I found poker when I was 18 working at Ruby Tuesday’s as a waiter. Some of the guys would gather 1 day a week to play dealers choice games including: 7 card stud, Follow the Queen, Blind Baseball and Acey Ducey. We played other games like Hold ‘em with wild cards and a game called Balls. Needless to say I was hooked. I was winning regularly and @ 18 the extra money was nice even if was only $40-$80 a wk. on avg. This lasted for a couple years and we started playing at least twice a week at some point in there.
When Moneymaker won the WSOP ME in 2003 my close friends started to get into poker more. We started playing $5 SNG’s (Sit n go’s) in my parents basement. Well wait, actually, we started playing some crazy brand of limit hold ‘em because NL seemed so intimidating. Our betting rounds went as follows: 1st bet was 25 cents. The next raise could be 50 cents more (75 cents total). The third bet was 75 cents on top and capped there, for a total of a $1.50 per round. On the river we could bet up to $5 max, and we played with 25 cent antes, no blinds. None of us understood what blinds were and, apparently, we were too lazy to look into it further. After all, it wasn’t really about the money it was just a way for us to compete, and we all loved to play.
After a summer of that BS… We decided we wanted to play tournaments. We didn’t really understand or think of the concept that in NL cash you could only play what was on the table. I mean none of us had ever played NL cash and never been to play at a casino. So we (I) thought that at anytime people could go into their pockets and bet any amount at any time. This is why it was so intimidating and we played that crazy limit game. Anyway, we starting playing $5 NL SNG’s in the basement. It went from once a week to twice to eventually anytime we could get enough guys together to have a game, we would. We were all caught up in the poker… and it’s all any of us wanted to do.
At this point I was still winning but it was nothing more then a hobby.
After a while a couple of my friends starting playing on Party Poker. I was of course interested and decided to join the fun. I would stick $50 dollars in my account and play $5 or $10 SNG’s and once my account reached $100 I would cash out my original investment. I was still a full time waiter and had no concept of building a bankroll. I was just having fun and making a few extra bucks here and there. This went on for a couple years until I discovered MTT’s (multi table tournaments). I absolutely loved the idea that I could spend $5-$50 on one MTT and possibly win a few thousand dollars. Unfortunately, I was still waiting tables and had my own apartment. I wasn’t able to use as much money for poker. I loved poker enough that I would play tons of Party Poker free roles. Anytime I would make a few bucks i would head straight for some MTT’s with the occasional few hundred dollar score that would be immediately withdrawn and spent on food, bills and fun. I would of course leave a few bucks on with hopes of winning more but usually just found myself free rolling again in no time.
Once, I won $4.83 in a free roll. I took that money to the black jack table and won a couple hands so I had enough to sit at a $.10/.25 table. I doubled up a couple times and decided I would play 2 $10 SNG’s… I won them both. So obviously I withdrew $50 and with the other $50 I played one Friday special satellite and a $20 SNG. Well I won the satellite and called into work so I could play in the tournament. I placed 9th for $3400+ that was huge. I had never even had $3000 to my name. I cashed out $3000 and with $400 in my poker account I thought I was such a baller. I decided at that point that I had some skill and I loved the game so much I ought to start reading and to take it a little more seriously.
I started reading the boards at pocketfives.com and found that I could see some of the top players in the world giving advice on how to play in situations. I just tried to soak in as much knowledge as possible without having to ask a single question.
My game started to improve.
I went to Full Tilt after Party closed down and was pretty successful there right off the bat. I was able to string together some really nice scores in May of 2007 and decided I had worked my last shift as a waiter and that I was going to jump right into poker full time as an MTT/SNG pro.
I had some bumps in the road when variance reared it’s ugly head for the first time and decided to find backing. I couldn’t emotionally or financially handle the swings. Since then I haven’t looked back. I have started networking and become friends with some great poker minds who have all helped me improve my game greatly. I would list them but i don’t want to forget anyone…. You know who you are and I can’t thank you enough.
I started this site to share some of my experiences. Some of these may be reflecting on past situations or going over current poker related things. Hopefully, some of you will be interested in some of my perspectives as an on line MTT pro.
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. I have however had a couple other scores in the regular daily tournaments including 4th place in PokerStars $109 50k gaurentee and last night I won the $20 rebuy 6 max on FTP. 