake mtts with a few 3$ rebuys tossed in. Made a FT of a 10$ rebuy and got 2nd in a 20$ freezeout to get my br to about 4k in july. Transfered funds to party poker.

Won 4 mtts in the next 3 months on party and then cashed everything out from party b/c of safe-port bill and party withdrawing from us.

Stopped playing poker for half a year (World of Warcraft =/) til summer of 2007. Pokerstars was my only online roll of about 4k and I grinded it up more playing 4$ 180s and started jumping into the 45 turbos. Realized I could multitable about 20 sngs at a time.

Final tabled a 27$ freezeout 2 nights in a row for about 7k. A month later, got 1st in a 10$ rebuy and 2nd in a 20$ rebuy for over 15k and my BR had now become almost 30k. Started playing a lot of plo cash and grinding the turbos and continued playing mtts when I had time. Chopped another 10$ rebuy for 10k, sunday million final table in november, and then decided to just be a turbo sng grinder.

Learned my lesson in br management and I still haven't touched the 50$ or 100$ rebuys and I rarely play tournies over 100$ buy ins. I don't really play too much mtts anymore, I prefer the life of a sng grinder while playing/learning cash games on the side. Hope to get supernova this year and plan to travel to WSOP since I turned 21 last fall.

lol at my progression, I now know what cards SHOULD be played in PLO8. I do not follow BR management mainly because this is just a hobby and I only play when I am bored at the office. Usually deposit from 200-400. Then 4 table 1/2 PLO8 or 2 table 2/4 PLO8 with 100 or 200 buy ins respectively. Will run it up to about a 1000 everyday then try and play 3/6 or 5/10. Busto again. Rince and repeat. Thank god for the business. I could probably be a winning player but right now I have no discipline, the rake loves me though.