Well folks, I think it’s just about time I got started on this web log. I’ve only been putting it off for nearly a month, hehe. Thanks for stopping by to read it; I’ll try to keep it interesting. First, a little about myself. My name is Matt. Like many internet poker players, I am in my early twenties; 23 to be exact. Also like many other internet poker players, I am back in school, working toward a degree in Accounting. However, that is where the stereotype ends, and I begin, for the most part. I met the girl of my dreams just as I came out of high school. Now, she is my wife of five years. We have three kids together; an 8-year-old (step)daughter, 4-year-old son, and a baby boy of 14 months. As you might imagine, things can get pretty crazy around here! In addition to being a husband, father, student, and poker player, I play guitar and sing in local blues/rock cover bands for additional income (and kicks.) Never a dull moment!
I discovered poker in part the same way that many of us did; seeing poker tournaments on T.V., ads for poker sites on the internet, and so on. I also have family that enjoys a home game now and again. For some reason, I never took much interest in learning to play early on in the poker boom; I guess I had no idea how poker was different from other games of chance at the time, that it was actually a game of skill, and I didn’t really have the itch to gamble. I played F.P.S. (First Person Shooter) games for the PC, which I still enjoy. I used to waste countless hours playing and chatting with my clan buddies, whether competing with other clans or running together on public servers, but I discovered after a year or two that there was little reward for getting so engrossed. I had played some micro fixed-limit poker on Paradise Poker, my father-in-law’s site of choice at the time (he let me play on his account a few times,) and so I was privy to the slew of poker sites and the limits offered. Before long, I signed up on Party Poker through a free bankroll promotion being offered and started playing micro SNG’s and cash games.
At about this time, we discovered that my wife was pregnant with my youngest. We realized that it would be impractical, nearly impossible really, for me to go to back to school the fall that he was to be born. We couldn’t afford it, even with the scholarships and financial aid I had. Besides, no parent is thrilled about the idea of giving their infant to a group of strangers to care for during the day. So, I would stay home for at least a term to care for the kids while she continued to work. (She had a good job, decent pay, and the benefits, whereas I had left my day job previously to go back to school full-time.)
Thus, I was destined to spend many hours a week at home with my toddler and infant sons. As any parent can tell you, with kids that young, you’ll nearly always have at least one hand occupied. My hobby of playing shooter games was not going to suffice any longer; I needed something I could do with one hand, that I could walk away from at a moment’s notice, preferably something competitive that held my interest. Internet poker was obviously the answer! I would, of course, go on to bust the free bankroll I had. I would then make the minimum deposit when I could, trying out different poker sites as I went. I would usually win some, but eventually I would lose. I suppose I deposited about $150 in all before I finally got decent enough and learned enough about bankroll management not to bust, just in time for the passing of the UIGEA.
Nearly nine months went by before I can honestly say I was a winning player; I slowly built my bankroll up, and hovered at about 1k, but I was doing a lot of breaking even. I flipped back and forth between NL SNG’s and limit cash, then started playing NL cash. Looking back, I actually had the most success at micro MTT’s; in fact, it probably kept me afloat, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was able to get some neat stuff with PokerStars FPP’s to show for all my break-even grinding, but I began to realize that unless I could start winning more, I really should play a lot less and treat it as a hobby, or just not play at all. Multi-tabling lots of hours just doesn’t make sense if you aren’t a winner to begin with.
Then, about five months ago, I finally had an epiphany. First, I began reviewing sessions, and realized that I had huge tilt issues. I was making crying calls left and right all the time, pushing too hard with good hands, chasing draws with poor odds and so forth. I realized that I was playing so poorly because I was basically a degenerate poker addict; I wasn’t losing bread money or anything, but I was playing as much as I possibly could, and inevitably I would get coolered or bad beat and spew off a bunch of BB’s in my frustration. I needed to stop playing first thing in the morning and try to play only when relaxed. Second, my game was pretty poor; I was putting far too much emphasis on preflop hand selection, when in NL cash, postflop is where the real money is won or lost even more so than in limit. Additionally, I had no positional awareness whatsoever. I resolved to only play after lunch, to table select religiously, and to avoid checking my balance or stats to see how much I was up or down. Immediately I saw a difference in my results, and with the exception of last month (October,) I have been winning more each month than the month previous. I have been withdrawing periodically to supplement our income, which helps legitimize the time I spend playing for both my wife and myself. I’m still a small fry, at 100NL, but I plan to continue to improve and make the jump to 200NL when I am ready. I may need some coaching to help ratchet up my aggression if I am going to continue to climb the ladder, but I am confident in knowing that I can already beat the game for a decent hourly rate, even if I do stall out somewhere along the way up.
WOW that was longer than I intended, oh well. I’ll try not to bore you with too much background info in future entries and post more interesting or gross hands. Lord knows I have plenty of those in store!
A
dealt to Hero (MP)
6