Hey TPE people!

A few years ago I discovered poker.  I was living in a remote town in the middle of nowhere where the local pubs had free weekly tournaments – local gambling laws meant we couldn't play for money, but the pub was using poker as a way to bring in customers.  Top prize was a drinks tab worth about $200.  My mates, always thirsty, had formed a team but felt that they needed another body.  At the time, I didn't see it as anything but a form of gambling – back then and back there when I it was time to gamble I went to a casino and played roulette or blackjack.

It's said that Australians will bet on anything – even two flies walking up the wall.  Gambling is very common in our culture.  It's also true that the worst thing any Australian can do is let down his mates: so even though I had no interest in the game, and if I'm honest I probably would have rather being doing something else with my evening (like go out on a date,   go to a party, watch meaningless television or read a good book), off to this pub I went at the appointed time, ordered a drink and drew my seat.  

So I sat there, not even understanding the hand rankings, given my hold cards – and as luck would have it, I was under the gun.  All I knew was that pocket-aces were good, everything else was bad.

I'll get back to my first real-live poker game in a moment.  When I was a kid, my brothers and i had a Sega Master System, and my favourite game on it was “Casino Games” – I loved Roulette, and it taught me blackjack (although if I'm honest I should learn it properly).  It also had a heads-up poker 5 card poker game where the opponents would give facial tells in all of their 8-bit graphical glory.  And, even though I hadn't really played that much of that mini-game, it taught me not to watch my cards but to watch my opponents.

So here I was in the live-game at a pub with no money on the line looking for facial ticks that would indicate what hands my opponents had.  Terrible. 😛

I don't remember what my first hand was, but I do remember that I busted out immediately.

At this point in time, my brothers were living in another city and they were playing lots of poker – I called them and told them my story and they both laughed at me – not cruely, more out of amusement and admiration.  I was very confused by the whole situation and they then explained to me that poker was about two things: doing maths in your head, and reading people and that all my life I had been doing both of these things every day.  They told me to never go back to the free pub poker – that real poker needs real money on the line to make people care about it.

But what could I do? I was living in a very remote community with no casino and no lessons and I didn't even know about the online sites.  So, I bought a game for my PSP – The World Series of Poker.  You may remember it – it had Chris “Jesus” Ferguson as a non-playable character whose total poker wisdom was “bet when you think you have the best hand and fold when you think you're beat”.  I tried to play this game a bit and failed miserably.  I should have bought a book 😛

So I dropped poker and had a life for a few years.  I left the remote country town and moved to Melbourne (home of the Aussie Millions) and then about 2 years ago my interest was rekindled – I went to visit one of my brothers who happened to be finishing up on a cash-table at Full Tilt when I got to his house.  Then a few weeks later, I stumbled upon a few bad beats on YouTube as well as Phil Helmuth and Mike the Mouth behaving badly at the WSOP finals over the years.  

I didn't understand the hands that well, but found it engaging, so I Googled – found the very basics of the game, signed up to Full Tilt and stuck to the beginner games – I won some and lost some and blew through my $100 initial deposit in a couple of months.  Somewhere along the way I mentioned it to my other brother who told me that PokerStars was the superior site and that's where I should be.  He also told me about 45 man $3.50 SNGs and that he felt “luck” would get you to the final table about 1 time in 5 at worst.

So, I signed up to stars, discovered their poker-school and played a few hundred SNGs – realisitically the experience cost me a couple of hundred bucks, but I was really enjoying the 'entertainment' value of it.

About a year ago I went on vacation to Japan, via Hong Kong – and I was by myself – I had heard that Macau was the Las Vegas of Asia so I got on a ferry and found myself in the Wynn poker room at a cash game.  I walked away from that table with about $4000 Australian dollars.  Bear in mind at this point I still had no idea what I was doing – variance had done what it does to all newbies and smiled and I was hooked.  I came home, banked the money and thought “well, ok I guess I have a bankroll” and I created a spreadsheet for tracking my results.  In Melbourne there are pub games with real cash buy-in and real cash prizes – so I started going to one most weeks – and sucked.

I subscribed to the TPE podcast and listened while driving to work – and I was entertained.  Casey Bigdogs Pocket5s was talking about some villian in an early podcast and he said 'this guy played the hand so badly I can only assume he is really bad at life in general'.  Then I realised I had to study the game.

I read super-system – and sucked less – I started making final tables in these 27 man pub games.

I read Harrington on Hold 'em – and sucked less – my results didn't seem to improve, but suddenly I realised how bad at poker I was and how much I had to learn.

I read Moshman SnG strategy – and my PokerStars games improved a bit.

I half read the mental game of poker and didn't really get much of it – except that I need to focus on my process, not my results. 

Last Christmas I was given a Visa gift card and bought a copy of Poker Tracker 4 – I didn't understand it, but now all my plays were logged and recorded for review.

A few weeks ago my latest boyfriend dumped me by text message – and I realised that I'm 36 years old and clarity came upon me: I don't want to date, I don't want to party, I don't want to watch meaningless television or read fiction.  I want to play poker. 

It wasn't until I was playing a 9 man hyper turbo when i got my money in with AA and was busted with 32s that it clicked for me – I still have some of money that the poker-gods gave me in Macau and it would be rude not to use this opportunity to get really good.

My objective is simple – to go from fish to profitable mid-stakes grinder in two years from today.  My immediate tasks: study game-theory, learn to crush low-stakes and build a bankroll.  I have to re-read The Mental Game.

But perhaps most importantly, for the first time in a long time, I'm genuinely excited and passionate about something.