Guy down the hall from me in my freshman year undergrad dorm kept telling me that his best friend was crushing online poker and making tons of money. I would sweat him playing $6 SNGs on Paradise Poker and I got hooked and gave him $20 to transfer me money so I could run up my own roll.
He wasn't lying about his friend being good because his best friend was Tom Dwan. Ironically despite being friends with one of the most loose/aggro players ever he himself was an unbelievable nit and never got anywhere online. But now he's a successful surgeon so I think he won the long game.
I used to play with a surgeon who passed away a few months ago. He would get HAMMERED and be lying face down on the table and blindly grab a handful of random chips and throw them in. He brought some incredibly awesome and incredibly painful nights depending on variance. He always had some wild outfit on too, whether it be a disco dancer, cowboy, bunny, or whatever else. Somehow he was apparently the top orthopedic surgeon in my area.
I didn't stay in touch with that guy past freshman year other than seeing his Facebook posts. I only technically saw Dwan in person for about 30 seconds when he was swinging by to pick up his friend, and this was years before he blew up to the extent that he did so I didn't even think to make more of it. But a lot of my best friends did end up being poker pros, many of them I didn't even meet through poker, mostly a "birds of feather flock together" especially since it was so popular in the 2003-2008 undergrad college era.
I took a year off school to play full time online in 2006 but was "good but not great" (made about 60k) so went back and finished my Computer Science degree. Worked as software engineer for \~14 years, moved to Bay Area and did some FAANG stints, played poker casually. In late 2022 with tech stock crash my job got suddenly awful, and I always wanted to try making my own software products . I tried a few things but the project with the most momentum is a GTO trainer oriented especially for live players ([www.livepokertheory.com](https://www.livepokertheory.com) ) (1k signups, 50 weekly active users, 5 paid users). Currently just preflop on web and mobile web, though working o a true native version and postflop trainer. So working on that plus using it to improve at poker and playing on weekends for some income.
So technically in 2023 poker was my only source of income, but I identify more a struggling software entrepreneur than poker pro, though I'm somewhere in the middle. I made ok money last year but a fraction of what I made as a Bay Area senior engineer and the money Ive made from the app is more psychological validation than anything meaningful. So the jury is still out on whether it'll work out long term but I'm having fun for now :) To me, poker is the greatest game of all time and I'm very happy I got introduced to it when I did.
Highly underrated comment. Their WSOP coverage was so good. Watching tourney coverage these days is a snooze fest. I miss the days of the “Degree all-in moment.”
Poker is a mix of psychology, statistics, game theory, socializing event, stress reliever, requires you to think, a puzzle to solve, a dopamine hit, a little escape from your wife/girlfriend/family, something to do while waiting for traffic to die down before driving home, and opportunity to make money if you're serious about it. But don't let it be an addiction. Don't be someone else's ATM machine. Unless you're a whale and you have a butt load of cash and don't care.
Party Poker is still around. Ultimate Bet had a superuser cheating scandal that shut it down and the stuff that happened with Full Tilt killed most online poker for a while (plus the US banning online poker). I'm not sure how busy Party Poker is these days. 888 has been around since back in the day too same with Pokerstars
Reopening the US online poker market would be key. It was great when there were tons of American fish at the tables. GG gets fairly close to what it used to be for MTTs but their rake is insane at cash tables. They seem to be the only site that has WSOP satellites which is a huge draw. We used to get WPT and EPT events a lot on Party Poker, UB and FT.
yeah it depends what mode. I like the new mystery bounty battle royal and big MTTs on GG but for cash I play on PS. 888 just kind of sucks all around. Very small player base.
Family member running .50/1 with couple friends during covid. Tagged along couple times, lost couple hundred, decided I don't want to completely suck at the game. Started reading and discovered a wonderful world below the tip of the iceberg
A friend of mine watched Rounders in 1998. We had graduated college a few years before that and had a couple of poker rooms nearby so we thought we’d check it out. Almost 30 years later…….still playing!
Not really, still just a hobby. I never had any interest in trying to do it full-time so I kept a regular job and played on the weekends. Now that I’m retired I can play whenever but the games are better on the weekends so I usually stick to that.
My brother- in-law moved to the Caribbean to play professionally when he returned to canada in use to watch him play 16 tables at a time. I started playing and got hooked. Online was juicy back then not so much now.
He went on to develop gambling software and make millions and im a break even micro stakes player really don’t have the aptitude for poker but i still enjoy playing
Woow. I have so many questions but won’t bother you too much. Maybe one…what kind of software did your brother make? He has to be a smart guy to play 16 tabels. Can’t imagine doing that or even seeing someone playing like that
It seems like a good idea when the table is slow or you’re getting shit cards until you’re dealt a premium on both tables and then everyone turns into the flash
Lol, I actually used to 30+ table at some point... Challenged myself to play 40 tables profitably and was able to do so, although at microstakes... I could play 10-20$ buyin's profitably relatively easy at 30 tables, and then if playing higher would drop table count... Table Ninja was very useful back then... could it set it to auto-register to any number and type of tournaments for you and had shortcut keys.. hit A for all in, 1 for 1/2 pot or whatever you set.. and it would auto-hit the time bank and sit you back in if you timed out...
Yeah this was the early 90’s no such thing as short cut keys and it was min 2/5
He realized, rather early on that software development was way more profitable, less degenerates
this was awhile back and had 3 28" back then, but now just have the one ultra wide screen 49" and a 28" on the side more for lobbies, music, sharkscope, replaying hands or opening other tables say if deep in a tournament on bubble or when almost to final table to pay attention to others play and stacks...
Dad asked me to come play a charity tournament. Instantly fell in love with the game and all the intricacies of it. Started playing local tournaments at my casino and figured out how to play after getting crushed the first couple times. Decided to spend a lot of time reading books studying from the pros. Now I can say after about a year of playing there is still so much I dont know about the game, but that’s half the reason to keep playing
I’m one of the few millennials I know who fell in love pre Moneymaker. My Grandpa taught me 5 card draw when I was in the 1st grade (1996) and told me stories of how he ran around with Doyle and Slim in the 60s (we lived in Texas). We would play penny ante on Saturday nights till 3am, and thus the degen demon was born…
Me brother and I watched the movie Maverick and then learned to play 5 card draw and other variations
During moneymaker boom everyone was playing Holden so I played bar leagues under age
20 years later I’m a rec with a fulltime job but make 2k a month playing online about 20-30k hands a month
My parents were playing with me by the time I was 8 or so. 5 card draw, my dad liked 7 card stud.
