Let me start by saying I've been looking to start a poker blog for a good amount of time now. I decided with the start of a new month, my winter semester about to be over, now would be a great time to start one.

Let me give a little introduction about myself:

I'm a 19 year old college student at Christopher Newport University, spending most of my time split between school, ice hockey with my school, my new girlfriend, and playing poker.

(and here comes the massive tl;dr)

I discovered online poker during my senior year of high school. I played play money SNGs, and the freerolls on PokerStars. The freerolls back when I played were structured as 10,000 players max (always filled), top 27 advanced to a tournament with a OMG-Cash payout! I played in probably 10 of these freerolls a week, struggling to learn how to play poker better, reading whatever I could find online to figure out how to become the best player. I slowly progressed into a better poker player gaining a few top 27 spots, but never cashing in the higher tournament.

During pokerstar's 10,000,000,000th hand promotion they were having $1000 freerolls, and of course looking to make my first real money I jumped at the opportunity. The freeroll started at midnight that night. I grinded through it, playing what I thought was amazing poker, and winning all the coinflips I needed to. At 6 AM that following morning I busted out in 4th of 10,000 runners, cashing for my first ever real money of $44.

I was scared to touch that money, and to actually play anything with real money, so I decided that I would study, and learn poker, and at the start of my freshman semester at college I would begin to play poker.

August of my freshman semester in college I decided to finally hit the cash game tables for the first time ever. I played a very tight passive style at Full Ring .01/.02, but it worked for me. I made a little over a hundred dollars, before deciding to move up to .02/.05, and into 6 max games. The transition was very rocky for me, taking me up and down on swings over the next few months. I managed to move up to .05/.10 by January of 08, having a bankroll of about $300. In February I was still grinding 10nl, being extremely strict about bankroll management. I played in one of the twoplustwo sponsered PokerCast freerolls, nailing first place making $100, and an additional $650 if I could grind out 4500 VPPs in the next month (I had less than 4500 total FPPs to date to put it in perspective).






In order to make the required VPPs, I moved from 10nl to 25nl (which the freeroll win made me rolled for) grinding that for the first week of the month. I ran well at 25nl, and moved to 50nl very soon after. Towards the end of the month I had been winning at both 25 and 50nl and moved up once again to 100nl. I released my bonus the day before I needed my required VPPs, and successfully managed to increase my roll from abut $425 - $2100, moving from nl10 to nl100 in a month.

(February 08)


From there I continued to grind 100nl for a few months, moving up to 200nl late June of 08. Since June I've been at 200nl, taking a month dedicated to playing HU, receiving coaching from Casper who really helped me accelerate my HU game quite a bit.

I'm now looking to finish out the year, make SuperNova, and start looking to 400nl shots sometime at the start of next year.


Lifetime graph to date: