my route to poker

I first started playing poker live, playing 5 or 6 handed usually and for stakes of around £10-20 buy-in NLHE in a home game with friends and friends of friends I had the advantage of playing against good, experienced players. I was extremely loose aggressive and ended up losing more than winning. This was very bad for my ego and I stopped playing for a while, but I loved the game, just loved it. Instead I started reading, and I went read crazy. I bought book after book, and 3 months after stopping, I went back to the home game with a new approach and started to win.

As a teenager I became addicted to arcade games, (Scramble, Space Invaders, Asteroids) and then computer games (Command Conquer, Doom etc). I was thus very reluctant to start playing online as I believed I could easily become addicted and lose control.

Fortunately I discovered a free money site called Poker Underworld which just blew me away. This was a strictly play money site, where some of the players were bots, and some were real. It was a wee community and for a while I played there. After the inevitable boredom of play money, I signed up to Europoker where I played their play money online Sitngos, which had a little more skill to them, especially as you reached the final places.

Finally I searched out freerolls, and came to Pitbull, where after 6 or 7 attempts, I won $15 in a 200 person MTT. This was then used in their micro cash games (10NL) and at $60 bankroll I started entering their Sitngos. By October 2007, after around 4 months playing online, I had the bankroll up to $160 without having deposited a penny. I won a $30 MTT for $500 and that was my start. I had no software (PT, HUD etc) and had played no other poker sites.

With my new found confidence of controlling any addictive nature, I finally signed up for a Neteller account, and deposited $100 on Pokerstars by November 2007. there I grinded the $5 sitngos………and that’s how I got started!