My Poker History
I got started playing, like many players, in a local home game featuring $5 tournaments on Friday nights. That ballooned to me playing online and eventually where I am today (after many, many hickups).
I started with Sit ‘n Go Tournaments (SNGs) on Party Poker, and I blew through about $200 playing those things before I realized I had to stop because I didn’t have any money to be gambling with. About 4 months later after finals were over I was bored and could spare an extra $25, I deposited in a fairly unknown site Superior Poker. There, I played $1 tournaments and .05/.10 Limit Hold’em (LHE) to build my bankroll up. My biggest break came when I was shortstacking a $25 Buying NL game with only $10, and I ran that up to almost $150. If it wasn’t for winning that my mom would not have at least had a “breakeven” attitude towards my playing, considering I didn’t even have a job. I withdrew most of that $150 or so and got my money back up to $50 by playing those same $1 tournaments and $.05/.10 LHE and I decided to make my second pass over at Party Poker.
I didn’t do too horribly my second time around. One thing I didn’t mention was that in my hours of play I found a site that I feel I am both socially and morally bound to: FlopTurnRiver. I spent hours/days reading their material and I remember my first post there, and I was such a newb it is pretty funny to look back at it. Still on only $50, I played a couple $6 SNGs at Party (their lowest buyin) and fortunately, I quickly won those. I take my momentum to the $11 SNGs and won a couple of those and before I knew it, I had $150 again. The next $100 came harder but I did eventually make my balance up to $250 and I was planning on going to the $22 SNGs and was feeling pretty happy. See, at that time the recommended bankroll requirements where only like 10x the buy-in, and I had that, unlike today where it is more like 25x the buy-in (or more). Well, needless to say, I didn’t do so great at the $22 tournaments and I dropped almost everything I had. The only thing keeping me alive was my marginal wins at the .5/1 games LHE games on Party, where, although I was a fish, there were so many players there worse than me. I managed to get my balance back up to $50 to be able to withdraw (the minimum amount able to withdraw), and I did so.
From there I took my money over to Poker Stars to learn and master Limit Hold’em. I spent the first month or so playing outside of my bankroll, back when 300 BB was a standard measuring point, I was playing .25/.5 on only $50 (which is only 100 BB). I was able to make my way up to $140 or so in a few weeks and I started to branch out some and get money by clearing bonuses. Interpoker had revolving monthly $90 100% deposit bonuses, so I put that money in there. I swear I have never played so tight in my life clearing that $90 bonus, as now I was playing 1/2 on only 45 BB, hardly enough for 2 buyins. Meanwhile, I was able to build my balance on Stars again up to $90 to withdraw again to Interpoker, and after some clever timing, I left Interpoker with $500 after only depositing $180, and my bonus whoring began.
Back in those times, Party Poker had 5 or 6 skins, and I had accounts on all of them, each with $100 deposit bonuses. I went to PokerRoom to clear their bonuses of around $300, which took me around a month to finish and before I knew it I had $3000 in poker winnings and I was still playing 1/2. It was time for me to move up.
I haven’t mentioned yet on what really got me from playing “OK” to mastering the game, and I got it free while clearing a bonus. It was the book Small Stakes Hold’em by the famous TwoPlusTwoers (2p2) David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. I still swear by this book today and if it hadn’t been for this then I would not be the player I am.
I eventually made my way up the poker chain, after putting in 10k hands at 1/2 or so, and I ran about 2.5 bb/100 (which is killing the game as a winrate). At 2/4, I played about 8k hands total and won I think over 3 bb/100 and I was already primed to move up to 3/6 as my Bankroll is now well over $6000. I wrote a guide on how to beat the LHE full ring games on the internet, and it was pretty bad. It is still up on FlopTurnRiver.com if you want to search for it, but I’ve been thinking of telling them to take that shit down as it sucks pretty hard. I also only played like 2500 hands at 3/6 before deciding to move to 5/10, another risky move. I was that hot shot kid, the ‘you can’t tell me what to do’ type, the ‘I’m better than everyone’ type and looking back my arrogance was just embarrassing. Well, I put in a sizable amount of hands, 10k or so (back when I thought that was a lot of hands) and again had a nice win rate of 3 bb/100 so hey, why not go to 10/20? I had a bankroll at this point of well over $15,000 and I was on my way. I was invited to the 100k Club, created by Pocket Five’s masters Soupie and ScGolfer (both of which I found on FTR) and that got me even farther on my way.
I quit my Jimmy John Internship in June of 2005, I started my professional career, although looking back I was so stupid when I made the move. I was 1/10 the player I am today and I only had a lifetime of like 40k hands. But, thankfully I lived a small lifestyle and now I had all the time in the world to develop my game.