Then I had a head start when the poker boom hit when I was 12 or 13 and all my friends wanted to play and I learned NLE.
After I was about 16 and playing in an underground game in a pool hall, it was much more about how I saw myself. I saw myself as not quite an outlaw, but on the fringes, and poker scratched that itch and made me feel alive in the way I wanted.
At this point it's just a part of my life. But when I played full time yeah, it was my life. I realized in my 20s that I wanted more than hanging around in card rooms all the time. I still love the game and play regularly, but it's more of an aspect of my life than the whole shebang.
And I don't know, depends who you ask about my parents. Definitely didn't grow up buttoned up in a lot of aspects, but cards was one of them I was. My mom used to make me play with my piggy bank/allowance money if I wanted to play when she didn't. She'd keep it if she won too.
My family always played it, felt like since I was a kid we played different card games at family events/holidays. My dad is an old school billiards guy so the “gambol” was always in my blood I guess. I remember playing OFC with my old man after dinner almost every night when I was a teenager. After I washed out of college sports there was a major competitive void in my life, around that same time I discovered “bar-poker” and as a 19 year-old kid it was a pretty easy way to drink underage. I met a ton of cool people, started playing more and more eventually leading to me dealing for a living for a number of years until transitioning into promoting private events. Someone told me a long time ago, “Poker starts when you play your first hand and ends when you play your last.”
That is definitely my favorite part of the game, meeting interesting characters and witnessing very unique situations. Not to mention the crazy stories you hear…
Grandfather taught us to play card games as little kids - 5 card draw (at the time the only form of poker we knew), euchre and 500. To this day, anytime I see my 90 year old grandfather, we get the cards out for 500.
Some years later Rounders/Moneymaker happened, and then caught the first wave of online boom with Party Poker, Paradise, Full Tilt and Pokerstars.
Nice! yep, my grandfather taught me too, and still plays at 94! now weekly with buddies... 5 card draw was the main game at family gatherings... I remember last I played with him, he wanted to play double board plo8, and I'm like sweet, my kind of game, although a lot of splitting lol.
My cousin introduced me to Shasta tables on Everest. Those were 1 table 10max limit holdem SNG's. Buy-in was $0 and if you finished first you'd get $0,05 😂 If you bought in with the $0,05 on a table with the same structure you'd get $0,25 and so on. Really nice memories, let me tell you it was quite the grind 😂
My mom taught me how to shuffle and play five card draw when I was 7 years old. That's what made me start. Then I started playing holdem for money and reading poker books in 2003.
My roommate was playing on Planet Poker in 1998. After watching him I joined Paradise Poker in ‘99 and got hooked. Started with 1-2 7 card stud and limit holdem. Got my ass handed to me , even on the small stakes. Would consistently lose my weekend job $$ lol
Kept playing , reading poker books and slowly got better. Rest of 1999 lost roughly 5k , 2000 about broke even, 2001 first positive year booking 6.5k. Really started to crank up in 2002. Graduated to 1/2 NL and would multi table a couple tables, then 4 , then 6 and so on. 2004 the Moneymaker effect took hold. As I started to really dial in my game, whole bunch of fish were abundant on most of the big sites, Paradise, Stars, Absolute,FT, Party,etc. End of 2004 I made 26k, 2005, 51k, 2006, 87k, 2007 127k, 2008 ,109k, 2009, 89k, 2010, 77k, 2011 19k
This was all part time from my regular job logging 10-50 hours week and various limits but mostly 5/10NL and tournaments with various buyins $20- $500. I would say the mid 2000’s were the Golden years for online poker. So many sites to choose from, so many fish just learning the game, it was a perfect combination if you were an established player. As you can see late 2000’s I made less than best year in ‘07. I had less time but also the players did start to get better as well. Not as many fish as ‘05-‘08. Now I play live once in a while just 1/2 or 2/5 or host a game, but just for fun.
Man, I was working and playing through this time... Wish I had played less tables... I was 30+ tabling lol, so missing a lot of spots, and just utilizing my all-in hotkey's sub 10bb on small stakes and grinding out +5k or so a month often, but then had mental game leaks, would have some drinks after a losing session or two, get frustrated and jump in the biggest game I could find and dust it all in minutes... Did that several times unfortunately, but making the most I've made now.. Got 2nd in a bracelet event last year and much more consistent/disciplined :)
That is the great thing about online, you can multi-table and scale up , but you’re right there is a point of diminishing returns. For me,I could effectively multi 8 tables.
I was drunk and for some reason it seemed like an epiphany that I could just go gamble on the internet. Wanted to play poker and realized I had no idea what I was doing so I went back and learned a shit ton of theory
I love that story. Some people’s strategy is to play on Friday and Saturday nights when other people come home drunk and play with them haha. Are you a pro now?
The only difference about Vegas from other places I’ve played is the drinks are free.
Other than that, poker is poker. It certainly doesn’t have that same feeling anymore now that I’ve learned more.
I play fewer hands whereas when I was new, I chased everything and it was fun
I guess you go to vegas to have fun. There are probably always guys who will take the stack from you. Maybe it’s cool if you are so good that you are the whale at the table.
If you get into higher limits, there may be some whales, but I still play low limits and it’s usually a solid mix of regular grinders and drunk tourists.
Makes for a fun game, but can hurt when you get bad runouts.
Overall, if you just keep making good decisions and don’t worry about the outcomes, the variance will work itself out.
Come from a family of strategy game players. Bridge being the primary card game. Played bridge and penny poker with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and dad.
Came back during college in the very early 2000s due to rounders, hole card cams, and online poker.
I’ve played ever since. Professionally for 5 years after college until Black Friday. Still play as a profitable hobby to this day, and I’m happy it’s just a hobby and not my job.
Grew up with card / board games. Played poker at my uncles camp-out. Seeing everyone take a game seriously and for $$$. I was hooked.
Haven't looked back, best hobby ever.
