Before you read this, please read Part 1 of this series by clicking here.
So who am I anyways, and what do I know about online poker tournaments?
I decided that since you are reading this, you should probably know a little about who I am and how I came to be a poker player. To accomplish this, I have to start at the beginning.
I’ve been playing card games and various forms of poker since I was a child. Though I have always taken cards (and winning) seriously, I knew very little about actual game theory. For over a decade, I played various dealers-choice home games, and though I always felt that there was much more to learn, I didn’t pursue it at the time.
I began playing online poker for play money at Ultimate Bet and PokerRoom about four years ago, never intending to deposit real money into my account. I felt at the time that it was somewhat taboo to gamble with real money online, and quite honestly, I wasn’t in a position to put my hard earned cash on the line for what I felt were pipe dreams. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to come home from work and have the luxury of playing poker just for fun. My brother had also caught the poker bug, so he and I would play for hours and spent quite a bit of time discussing it, though I had no idea at the time how immersed in theory we would later become.
One fateful day, I won one of Ultimate Bet’s high hand jackpots. At the time (I don’t know if they still do this), the player with the highest hand during a set time limit won $20 in real money. I flopped a queen-high straight-flush which held up as the best hand, and my poker ‘career’ was born.
At first, I was afraid to even touch that cash for fear of losing it. I felt that I had truly won a coveted award and I didn’t want to risk it. I began watching the real money games instead of playing them immediately. Though I usually learn best by trying things out myself, I was still hesitant to play for real and wanted to absorb some information before jumping right in.
I now know how terrible most of those players actually were, but at the time they were heroes to me, unafraid to raise and re-raise, some risking more money on one hand than I made in a month. After watching and learning for a time, and overcoming my nervousness, I decided it was time to begin playing for real.
