Intro

I guess I better introduce myself, my name is Ben, I´ve been playing poker now for around two and a half years. I first got into it at University when I found out about a free weekly student tournament hosted on Victor Chandler. It was the first time I´d played Texas Holdem although I had played draw poker with mates at school for coppers and other shrapnel, so I knew what beat what and the basics of the game. Fortunately, I managed to come 3rd or 4th, I can´t remember exactly and picked up around $35. Being the innocent fool that I was I proceded to buy into a $24 tournament and somehow managed to scrape the final table in that for about $170. From then on I was hooked and over the next 3 weeks managed to build my account up to $670 playing micro sng´s and 5/10c cash games. Over the next year or so I played poker on and off and learnt the concept of bankroll management, slowly building my account up every time I withdrew.

It was at this point that I broke both of my calcaneai (heels) in drunken accident, resulting in a month in a wheelchair and another 6 weeks on crutches. Obviously I couldn´t work so I turned to poker as a form of income, which is when I got a lot more serious about the game. Soon I moved in with some mates for the summer (most notably Chris Moorman aka Moorman1) and we all played small stakes cash and $5 and $10 buy in tourneys etc.

I lacked discipline then though and at times I played far too above my bankroll and would sometimes lose big chunks and have to drop right back to micro limits again. I remember once being absolutely hammered on absinthe and playing HU 3/6 when my usual game was 9 seat 10/20c. Obviously I lost most of my account and had to rebuild back from the $87 I was left with, lol. Another time I sat on $10/20 with my whole account ($1500) and was relentlessly bullied down to around $700 until I won a $1800 pot with a set of 4´s and then sharply left.

Gradually I gained discipline and applied the 10x max buy in rule for cash games (which I know is 10x short, but it seemed to work for me as I had a very tight/aggressive style at the time) playing $1/2 9 seat and occasionally $2/4, building my account up to $9.8k before cashing down to $2k and starting again. That´s how it went for a long time gradually building up and then cashing out. In September last year I moved in with the same mates I had lived with the previous summer, Chris had moved up to 3/6 short ring cash games, high buy in tournaments and was doing well for himself in both but particularly in tournaments. I however had moved down the stakes and my staple game now was 25/50c and occasionally small buy in tourneys. I had lost the motivation to play poker, to want to build and move up the stakes and for a long period I played to grind out some cash and not because I really enjoyed playing the game. Sometimes I didn´t want to play and would put it off for days and would just lounge around watching sky tv and smoking hydroponically grown weed. I would also spend 1 week per month in Barcelona visiting my girlfriend and would only play for an hour or two a few days while I was there.

6 months ago I started taking mtt´s a bit more seriously, I read all the Harrington and Sklansky books, talked a lot with Chris, discussed hands and specific situations with him and sometimes sat and watched him play, especially when he was deep or on a final table of a tournament, and so I started getting some more regular results. The next month I made 27 final tables, mostly small $3 and $5 rebuys with fields of about 100-200 but also a few other tournaments with 500+ and 1000+ players. I really started putting the hours in, focussing on mtt´s and really started to enjoy the game again. Over the next few months I won most of the $10 or under freezeouts and rebuys on Victor Chandler at least once and was final tabling somewhere between 15-20 times a month.

Two months ago I moved to Barcelona and got a job working for an online marketing company, the people I worked with were brilliant and I enjoyed the routine for a while. I hardly played poker at all, maybe half a dozen times in those 6 weeks but I managed a 2nd place in the monthly 10k freeroll on VC for $1.8k. Sadly that went downhill and two weeks ago I found myself unemployed again. I had to make a decision, play poker or get another job. So I´ve decided to give poker another go and if need be get a part time job purely to get me out of the house and also to meet people in non alcohol related social stuations, lol.

So I´ve decided to try and take it up a level, I´ve started reading the 2+2 forum a lot more, watching videos and reading as many articles and posts as I could get my (cyber) hands on. I plan to join cardrunners soon as I hear they have great mtt and cash game videos. I also joined the pocket 5´s site so I could try to get ranked in Spain. Unfortunately VC tournaments aren´t eligible for ranking points as pocket 5´s only take the results from the big American poker sites. So last week I put $50 in full tilt and decided to try and build a bankroll which, when it was big enough would enable me to play in tournaments where I could get ranking points. I´m now up to $770 thanks to two $2rb wins, a $2rb 4th place and a $5fo 4th place.

So there you have it, thats my story, incredibly dull I´m sure and I do tend to have a tendency to ramble, especially after I´ve smoked some Morrocan Hash, lol. If you see me on the ipoker network (alias ElRetorcido) or on Full Tilt (TwistedOne111) please say hi. I will try and post on here daily if not at least 5 times a week. My next post will be about my short term and long term goals. Thanks and good luck.

Ben