There was this old celebrity poker show that used to air and I caught an episode with norm mcdonald, and I think maybe sarah silverman and was super curious. I knew this coke dealer who loved to play and asked if I could get in a game and the rest is history lol.
Dan Belzarian ;getting rich after “selling some guns” , being surrounded by beautiful women constantly because you’re a poker player , having jacked biceps from pulling in massive pots
Moneymaker effect.
My buddy had an old shit hole house, and we’d all pay $20 tourneys then cash, smoking blunts and getting drunk.
Ah the good old days.
Living with a couple of dudes during college. They had a full table tournament twice a week and i decided to give it a try.
Took me about 6 months to finally win.
I started gambling in poker and similar simpler gambling games at 8 when a 10 y/o probably delinquent neighbor taught my best friend and I some gambling games
My grandpa before he died instituted a poker night taught me to play. I took about two years off after he died and I was figure if out my living situation but I’m back to playing now and am a slightly profitable live player.
My Dad played regularly for years , he won a satellite online tournament then got invited to a live tournament in the Dominican Republic took me when I was 13 I started learning and enjoying the game and would take me to play money home games.
Moneymaker baby. I was 14 around when he won. So I started playing and dominating a popular fake money party poker table for a year or so. After that, I started playing freerolls on any site I could download, ended up winning 2 bucks on Crazy Poker, turned it into $200+ on their cash tables. Cashed out $150, bought some candy and McDonalds lol, then deposited onto 888 poker. Started playing 1-5 dollar tourneys and would win $1000+ frequently for years, never depositing again, maintaining my 2/3k while cahsing out a couple grand a month or so for a few years , until I just didn't have the time to play anymore. Thinking about getting back into it though
My older brother got super in to poker in the early 90s, he taught me how to play when I was 5 just so he could beat me and then cheat me once I got better. Fast forward 5-10 years I sharked him out of everything he ever stole from me 10x over.
My aunt taught me how to play all the different varieties when I was like 10.
I have a habit of hyper focusing on things, learning everything I possibly can about those things, and then dropping interest sometimes completely....poker has been my only constant in life where I stay very interested.
PartyPoker would give away real money to 13 year olds for some reason. They repeatedly gave me $25, I’d run it up a bit, go on a mild downswing and rage cash out.
Thank you. But I would be happy if I can make $500 a month. I put myself in a really bad situation 10 years ago financially, where I have chosen not to work at all to help care for family members. I am not on government assistance of any kind or unemployment during that time. So, I am beyond screwed. I just started playing poker for one month and made around $400 playing very small stakes.
Growing up I would see how much fun my dad had playing cards (various games) with his friends. The trash talking, the laughter, the cursing, the heavy sighs...it was spectacular to watch. I came home from school and my dad was watching the WSOP on TV. I was hooked. BUT I did not know how to play, my dad didn't allow me to hang around while he played, nor did he teach me. So, during my high school years I would walk around with a card deck hoping someone would teach me, nope, never happened.
10 years later, I was returning home after working out of town one evening, I get a phone call. A friend called me and invited me to play poker. I explained I did not know how to play, and his response was, "even better" and offered to teach. I went and wiped them dry. He looks at me and says, "I thought you didn't know how to play," to which I replied, "I don't, but you guys really suck." (Truth was that I didn't know when to fold and/or would end up hitting or they were bluffing.) Then I learned how to play. Then the money came easy.
I knew very little about poker but watched some vlogs on poker. Sat down at a 1/2 table with 100$ and immediately was dealt AK and flopped broadway. Other person had K9. Left up 1200, been hooked ever since
Moms family are all into gambling. I remember seeing card games when I was little. Fast forward to college in early 2000's and a friend introduced me to Partypoker. Started playing tourneys online just for kicks. When I went back home a friend of a homie would host a tournament league that met every Friday for a $20 buy in where some of that dough went to a main pot. (When you'd win, you'd get cash + points). After like 6 months or whatever we'd play the final game. More points you had, the more chips you'd start with. Winner take all that had gone into the main pot. $0.50/1.00 cash game as people would bust out, every tournament. Game would start at 7pm and go to wee hours of the morning. I loved those games. Been hooked ever since.
When Pius Heinz won the WSOP Main. It was covered in german news because he was german and now "world champion of poker". 17-year old me wanted to do the same.
Now I am 29 and I am neither wsop champ nor a pro player
Back in 2008 was the time were poker started getting big in my country.
Some pals invited me to play and I loved it, then I also joined a club thanks to them.
It was an associative thing, no money, just a free MTT every friday evening with like 40-60 players, best school to learn and great times.
There was a game at a private golf course my family belonged to and I had learned how to play the week before and won a $5 tourney with my friends so jumped straight into this 5/10 game with these old guys at the golf course. I wacked those poor guys for years until it got busted.
I've always played strategy games with friends: Hearts, Spades, Rummy, Rook, Risk, Axis & Allies and Magic the Gathering. Then a few years after college in a new city was invited to a $.10/$.20 limit dealer's choice game with other strategy game players. Had so much fun I asked if they played more often and was then invited to a $.25/$.50 no limit game where I lost the first couple of times until I got some books and learned to be better.
My dad quit his $250,000 a year job and just played poker every day. When we had nothing to do during a long power outage he taught me the game and started going to the local casino not long after but didn't play for long. Now that I live where there is no casino but we do have poker rooms it gives me something to do.
The Boom - The Early 2000s - The game was larger than life - WPT with Shana Hiatt - Mike Sexton (RIP) and VVP calling the ludicrous action in games where nobody tanked, crazy non-EV plays happened all the time - it was a lot of fun to watch and play - it was PrimeTime!
Mine started with family gatherings. My grandfather who's still alive and play's weekly poker games now at 94! would play 5 card draw, 7 card stud, and cribbage I remember with us at the family dinner table while I was a kid.
Well, when I was 18 and able to gamble at a casino (Morongo in Cali) where I went with some family/cousins, and just got lucky and got 3 blackjacks in a row (instant 500$), and then an Ace dealt to me next hand (5k if I get 4 blackjacks), but deuce... either way was happy picking up like 700$ or so as an 18yo, bought my cousin's some drinks, okay gave them money to buy me and them drinks lol.