I had heard the 15/30 full ring games were really great games, but before moving up there I wanted to ‘learn’ 6 max first. So, I spent a couple weeks playing 5/10 6 max, with a goal of playing 10k hands at a win rate of 2 bb/100. Well, I got close enough and got used to the massive swings, although looking back I didn’t really learn anything at all about decent post flop play but I did learn enough about pre-flop play that I was ready for the 15/30 game. And, it was at the 15/30 Full Ring game where I made a shit load of money. I won’t say how much but it pretty much set up my confidence, arrogance, and bankroll for some time. I put in close to 35,000 hands or so and I won over 3 bb/100 during that stretch and the guys in the 100k club were trying to get me to play the 30/60 games on Party Poker. That was big time poker.
I finally did try and make the jump to 30/60, after reading some threads at 2p2 and I told myself: its the same game but just different players and higher betting amounts. So, I played a couple thousand hands and I found myself down some so I got this crazy scheme to play 8 tables at 30/60, and just play solid poker. And, well, I did great for 15k hands or so, running a cool 1.5 BB/100 and making mad dough. But variance kicked in and before I knew it, I had dropped most to everything I had won and since I withdrew most of my winnings and put in my stock market account, I had very little cash left on Party Poker and I felt sick to my stomach. At one time I had 25k in my Party account, and now I only had 5k. That is some pretty nasty variance, and I decided I needed to rebuild and improve my game instead of putting more money in, which I am happy I did that today.
I eventually worked my way from that 5k up to 10k in a couple weeks and found myself ready to play the 15/30 game again. Although this time, that game had really dried up and began to suck pretty hard to what it used to be. I found myself not being able to get the hands in so I was forced to play 10/20 6 max to make my living. Which, there were and still are a TON of bad players in that game that I could make a decent living and I did have goals to move up limits again eventually. It took me a good 4 months to really figure out how to beat that game and once I realized why I wasn’t making as much as I wanted to, I did something different.
I started propping, playing shorthanded against other good players and frankly, I did fucking awesome for 2.5 weeks or so, making like $.30 per hand and I was putting in 15,000 hands or more a week. This was July of 2006 and I can’t tell you who I was or what site I was propping at but it really helped me out a lot. But, that last week and a half of July I couldn’t win; I was playing bad, running bad and frankly tired of the massive variance that came with it. I realized I could no longer beat that game and I’m going to take my winnings and move on, and I had a goal of making it back to the 30/60 FR games by the end of August, 2006. Before doing that, I had to get my game back up to the caliber it was before my 55,000 hand July where I was propping.
I had started the month of August down about 250 BB or so at the 10/20 game and struggled to get it back. I ended August on a 500 BB downswing, and not motivated at all to go through and do a complete workaround in my LHE shorthanded game. It was at that time that I realized that LHE no longer was my home, and it was finally time to start playing No Limit Hold’em.
So, in September of 2006 I started my first day of 6 max No Limit Hold’em. My only experience up until then had been some MTTs so I really did have not much at all. However, Limit and No Limit are not as different as some people think and it didn’t take me too long to adjust. My bankroll was pretty steady so I decided to move up as quickly as possible, with a plan to go from 100 NL to 600 NL in a matter of 6 months (check the archives for the plan if you’re interested).
I managed to kill the 100 NL 6 max games, even 8 tabling, and I did pretty well at 200 NL 6max too. I hit a roadblock though 1/2 way through my 200 NL experience and went on a 20 buy-in downswing, dropping all my profits. For the next 6 months I made my living at 100 NL and just couldn’t manage to break through and beat the 200 NL game. Thanks to an awesome $17k Bad Beat Jackpot win on Party Poker, I was able to survive while I managed to learn a good, solid game.
After graduation in December, I was pretty hot/cold in terms of my 100 NL results. I was able to pay my bills but I just didn’t do as well as I had hoped. The MTT guys in the 100k Club convinced me (it didn’t take much) to make a switch to MTTs, and the next day I switched to that.
It took me a good 2-3 months to really get my feet grounded in MTTs, as I had to learn a whole new game. Not only that, but MTTs involve a lot more than just the same situations; I had to learn quickly how to deal with all the different types of players in the different stages of tournaments.
I won my fair share of tournaments, and had pretty good results; I racked up a 90% overall lifetime ROI until January 2008. I won the $55 25k Guaranteed on Poker Stars the first day of the year, and had a couple other deep finishes. February and March, however, I wasn’t as blessed and started to struggle again. Meanwhile, a good friend of mine Pizzatron had been making consistent profits at the 100 NL Full Ring games and I started to learn that game too, hoping it would help out my postflop play in MTTs.
I made the full time switch to Full Ring in April 2008, as I lost the desire to play MTTs full time again. Pizzatron and I have played several sweat sessions at 200 NL and even 400 NL, and we’ve crushed the games every time we play together. I hope to one day be able to beat 400 NL FR consistently, but until then I can make a very good living at the 100 NL games.
Well, that’s my history up until May 2008 and the beginning of JeffreyLipsey.com.
