Let me introduce myself, my name is Tru and I'm a pre-junior (third year out of five) at Drexel University. I've been playing poker ever since I was sixteen or so (now I am twenty and will be twenty-one in March). My first time playing poker was a $5 buy-in between friends and family (around ten people) and I actually managed to get first place. Beginner's luck right? My friend, who was about twenty-three at the time would ask me if I would like to play again. This is where it all began. I started going with him to the next city over for these home poker games. The buy-ins were $20-$50, now it doesn't seem like a lot but it did for a sixteen year old kid. I managed to stay even throughout these home games for the year or two that I played.
I continued to play poker, and started to play online, mostly on Pokerstars. I didn't deposit any money, I would play with "Play Money" and sell it for real money on some sites. I would play micro cash tables and some micro sit n goes. I had some ups and downs and eventually would lose all of my money. I did this for awhile...
My friend that taught me how to play poker and got me into it committed suicide when I was eighteen, as a senior in high school. We had a feeling that it was over money and had something to do with loan sharks. We didn't realize that he was in that much trouble. I really wish that I could have helped...
I started to think a lot and decided to stop playing poker completely. After awhile, I couldn't help myself and started playing again. I felt terrible, but I had a good feeling about him being by my side when I would play. I decided to deposit $100 on Pokerstars. My first deposit was fantastic, I was having a pretty good ROI and actually made a profit. I would play some MTTs, some SnGs and some cash games to mix it up.
In June of 2008, I finally got a break and took 5th place in a $5 tournament with over 2,000 players. I was pretty excited, winning about $565. My bankroll was at about $950 at the time. I got stupid and started playing some cash games and within the course of three days I would lose about $250. I had about $700 left in my bankroll. I stopped with the bankroll management, that's what killed me. I wanted to make a profit out of playing online so that I could tell my friends that it's not rigged, you just have to be good and get lucky at the same time. I withdrew $600 and had $100 left in my account to play with.
After a few months I would be broke again. I eventually deposited another $100, and lost it all. Again, deposited $100 and lost it. Deposited $50 and lost it. Deposited $100 and lost a lot, up until around $30. I then decided to play strictly MTTs for a bit. On Monday I got 13th place out of 2844 players and made around $150. I made some money back and decided that I want to start playing more seriously. I usually would only play 1-2 MTTs a day. Of course it is every poker player's dream to become a professional poker player and it is mine as well. I want to start playing more on Pokerstars and deposit money on FTP. I want to be known all over the world, but I guess this is my background so far so that I have record of it and people will know.
I'm about to be twenty-one soon and I will be playing poker a lot at Atlantic City. I'm not very good at cash games so I will play strictly MTTs and SnGs. Let's see how I do in a few months and hope I get that big 1st place in an MTT either online or live!
Thanks for reading,
Tru