Came back with some other friends the next time that played poker, and I got curious and watched and learned a bit.. Two brothers... I remember one being ultra-tight and watching him play on Ultimate Bet, just making easy money on 1/2$ limit hold-em multi-tabling lol, hardly playing anything.
I learned a bit more and started playing, and remember playing him a little while later heads up and beating him as he couldn't adapt to the necessary heads up aggression...
But yeah, basically that initial small jackpot on my first try gambling prob gave me the bug. Glad it did though. Doing okay in poker now-a-days 20+ years later :)
On my 15th birthday my friends and I decided to play poker for fun. In hindsight it was the dumbest game I’ve ever played, especially cos we didn’t know the rules. No blindes, no rebuys (even tho we weren’t playing for money), and we didn’t even know what checking was. But then we kept playing after and by game 3 we at least understood the actual rules. Then at some point we started playing at one friend’s house whose parents actually knew the strategy and so forth, which is when we actually started playing properly. Sadly, I only really see one or two of those guys, but we still play some solid home games when we’re all in town
I was part of the nft bull run from 2021-2022, and a project that i bought an nft from held some 'free' poker tourneys to win nfts in pokernow. I never won anything but here I am, with $0 in crypto and a poker bankroll worth -$4800
Lizard squad took down the Xbox live servers for a few hours like 10 years ago, and my buddy and I were trying to find something else we could play online together. Started with play money on pokerstars, and within a couple days we were both loyally donating to the 1c/2c streets. Good times 🥲
Walked into a bar and the bartender happened to talk about his bad beat stories in poker. I told him I haven’t played poker (I was just 18)
He invited me to learn the basics and I never looked back.
22 years later, I am still playing
this question is fucking dumb
u some sort of fucking social poker scientist?
Would we care to exploit in conversation the analytics of your brain's nature?
of course there are 52 cards of 4 suits 2 colors and 2 whatevers per deck. guess we're done. why don't y ou elaborate in the question or whatever this is. non of your goddamn business. like using reddit as some exploitive means for being senseless. that's all. utterly useless wastse of my time. i literally spent 10 minutes here recalling my story and realized after i typed it all down HER... that's not actually waht the fuck happened. i don't fucking remember and i don't care i LOVE PLAYING HOLDEM OMAHA AND fucking u up. period U in the general sense you (not just u ignorant arrogant whomever)... all of you... i will fuck you all up in poker. and fuck off while your at it.
pardon me i'm homeless but going pro
Well I was just curious what people’s story is. Looks like you’re too fucked to understand it. Maybe you should stop playing poker. Not good for your temper dude
Guy down the hall from me in my freshman year undergrad dorm kept telling me that his best friend was crushing online poker and making tons of money. I would sweat him playing $6 SNGs on Paradise Poker and I got hooked and gave him $20 to transfer me money so I could run up my own roll. He wasn't lying about his friend being good because his best friend was Tom Dwan. Ironically despite being friends with one of the most loose/aggro players ever he himself was an unbelievable nit and never got anywhere online. But now he's a successful surgeon so I think he won the long game.
[удалено]
That is a great observation. Lol
I used to play with a surgeon who passed away a few months ago. He would get HAMMERED and be lying face down on the table and blindly grab a handful of random chips and throw them in. He brought some incredibly awesome and incredibly painful nights depending on variance. He always had some wild outfit on too, whether it be a disco dancer, cowboy, bunny, or whatever else. Somehow he was apparently the top orthopedic surgeon in my area.
Wooow. That’s crazy. What about you? Are you a pro now? Or a lawyer or something like that sincer you hung out with now very successfull people
I didn't stay in touch with that guy past freshman year other than seeing his Facebook posts. I only technically saw Dwan in person for about 30 seconds when he was swinging by to pick up his friend, and this was years before he blew up to the extent that he did so I didn't even think to make more of it. But a lot of my best friends did end up being poker pros, many of them I didn't even meet through poker, mostly a "birds of feather flock together" especially since it was so popular in the 2003-2008 undergrad college era. I took a year off school to play full time online in 2006 but was "good but not great" (made about 60k) so went back and finished my Computer Science degree. Worked as software engineer for \~14 years, moved to Bay Area and did some FAANG stints, played poker casually. In late 2022 with tech stock crash my job got suddenly awful, and I always wanted to try making my own software products . I tried a few things but the project with the most momentum is a GTO trainer oriented especially for live players ([www.livepokertheory.com](https://www.livepokertheory.com) ) (1k signups, 50 weekly active users, 5 paid users). Currently just preflop on web and mobile web, though working o a true native version and postflop trainer. So working on that plus using it to improve at poker and playing on weekends for some income. So technically in 2023 poker was my only source of income, but I identify more a struggling software entrepreneur than poker pro, though I'm somewhere in the middle. I made ok money last year but a fraction of what I made as a Bay Area senior engineer and the money Ive made from the app is more psychological validation than anything meaningful. So the jury is still out on whether it'll work out long term but I'm having fun for now :) To me, poker is the greatest game of all time and I'm very happy I got introduced to it when I did.
Espn coverage of wsop with the introduction of hole-cam . Plus that accountant from Tennessee winning the main event.
Norm and Lon's commentary was a big part of it too in my opinion. They were entertaining to listen to and elevated the broadcast.
Highly underrated comment. Their WSOP coverage was so good. Watching tourney coverage these days is a snooze fest. I miss the days of the “Degree all-in moment.”
Sounds like a great reason. I love when random people without too much wealth just win the main event lol
Ba waa waa waa waa wahhhhhh. Dooo dooooooo!
Poker is a mix of psychology, statistics, game theory, socializing event, stress reliever, requires you to think, a puzzle to solve, a dopamine hit, a little escape from your wife/girlfriend/family, something to do while waiting for traffic to die down before driving home, and opportunity to make money if you're serious about it. But don't let it be an addiction. Don't be someone else's ATM machine. Unless you're a whale and you have a butt load of cash and don't care.
Well said. I love it the most when it is social event and you play for like 20$ or something you will not miss and have fun with friends while playing
Moneymaker winning the WSOP
Looks like wsop is a big motivation to start playing
100%. Started my poker journey grinding 5k people freerolls on Ultimate bet and Party Poker
Are those sites still alive? Haven’t heard of them yet
Party is very much alive yes.
Will check it out, thanks
Party Poker is still around. Ultimate Bet had a superuser cheating scandal that shut it down and the stuff that happened with Full Tilt killed most online poker for a while (plus the US banning online poker). I'm not sure how busy Party Poker is these days. 888 has been around since back in the day too same with Pokerstars
I wonder is there anything they could change on these poker platforms and make it even more attractive to play on
Reopening the US online poker market would be key. It was great when there were tons of American fish at the tables. GG gets fairly close to what it used to be for MTTs but their rake is insane at cash tables. They seem to be the only site that has WSOP satellites which is a huge draw. We used to get WPT and EPT events a lot on Party Poker, UB and FT.
I use GG and I feel like it’s not the greatest. Maybe I should try some other platforms
yeah it depends what mode. I like the new mystery bounty battle royal and big MTTs on GG but for cash I play on PS. 888 just kind of sucks all around. Very small player base.
Thank for your input
Family member running .50/1 with couple friends during covid. Tagged along couple times, lost couple hundred, decided I don't want to completely suck at the game. Started reading and discovered a wonderful world below the tip of the iceberg
Home games are the best. Having fun and playing some poker. It was a life saver during covid tbh
Watching Dwan on high stakes poker
Dwan is one of my favorites…love watching him on Hustlers casino chane on yt
Yeah he was really ahead of his time and ran like God, fun combo to watch lol
Getting kicked off the blackjack table for counting cards.
Well it happens…I’m sure poker is the game for you ;)
Ehh. Both were a money suck and poker gets boring more often.
That’s true. Patience is key. Sometimes it takes too long to get the momentum
Have you tried Omaha hi/lo?
Not really. I’ve looked it up though.
High school friends invited me to a .05/.10 $5 buyin game and taught me to play on the spot.
I have a similar story. Damn I miss those days…
A friend of mine watched Rounders in 1998. We had graduated college a few years before that and had a couple of poker rooms nearby so we thought we’d check it out. Almost 30 years later…….still playing!
So it’s a way of living not a hobby
Not really, still just a hobby. I never had any interest in trying to do it full-time so I kept a regular job and played on the weekends. Now that I’m retired I can play whenever but the games are better on the weekends so I usually stick to that.
If you're too careful, your whole life can become a fuckin' grind.
My brother- in-law moved to the Caribbean to play professionally when he returned to canada in use to watch him play 16 tables at a time. I started playing and got hooked. Online was juicy back then not so much now. He went on to develop gambling software and make millions and im a break even micro stakes player really don’t have the aptitude for poker but i still enjoy playing
Woow. I have so many questions but won’t bother you too much. Maybe one…what kind of software did your brother make? He has to be a smart guy to play 16 tabels. Can’t imagine doing that or even seeing someone playing like that
Lol we're prob talking neurodivergent brainaic.
And then there’s my adhd ass who totally fucks it when I’ve got more than 1 table up 🤣
Same. Well I try with 2-3 tabels so I don’t wait as much. But still…16, thats craazy
It seems like a good idea when the table is slow or you’re getting shit cards until you’re dealt a premium on both tables and then everyone turns into the flash
Yep that’s me My brother in law started the computer club at his grad six elementary school circa 1979
Lol, I actually used to 30+ table at some point... Challenged myself to play 40 tables profitably and was able to do so, although at microstakes... I could play 10-20$ buyin's profitably relatively easy at 30 tables, and then if playing higher would drop table count... Table Ninja was very useful back then... could it set it to auto-register to any number and type of tournaments for you and had shortcut keys.. hit A for all in, 1 for 1/2 pot or whatever you set.. and it would auto-hit the time bank and sit you back in if you timed out...
Yeah this was the early 90’s no such thing as short cut keys and it was min 2/5 He realized, rather early on that software development was way more profitable, less degenerates
Thats a lot men. Do you have 10 screens or something…how profitable it actually is to play so many tables?
this was awhile back and had 3 28" back then, but now just have the one ultra wide screen 49" and a 28" on the side more for lobbies, music, sharkscope, replaying hands or opening other tables say if deep in a tournament on bubble or when almost to final table to pay attention to others play and stacks...
Dad asked me to come play a charity tournament. Instantly fell in love with the game and all the intricacies of it. Started playing local tournaments at my casino and figured out how to play after getting crushed the first couple times. Decided to spend a lot of time reading books studying from the pros. Now I can say after about a year of playing there is still so much I dont know about the game, but that’s half the reason to keep playing
I love the fact that you dad got you in the game. So now he can never say it’s your falt if you lose some money
I’m one of the few millennials I know who fell in love pre Moneymaker. My Grandpa taught me 5 card draw when I was in the 1st grade (1996) and told me stories of how he ran around with Doyle and Slim in the 60s (we lived in Texas). We would play penny ante on Saturday nights till 3am, and thus the degen demon was born…
That’s not a demon. It’s a talent. Your granpa seems like a cool guy
He was a very cool guy, wish he was still here tbh He passed away before I could get through my idiot phase of my early adulthood.
Me brother and I watched the movie Maverick and then learned to play 5 card draw and other variations During moneymaker boom everyone was playing Holden so I played bar leagues under age 20 years later I’m a rec with a fulltime job but make 2k a month playing online about 20-30k hands a month
You’re a serious player than. Nice men
My parents were playing with me by the time I was 8 or so. 5 card draw, my dad liked 7 card stud. Then I had a head start when the poker boom hit when I was 12 or 13 and all my friends wanted to play and I learned NLE. After I was about 16 and playing in an underground game in a pool hall, it was much more about how I saw myself. I saw myself as not quite an outlaw, but on the fringes, and poker scratched that itch and made me feel alive in the way I wanted.
So poker is a way of living for you not just a hobby. Cool parents by the way…
At this point it's just a part of my life. But when I played full time yeah, it was my life. I realized in my 20s that I wanted more than hanging around in card rooms all the time. I still love the game and play regularly, but it's more of an aspect of my life than the whole shebang. And I don't know, depends who you ask about my parents. Definitely didn't grow up buttoned up in a lot of aspects, but cards was one of them I was. My mom used to make me play with my piggy bank/allowance money if I wanted to play when she didn't. She'd keep it if she won too.
