Journey To Being an Online Poker Pro

I’ve been out of the loop as far as any recent happenings in the high stakes online scene is concerned so I did a little reading up last night.  I remember posting about a week ago that Isildur1 was rumoured to be broke but I just found out why.  It turns out that Brian Hastings took $4M off of him in one session.  An amazing feat to be sure but what’s even more amazing is the circumstances in which this happened.  Read more…

First off let me wish everyone a very safe and happy holiday season.  This year has been especially hectic for me as I’ve been working both jobs, 15 hours a day every other day for close to a month.  Throw that in with having my son and it was inevitable that I would get as sick as I did this week.  My second job is in retail and I have never done anything like it before.  The absolute chaos yesterday on Christmas Eve was unbelievable.  I knew as the day approached it would be crazy busy but I never knew how bad it would be until I actually walked into the store.  And it didn’t stop!  Crazy is almost an understatement.  I got home afterwards, poured myself a glass of wine and settled in for the night.  I hadn’t wrapped anything yet but I knew I had time because this year my son was going to wake up Christmas morning at his mom’s house, a reversal of how we usually do it.  With the recent deaths in our family my dad wanted the family to be together for dinner and my son’s mom had no problems with that.

So, I figured I’d waste some time and play some poker.  Shocking, I know!  But on the heels of a recent successful run in a tournament I played in the other night I wanted to keep going.  Read more…

Things have continued to progress for me at both Full Tilt and PokerStars.  I put in some long sessions, playing .25/.50NL for the most part.  I did move up to .50/$1 at Full Tilt one night but had a rough night so I moved back down pretty quickly.  I keep a Post It note on my computer screen reminding me not to get greedy and to stay the course.  I’ve gotten into trouble before by moving up before my bankroll could take any significant beats and went broke more than once.  When you start to hit some hands it’s very tempting to just jump up and hope the same thing continues.  I know I can play the upper levels but anyone can beat anyone at any given time and you have to be able to withstand the bad runs you will inevitably go through.  It’s all about bankroll management.  Read more…

After having a few days to be with my family and our recent loss, I was able to sit down and play some poker.  Now, I was a little hesitant to actually sit down and play because I always preach being focused with no distractions.  However, I thought that maybe if I played for a little while, totally concentrating as best I could on the game that I would be able to put the other stuff out of my mind.  And am I ever glad that I did! Read more…

I’m writing this with a heavy heart today.  Today my family was dealt one of life’s “bad beats” as my grandmother passed away, about a month after the passing of my grandfather.  This is all after my aunt passed away in March.  All on the same side of the family and 2 out of 3 from cancer.  I feel so sad for my Dad and my uncle.  They lost a sister, a mother, and a father all within 9 months of each other and I can’t even imagine what that would be like.  I don’t want to know either.  We were a pretty tight family growing up.  My aunt and her three daughters lived about 7 houses down from us.  My two eldest cousins are both around the same age as my oldest younger brother (I’m the oldest) while my youngest cousin and youngest brother are a few years apart.  Read more…

I was reading through some older Bluff Magazine articles and I came across a great one on bankroll management and requirements for moving up in levels.   I tried to follow these standards even before I read the article and I wanted to share some of the key points with you.  When talking in earlier posts about the requirements I use, I guess I was a little vague.  I had said that when I have 10x the big buy in, I will move up a level.  This is true but there are other factors involved besides just having the right amount to move up.  You want to be able to accurately assess whether your game is good enough to move up.  Maybe you went on a serious heater with great cards and a few suckouts thrown in to warrant you thinking about moving up.  Read more…