The Poker Chronicles

Actually I wish I had had $.5/$1 games when I was first learning. I was forced to jump into $3/$6 (only game around at the time) which is pretty high stakes for a college kid. You're guaranteed to go broke numerous times while learning at those stakes. Actually I probably only went broke once due to not being good at the game, all subsequent bottom outs were due to spending habits, but whenever I did lose my entire roll I had to save up a few hundred before I could even get back in action. Then if I did get back in one loss would have me waiting 2 weeks for the next paycheck. There were times when I would get so frustrated that I would take months off.

After a couple years of play I finally did start to take online poker seriously and started playing the $1/$2 games on Paradise (the only game in town back then) a little. As soon as I rolled up a bit of a stake on there my roommate logged on and blew it. I never saw him again tough I did take his TV and VCR as partial repayment. Doesn’t seem like a bright idea to lose a few hundred dollars of someone's money and then not move all of your stuff out of the house, but then nobody ever accused Larry of being very intelligent. After that I went back to live poker.

In any case I often wonder where I would be had I had today's Party Poker back then. I might be a lot further along. The same might be true if I had had the foresight to change my spending habits a couple years earlier, but then I really don’t regret that. I was young, in college, and in party mode (whereas now I'm in Party mode) and having fun. Having gotten that out of my system and working 5 years in crappy retail jobs probably gave me the dedication I needed to get to where I am today. That and my first "attempt" at going pro, which I may talk a little about later.

So anyway the moral of my little rant here is that there is nothing wrong with playing low limits. It's experience at a very low cost. Playing $.5/$1 for a year is much better than playing $10/$20 for a month, going broke, taking a couple months off, then repeating. If you are new to poker just stick $100 into Party, when you get to $200 take your initial buy-in back, then don’t cash out until you're crushing the $15/$30 games. Every time you have 300bbs for the next level up make the jump. If you lose half of your roll go back down. Read the good books (see left hand side of my homepage), try to find a friend at your level to talk to, and just keep playing.

Everyone had to start somewhere and trust me when I say you don’t want to be the guy in the $15/$30 game who never played a day of hold'em before. I play with 20 of that guy every day and it ain't pretty for him. Even if you have the money to afford that you aren’t going to gain much from it. I would guess there are many guys in that game who could buy a very nice car with what they lose in a year. And I thank God for them but you don’t want to be one of 'em.

Whoops, thanks to the commenter who pointed it out. I meant 300bbs. It has been changed.