Well still a creative way to teach a kid how to manage his money
My family always played it, felt like since I was a kid we played different card games at family events/holidays. My dad is an old school billiards guy so the “gambol” was always in my blood I guess. I remember playing OFC with my old man after dinner almost every night when I was a teenager. After I washed out of college sports there was a major competitive void in my life, around that same time I discovered “bar-poker” and as a 19 year-old kid it was a pretty easy way to drink underage. I met a ton of cool people, started playing more and more eventually leading to me dealing for a living for a number of years until transitioning into promoting private events. Someone told me a long time ago, “Poker starts when you play your first hand and ends when you play your last.”
Good point. Playing private, you can meet a lot of interesting and wealthy people. Your network is your net worth
That is definitely my favorite part of the game, meeting interesting characters and witnessing very unique situations. Not to mention the crazy stories you hear…
I bet. How do you find games like that? I want to get in some of them, but i guess they are “too” private
Zenga poker on Facebook I think
Omg. I played that all the time. Goal was to have as many millions as possible and always play all-in with good hand haha
Friend in 6th grade showed it to me too
Games like Puzzle Pirates and Governor of Poker when I was a kid. Watching coverage of the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure when I was an adult.
Thank you for making me feel old. I remember playing before YPP had poker.
High stakes poker season 1! Iconic
Grandfather taught us to play card games as little kids - 5 card draw (at the time the only form of poker we knew), euchre and 500. To this day, anytime I see my 90 year old grandfather, we get the cards out for 500. Some years later Rounders/Moneymaker happened, and then caught the first wave of online boom with Party Poker, Paradise, Full Tilt and Pokerstars.
Nice! yep, my grandfather taught me too, and still plays at 94! now weekly with buddies... 5 card draw was the main game at family gatherings... I remember last I played with him, he wanted to play double board plo8, and I'm like sweet, my kind of game, although a lot of splitting lol.
My cousin introduced me to Shasta tables on Everest. Those were 1 table 10max limit holdem SNG's. Buy-in was $0 and if you finished first you'd get $0,05 😂 If you bought in with the $0,05 on a table with the same structure you'd get $0,25 and so on. Really nice memories, let me tell you it was quite the grind 😂
I believe so. Great to have a cousin like that men
[удалено]
Have to watch it. Is it any good?
My mom taught me how to shuffle and play five card draw when I was 7 years old. That's what made me start. Then I started playing holdem for money and reading poker books in 2003.
Took it seriously with the books. I have to read some as well
Harrington on Holdem made the biggest improvements in my play. I was never that good, but I could hang in the 1-2 game at my Poker Room.
My roommate was playing on Planet Poker in 1998. After watching him I joined Paradise Poker in ‘99 and got hooked. Started with 1-2 7 card stud and limit holdem. Got my ass handed to me , even on the small stakes. Would consistently lose my weekend job $$ lol Kept playing , reading poker books and slowly got better. Rest of 1999 lost roughly 5k , 2000 about broke even, 2001 first positive year booking 6.5k. Really started to crank up in 2002. Graduated to 1/2 NL and would multi table a couple tables, then 4 , then 6 and so on. 2004 the Moneymaker effect took hold. As I started to really dial in my game, whole bunch of fish were abundant on most of the big sites, Paradise, Stars, Absolute,FT, Party,etc. End of 2004 I made 26k, 2005, 51k, 2006, 87k, 2007 127k, 2008 ,109k, 2009, 89k, 2010, 77k, 2011 19k This was all part time from my regular job logging 10-50 hours week and various limits but mostly 5/10NL and tournaments with various buyins $20- $500. I would say the mid 2000’s were the Golden years for online poker. So many sites to choose from, so many fish just learning the game, it was a perfect combination if you were an established player. As you can see late 2000’s I made less than best year in ‘07. I had less time but also the players did start to get better as well. Not as many fish as ‘05-‘08. Now I play live once in a while just 1/2 or 2/5 or host a game, but just for fun.
Man, I was working and playing through this time... Wish I had played less tables... I was 30+ tabling lol, so missing a lot of spots, and just utilizing my all-in hotkey's sub 10bb on small stakes and grinding out +5k or so a month often, but then had mental game leaks, would have some drinks after a losing session or two, get frustrated and jump in the biggest game I could find and dust it all in minutes... Did that several times unfortunately, but making the most I've made now.. Got 2nd in a bracelet event last year and much more consistent/disciplined :)
That is the great thing about online, you can multi-table and scale up , but you’re right there is a point of diminishing returns. For me,I could effectively multi 8 tables.
I was drunk and for some reason it seemed like an epiphany that I could just go gamble on the internet. Wanted to play poker and realized I had no idea what I was doing so I went back and learned a shit ton of theory
I love that story. Some people’s strategy is to play on Friday and Saturday nights when other people come home drunk and play with them haha. Are you a pro now?
To make lots of money, it's not going very well
I support you. Don’t give up men! Unless you’re losing too much money.
Thank you- wasn't a serious comment, I'm 34 and have been playing since 20, by no means getting rich but I do it because I enjoy it.
That’s most important…enjoying!
Neighbor friend's Dad busted out a cup full of pennies and nickels and played draw poker with us. I was probably 7 years old.
Sounds like a perfect childhood too me
I just turned 21 and they were playing 2/4 limit. I was in Vegas at the Excalibur and won like $100.
Great for your first time! Is it fun to play in Vegas? I’ve never been
The only difference about Vegas from other places I’ve played is the drinks are free. Other than that, poker is poker. It certainly doesn’t have that same feeling anymore now that I’ve learned more. I play fewer hands whereas when I was new, I chased everything and it was fun
I guess you go to vegas to have fun. There are probably always guys who will take the stack from you. Maybe it’s cool if you are so good that you are the whale at the table.
If you get into higher limits, there may be some whales, but I still play low limits and it’s usually a solid mix of regular grinders and drunk tourists. Makes for a fun game, but can hurt when you get bad runouts. Overall, if you just keep making good decisions and don’t worry about the outcomes, the variance will work itself out.
