my "poker story" part 2

after returning from my winter season of work i quickly found myself on the virtual felt. i was playing everyday at 100nl playing mostly 2 tables ocasionally 4 tables. even though i was playing everyday whenever i could. i didnt really take the game to serious, i mean i wanted to win but i didnt put the neccesary work and deication that needed to be done to be a winning player. it didnt take long before my results would show either. i think it took 3 or 4 months but i was leaking at the table like crazy. i did study a little bit and read some books but i never really went into my own play and tried to find the major leaks that i had.

it was about halfway through the year when i decided that i had lost enough at 100nl and i needed to move down in stakes. just starting out like most all players i had no bankroll managment, but after playing a bit i had a routine for my bankroll that i thaught at the time was a decent bankroll stratagey. for me i gave myself 20 buyins at a level and if i lost 10 buyins i would move down in stakes and if i won 10 buy ins then i would move up in stakes. so im sure already you guys are like yeah that might of been one of your major leaks (which it was). back to the story though, my bankroll was down to 1000$ and i started playing at 50nl, i never had a problem moving down in stakes although i would have rather of played at the higher stakes of course. eventually i lost at 50nl as well and moved down to 25nl. although i was a relatively new player to the game i was able to move up a couple times from 25nl and 50nl most likely due to running good. just like before though i had to move down.

i was now into the summer season of my work year and i was playing everynight for a couple hours after work but at this time i was at 10nl, almost about to drop to 5nl. i told myself that after my summer season i would deposit 2000$ again and do it again. at that time i kind of gave myself a yearly bankroll of 2000$ and had planned to deposit 2000 every year after the summer season was over. so the winter was now here an i didnt have much winter work going on (i work construction so somtimes it gets slow) but this allowed me to put plenty of time into poker, and i did.

with a refreshed bankroll i was back at the 100nl tables right where i left off... losing. this time it was a lot slower and it took me about 5-6 months before i actually had to move down to 50nl, although it was slower this time around i found myself repeating the same rountine as the year before and slowly moving down in stakes. i was learning along the way and im gald i kinda did play at the bigger stakes as some points because it gave me a feel of how the games are when you play bigger. the summer season rolled around again and i had to cut back on my volume of poker due to my summer job but i still played everyday. i believe i was at 25nl at this point and pretty much for most of the summer, but right around the end of summer and fall either my play caught up to me or i hit a downswing and had to move down to 10nl. it was getting close to the end of the summer season and i was back to where i was the year before and was pretty dissapointed.

at this time i started to think about poker more and get more involved it the right ways of doing things and started to go a little more in depth into my own play. i was also starting to frequent 2+2 and reading poker blogs. i decided to start this blog as well one reason to try and help me with my own play. a lot of the blogs i was reading were of regulars of course but they were mostly mass tabling from 16-24 tables. and obviously making money at it. my bankroll at this time was 300$ and after reading these blogs an idea came into my head that i wanted to start 24 tabling.

there were a few thaughts in my head at the time. i new about holdem manager but never baught it. i wasnt against it i just felt like id be cheating myself out of playing "pure" poker, also i hadnt spent any of my fpp's an had about 90,000. i dont really remember what i was saving them for, i think one of the cash bonuses but i had a new plan for them. i was going to play the sunday million 5,400 fpp's 10-man satalites and they reward the last 4 players. these satalites are actually really good way to earn a seat or tourney dollars if you can beat them. so i started playing them, and quickly found that i had a knack for them i won 50% of the ones i entered, the first one i played i won and was sitting with a sunday million ticket or the tourney dollars. i have always wanted to play the sunday million so i told myself that i would play this once and any other satalites i won i would just use the tourney dollars. the tourney went ok and i was able to cash just after the bubble winning an extra like 75$ from the original buy in. then i spent about half my fpp's on the satalites and after redeeming the tourney dollars i was sitting with a bankrolly of 1200 and instantly jumped into 50nl and pretty much instantly had to move down lol. i was back at 25nl for a while before i had to move down there as well now sitting at 10nl with i think 100$ in my account i used the rest of my fpp's and was able to get myself back to 1200 i believe. this time i took it easy and stayed at 10nl. i still had the idea that after the summer season was over that i would 24 table 10nl, i also decided that i was going to give myself 100 buyins at every level up to 10nl so i was going to give myself a bankroll of 1750, i was able to win about 5 buyins at 10nl before the end of my summer season so i was sitting at 1250$. i also decided that once i started to 24 table that i was going to get holdem manager as well as table ninja to make 24 tabling easier. i purchased holdem manager about a month before my summer season was done and instantly was able to spot leaks as well as other usefull information about my own play, at this point is when i started to take things more serious.

through the whole summer season i had been thinking of the upcoming winter. i new it was most likely going to be another slow winter and living in alaska in the winter is a bit of a drag, specially for a young guy like me. i do like winter activities but i was getting a bit bored and decided for a change. the change was VEGAS BABY!!. now i wasnt going to go to vegas to become some poker pro or chase a dream of becoming a high roller or anything like that. this winter for me was more about a life experience more than anything else, but lets face it i was going to put my fare share of time in at the tables as well... ( to be continued)