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I was once a once a month $5 buyin dealer's choice in friend's basement poker player. Then my neighbor's and I started playing a little more. Then Texas Hold Em became popular and I didn't like it very much, but being the competetive man I am I refused to let my neighbor Ryan (who was getting very into the game via the WPT) be better than me. I bought a few books and my serious poker playing started.
It wasn't long before I took some of my money from my minimum wage job and ventured to the world of internet poker. I played a decent amount of $2 NL, .5/$1 limit, and $5+$1 or $10+$1 sit-and-goes. I was a breakeven to slightly losing player. I lost about $400 very very very slowly in these games. I had started reading UPF very regularly to try and improve my game and this one annoying
poster kept posting about Pot Limit Omaha while the rest of us tried to discuss texas hold em. His screen name was Felonious_Monk. Eventually I started reading his threads just for fun and continued playing Hold Em. I shortly thereafter saw a PLO event on ESPN for the WSOP, and to this day it is probably my favorite episode (1st Chau Giang 2nd Robert Williamson III). I played some 25 (play money) PLO on Party to try and understand the game a little and became fairly interested. I started reading Monk's posts/threads semi-religiously. I started jotting down what I thought were good hands. I made threads specifically for him to respond to. He was endlessly helpful in teaching me this game. I jumped into the $25 PLO games on Party and very quickly was beating them handidly. I continued to pick Felonious's brain via UPF and for the first time I was winning money consistently playing online. My $200 blossomed into $450 as I went off the college. Eventually I built up enough of a bankroll to play $50 and $100 games (the biggest party offered at the time). To my surprise I crushed the $100 games too. It was at this point that I started to realize just how much money I could maybe make playing this game. After some time I ran into Felonious_Monk himself at one of my tables. With no exaggeration this was one of the top 5 proudest moments of my poker career, the first time I played at a table with him.
Eventually after I had built a nice little bankroll for myself playing PLO I was able to move back to LHE and NLHE and at a much higher level ($2/$4) than before, and was actually becoming a winner. Party opened up higher PLO tables and made the max buyins 100 BB instead of 50, so I essentially abandoned the game as the landscape, and as a result, correct strategy, had changed fairly drastically.
I've never been a good student but I've always considered myself pretty bright. This always worked JUST well enough in high school but in a college with a competetive Engineering program, as a Physics Major, it simply would not cut it. After the year the school informed me that I was welcome to continue attending the school, but that my scholarships and financial aid had been cut and I would be on academic probation. Neither of my parents are very financially successful and I did not want to take out loans to go to something (school) that I've never been motivated at. I felt like burning the money would be just as useful.
With all that I was somewhat forced into the life of a professional poker player. I hadn't planned on it, but the thought crossed my mind while in college. I'm not upset with it, so far I enjoy it very much and have done very well (in my opinion) for myself so far. I see only bright things in my future. I have one man to thank for all of this, and that is Ian. His posts on UPF single handedly turned me from a breakeven-loser to a long term winner. His help has opened up financial avenues in my life that I couldn't really imagine me having at such a young age. This post sounds an awful lot about me, but it is merely to show how much this great man that I have never met has changed my life for the better.
Thank you Ian. You are a brilliant man and poker player. You have gotten out of poker what you wanted (a lot of extra spending money and some enjoyable times) and now are largely moving forward with your life and I respect that. Good luck with everything in life in the future, I am sure you will succeed tremendously. I will forever be in debt to you for how much you have helped me, whether you know it or not.
Cheers
Statistics: Posted by Xaston — Mon Feb 20, 2006 7:02 pm
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