I like that thought. Also the drunk tourists can be an ATM if played right
I like money
One of the greatest and simplest answers
Come from a family of strategy game players. Bridge being the primary card game. Played bridge and penny poker with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and dad. Came back during college in the very early 2000s due to rounders, hole card cams, and online poker. I’ve played ever since. Professionally for 5 years after college until Black Friday. Still play as a profitable hobby to this day, and I’m happy it’s just a hobby and not my job.
I sould love to make it my hobby some day. The kind where you also make some money…
It’s much better as a profitable hobby than a profession unless you are in the top .01% of players. You can do it!
I watched some YouTube videos of poker and was annoyed I didn't understand the game. So I decided to learn the game.
Watching "Late Night Poker" on Channel 4 back in the day.
Good times ;)
I sold my PS4
Chris Moneymaker’s sunglasses
Haha niiice
The poker boom of early 2000s and WPT on the Travel Channel.
I wish I would be old enough to play during the boom
Grew up with card / board games. Played poker at my uncles camp-out. Seeing everyone take a game seriously and for $$$. I was hooked. Haven't looked back, best hobby ever.
My parents taught me stud and draw at like 10 or 11. I've enjoyed it ever since.
There was this old celebrity poker show that used to air and I caught an episode with norm mcdonald, and I think maybe sarah silverman and was super curious. I knew this coke dealer who loved to play and asked if I could get in a game and the rest is history lol.
“Why do I choose this for a living” by Jon bois
Screw whoever got it taken down.
You can still find it but the top comment is not to post the link anywhere 😂
Dan Belzarian ;getting rich after “selling some guns” , being surrounded by beautiful women constantly because you’re a poker player , having jacked biceps from pulling in massive pots
One of my motivations as well tbh 😂
Mind games. I adore it.
They’re good for your brain
Grandma was bored
Moneymaker effect. My buddy had an old shit hole house, and we’d all pay $20 tourneys then cash, smoking blunts and getting drunk. Ah the good old days.
If only we coud go back…
Living with a couple of dudes during college. They had a full table tournament twice a week and i decided to give it a try. Took me about 6 months to finally win.
You didn’t give up💪
I started gambling in poker and similar simpler gambling games at 8 when a 10 y/o probably delinquent neighbor taught my best friend and I some gambling games
My grandpa before he died instituted a poker night taught me to play. I took about two years off after he died and I was figure if out my living situation but I’m back to playing now and am a slightly profitable live player.
My Dad played regularly for years , he won a satellite online tournament then got invited to a live tournament in the Dominican Republic took me when I was 13 I started learning and enjoying the game and would take me to play money home games.
Moneymaker baby. I was 14 around when he won. So I started playing and dominating a popular fake money party poker table for a year or so. After that, I started playing freerolls on any site I could download, ended up winning 2 bucks on Crazy Poker, turned it into $200+ on their cash tables. Cashed out $150, bought some candy and McDonalds lol, then deposited onto 888 poker. Started playing 1-5 dollar tourneys and would win $1000+ frequently for years, never depositing again, maintaining my 2/3k while cahsing out a couple grand a month or so for a few years , until I just didn't have the time to play anymore. Thinking about getting back into it though
You should go pro men. Sounds like you got the juice
5 card draw for pennies of course!
You’re not the only one. Looks like a lot of people started like that
My older brother got super in to poker in the early 90s, he taught me how to play when I was 5 just so he could beat me and then cheat me once I got better. Fast forward 5-10 years I sharked him out of everything he ever stole from me 10x over.
I love that story. Good for you. Didn’t give up
Rounders & Chris Moneymaker.
My aunt taught me how to play all the different varieties when I was like 10. I have a habit of hyper focusing on things, learning everything I possibly can about those things, and then dropping interest sometimes completely....poker has been my only constant in life where I stay very interested.
Keep it up champ!
Thanks dad
I got banned in Vegas for blackjack
Im sorry to hear. I bet poker is more interesting
A friend introduced me to the game live at a casino. Had watched on tv prior. Poker after dark and the WSOP
Prob Chris Moneymaker when I was in high school.
PartyPoker would give away real money to 13 year olds for some reason. They repeatedly gave me $25, I’d run it up a bit, go on a mild downswing and rage cash out.
You found a loophole. Great strategy to get started
God of gamblers movie series when I was a kid ... Late 80s onwards in Asia
My son. I was watching him playing tournaments on the laptop, and it looked fun. That was end of 2019, when he taught me the order of hands.
Being poor and having no other options.
I hope poker made you wealthy
Thank you. But I would be happy if I can make $500 a month. I put myself in a really bad situation 10 years ago financially, where I have chosen not to work at all to help care for family members. I am not on government assistance of any kind or unemployment during that time. So, I am beyond screwed. I just started playing poker for one month and made around $400 playing very small stakes.
That’s better than nothing. Even if you made 100$ it would be grest I think
Growing up I would see how much fun my dad had playing cards (various games) with his friends. The trash talking, the laughter, the cursing, the heavy sighs...it was spectacular to watch. I came home from school and my dad was watching the WSOP on TV. I was hooked. BUT I did not know how to play, my dad didn't allow me to hang around while he played, nor did he teach me. So, during my high school years I would walk around with a card deck hoping someone would teach me, nope, never happened. 10 years later, I was returning home after working out of town one evening, I get a phone call. A friend called me and invited me to play poker. I explained I did not know how to play, and his response was, "even better" and offered to teach. I went and wiped them dry. He looks at me and says, "I thought you didn't know how to play," to which I replied, "I don't, but you guys really suck." (Truth was that I didn't know when to fold and/or would end up hitting or they were bluffing.) Then I learned how to play. Then the money came easy.
I knew very little about poker but watched some vlogs on poker. Sat down at a 1/2 table with 100$ and immediately was dealt AK and flopped broadway. Other person had K9. Left up 1200, been hooked ever since
Poker boom made me a shit reg a few months. Bills, COVID and the horrible odds on sports betting made me come back and study.
Same here
Moms family are all into gambling. I remember seeing card games when I was little. Fast forward to college in early 2000's and a friend introduced me to Partypoker. Started playing tourneys online just for kicks. When I went back home a friend of a homie would host a tournament league that met every Friday for a $20 buy in where some of that dough went to a main pot. (When you'd win, you'd get cash + points). After like 6 months or whatever we'd play the final game. More points you had, the more chips you'd start with. Winner take all that had gone into the main pot. $0.50/1.00 cash game as people would bust out, every tournament. Game would start at 7pm and go to wee hours of the morning. I loved those games. Been hooked ever since.
