from old skool to new school

I've been ummming and arring over whether to start a poker blog for a few months and have decided to give it a crack. Whether I keep blogging or not is another matter, but let's see how it goes.

Anyway, welcome...

A little background; I was first introduced to poker probably when I was about 7 or 8 years old. From a big family, all my cousins got together and we used to play a variation of dealers choice when basically, as it was our turn to deal we used to invent any type of poker game we wanted. All we knew was stud and draw but the games got incredibly complicated when we had thing's like, draw, 3 changes, hi low with red two's and "one eyed jacks" being wild. Crazy kids...but they were quality times.

Fast forward about 10 years and I was introduced to Texas Hold Em' by a school friend. Literally from the first game I played I was hooked. I remember starting playing for play money online after the first home game and making my first money deposit seemed a real big deal. When I started playing I knew I had a bit of an edge just because I was a patient player. I didn't know strategy but I knew hand strength and probability. After that I grinded $2 STT's for about 3 months, for just a small profit. After about 6 months or so, me and mate had a set up a poker challenge. To make $5K and go to Vegas for a holiday, however with one condition: we had to obey bankroll management.

I deposited $5 on to VC poker and hit the $0.02c/$0.04c tables!! VC was the chosen site just because on each cash table up to $200NL you could buy in for 200BB, every other site was 100BB. I didn't have poker tracker back then but after a year and a bit I found myself having grinded all the way to close to $4k. It was time to move up limits too, to 0.50c/$1. However, after five days of playing this level, and each day being a losing one I had dropped $700.

All those months of grinding for such a quick loss got to me. I then made a big decision to withdraw everything and spend it. If I could go back in time I wouldn't of withdrew any of it. It's a lot of money but it's part of poker, it was only 7 buy ins and pretty standard variance, I could of dropped back down levels and won it back. However, I was still proud of turning $5 into about $3k.

So, where am I now? I don't have a bankroll as such but am still playing. Currently, it's $10 and $20 HU and low stake satellites. I've just subscribed to sharkscope and it's helping my HU a lot. Basically, if games aren't filling up quickly you can find people's stats before you play them. Ironically though I seem to be losing to the fishies and beating players with better ROI's. I really enjoy satellite strategy and this week have won 3 entries to the WCOOP $215 6 handed hold em' event. I've kept the W$ however and might take a shot at a couple of the big live event satellites , however I don't think my games good enough at the higher limit satellites.....yet.

To get a bit of practice, tonight I've tried an $88 satellite to a $475 one. It had 28 runners with 4 seats. With 12 to go I was coming 10th and with blinds at 50-100 and my stack just at 1300 it wasn't looking great. The button on 2.8K raised my BB for the 2nd time running and with just about enough of a stack (I thought) to force some fold equity I pushed with my Q6o. He made the call with K9o, and no help and I'm outta there. I'm not sure about his call, or my raise really. Maybe he is priced in....

Aa little about me away from poker... I'm 24 and live in St Albans, however I've just decided (one week ago) to be a student again. I will be doing Sport Psychology in September in London as a mature student. That means I can leave my 9-5 office job I've been doing for the last year and do something I enjoy, I'm looking forward to it.

Finally to give my blog some direction, here are the reason's why I'm doing it:
- To help me play better
- To discuss hands...the best bit of poker
- To keep a record, so I can look back at it after I take a bracelet at the WSOP
- To shut Iron monk up.
- To improve my discipline

Target's for the next month or so:
- Keep the blog up.
- Play (well) in 3 $100 + tournaments
- Reduce the number of hour's I'm playing weekly as it's too many and play focused when I am playng.