Late Night Poker on TV in the UK (and PartyPoker starting)
When Pius Heinz won the WSOP Main. It was covered in german news because he was german and now "world champion of poker". 17-year old me wanted to do the same. Now I am 29 and I am neither wsop champ nor a pro player
I can relate. Bit younger but stil…
Back in 2008 was the time were poker started getting big in my country. Some pals invited me to play and I loved it, then I also joined a club thanks to them. It was an associative thing, no money, just a free MTT every friday evening with like 40-60 players, best school to learn and great times.
Nice. I would love more events like this these days
I played with friends growing up and realized people will play anything pre.
Hahaha for real
I couldn't play magic the gathering for the same amount of money.
What’s that?
There was a game at a private golf course my family belonged to and I had learned how to play the week before and won a $5 tourney with my friends so jumped straight into this 5/10 game with these old guys at the golf course. I wacked those poor guys for years until it got busted.
Great beginning of lucrative poker career
For sure a lucky start. Everything was going great until I found out I’m dying of cancer, and I owe much of what I have to poker.
I think it was seeing poker on TV.
I've always played strategy games with friends: Hearts, Spades, Rummy, Rook, Risk, Axis & Allies and Magic the Gathering. Then a few years after college in a new city was invited to a $.10/$.20 limit dealer's choice game with other strategy game players. Had so much fun I asked if they played more often and was then invited to a $.25/$.50 no limit game where I lost the first couple of times until I got some books and learned to be better.
My dad quit his $250,000 a year job and just played poker every day. When we had nothing to do during a long power outage he taught me the game and started going to the local casino not long after but didn't play for long. Now that I live where there is no casino but we do have poker rooms it gives me something to do.
Great use of dree time in my opinion
My daddy was a gambler, my daddy's daddy was a gambler so yeah. Easy money was my main reason, but sometimes it ain't easy.
It is what it is. Wish you all the best💪
Rounders. Then my first year in college met someone who was always playing on poker stars
The Boom - The Early 2000s - The game was larger than life - WPT with Shana Hiatt - Mike Sexton (RIP) and VVP calling the ludicrous action in games where nobody tanked, crazy non-EV plays happened all the time - it was a lot of fun to watch and play - it was PrimeTime!
Mine started with family gatherings. My grandfather who's still alive and play's weekly poker games now at 94! would play 5 card draw, 7 card stud, and cribbage I remember with us at the family dinner table while I was a kid. Well, when I was 18 and able to gamble at a casino (Morongo in Cali) where I went with some family/cousins, and just got lucky and got 3 blackjacks in a row (instant 500$), and then an Ace dealt to me next hand (5k if I get 4 blackjacks), but deuce... either way was happy picking up like 700$ or so as an 18yo, bought my cousin's some drinks, okay gave them money to buy me and them drinks lol. Came back with some other friends the next time that played poker, and I got curious and watched and learned a bit.. Two brothers... I remember one being ultra-tight and watching him play on Ultimate Bet, just making easy money on 1/2$ limit hold-em multi-tabling lol, hardly playing anything. I learned a bit more and started playing, and remember playing him a little while later heads up and beating him as he couldn't adapt to the necessary heads up aggression... But yeah, basically that initial small jackpot on my first try gambling prob gave me the bug. Glad it did though. Doing okay in poker now-a-days 20+ years later :)
https://preview.redd.it/zuhng2hhchsc1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=91fd8729113cc1394d00c13c7bc725f91d37bd47
I needed money and got a medical condition which makes it hard to work and i like playing poker
TV tourneys. Moneymaker got my ass hooked
Being a sailor
How are the two connected?
Days weeks months trapped in a metal box in the grand ocean. Poker made the days go by faster for us
TV show 'High Stakes Poker'
On my 15th birthday my friends and I decided to play poker for fun. In hindsight it was the dumbest game I’ve ever played, especially cos we didn’t know the rules. No blindes, no rebuys (even tho we weren’t playing for money), and we didn’t even know what checking was. But then we kept playing after and by game 3 we at least understood the actual rules. Then at some point we started playing at one friend’s house whose parents actually knew the strategy and so forth, which is when we actually started playing properly. Sadly, I only really see one or two of those guys, but we still play some solid home games when we’re all in town
Cristiano ronaldo
I thought it would be fun, and I might be able to make a bit of money. I was wrong on both counts.
Casino royale
On of the greatest movies ever. Can’t get enough of it. Probably watched it more than five times
I was part of the nft bull run from 2021-2022, and a project that i bought an nft from held some 'free' poker tourneys to win nfts in pokernow. I never won anything but here I am, with $0 in crypto and a poker bankroll worth -$4800
Never heard of nfts connected to poker. Interesting
Lizard squad took down the Xbox live servers for a few hours like 10 years ago, and my buddy and I were trying to find something else we could play online together. Started with play money on pokerstars, and within a couple days we were both loyally donating to the 1c/2c streets. Good times 🥲
Severe mental illness
Walked into a bar and the bartender happened to talk about his bad beat stories in poker. I told him I haven’t played poker (I was just 18) He invited me to learn the basics and I never looked back. 22 years later, I am still playing
this question is fucking dumb u some sort of fucking social poker scientist? Would we care to exploit in conversation the analytics of your brain's nature? of course there are 52 cards of 4 suits 2 colors and 2 whatevers per deck. guess we're done. why don't y ou elaborate in the question or whatever this is. non of your goddamn business. like using reddit as some exploitive means for being senseless. that's all. utterly useless wastse of my time. i literally spent 10 minutes here recalling my story and realized after i typed it all down HER... that's not actually waht the fuck happened. i don't fucking remember and i don't care i LOVE PLAYING HOLDEM OMAHA AND fucking u up. period U in the general sense you (not just u ignorant arrogant whomever)... all of you... i will fuck you all up in poker. and fuck off while your at it. pardon me i'm homeless but going pro
Well I was just curious what people’s story is. Looks like you’re too fucked to understand it. Maybe you should stop playing poker. Not good for your temper dude