I've been thinking about starting to blog for awhile, I think about now is as good as ever to start so that I have the ability to reflect on where I've been and the progress that I've made as a player. So for my first one I might as well start with my background (I think it's kind of interesting anyway)

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Donkish Beginnings

First started with the Moneymaker explosion like a lot of other people. My dad threw money on partypoker in 03 and he let me play whenever he wasn't. Of course I didn't know what I was doing really and I kind of donked around. I was much more degen at that time, I remember losing a 5 dollar SnG, thinking 'oh well i can move up to 10 and get that money back', losing that, 'ok well 25 dollars isint too bad' and etc.

I always donked around online poker but it never was serious for me. I am from Buffalo and when I turned 18 the lovely Turning Stone opened up to me and introduced me to live poker. I really thought live poker was the nutz...but looking back it really slowed down the development I made as a player. I would go with my dad and he would have buddies up there (older people usually), they would see these internet kids walk around and go 'wow what losers they will never last'...and me being blind to the online world (as well as not being successful) i pretty much agreed.

Well I played at TS for awhile and when I turned 19 Niagara Falls, ON opened up to me as well. I would play at Casino Niagara for ***** and giggles...nothing crazy.

In March 08 I think I was just bored with school and everything and after another turning stone trip I thought to myself 'why havn't i studied the game?'. So I went out and bought Harrington's tournament books and read those in a few days and thought I knew everything there was to know about poker. Went to Turning Stone that weekend and busted out like 11th in a tournament of 130 people and thought I was great lol.

I was learning more about the game but still wasn't anything special. School ended for the spring and I had summer ahead of me.

Luck-boxing a 1/2 roll at the horse track

The day before I was going to apply at Finish Line I went to the horsetrack with my dad and a few other people. I was looking at one of the racing books and put a 3 dollar trifecta box on three horses for what I thought was race #4 at the Buffalo raceway, instead i checked and it was at another track on a television monitor lol. The trifecta actually hits and I ship 400. Ok, cool I thought.

I stayed and hit another trifecta that night (i know nothing about horseracing at all) and ended up shipping 1500 for that ticket. I turned to my dad and said 'hey why dont i play poker with this new 2k roll I have?' and him being the supportive father he was agreed.

I played a lot at Casino Niagara and Turning Stone in the Summer of 08, i basically was a 1/2 live pro...i was better than most of the players there but I still wasn't great, I would play so nitty and ABC poker...I made decent money

In August of 08 I kind of realized that I wasn't going to be able to go to the casino as much considering where I go to school it's directly inbetween Buffalo and Syracuse, it would be at least 1hr drive each way to get to the casino. So I deposited 200 bucks online and I've been playing ever since.

Online History

I started at the end of August but honestly I never read any strategy, I just kind of loaded up 9 tables of 5c/10c and was like 'zomg its so easy ill just play like a nit'. This didn't work out too well and I almost went busto...probably down to 50 bucks. I pretty much gave up for the time being, I didn't see the point, I thought online was rigged and all that bull crap.

In November I was in a single room on campus and bored out of my mind, WSOP episodes started airing again and I told myself I wanted to make online poker work. So I started playing again, and successfully built my roll high enough so I could feel comfortable at 25nl in December. I had problems changing my aggression so I ended up moving back down, but at the start of the new year I was at 600 and ended up moving up to 50NL in mid-january.

I've kind of been stuck between 25-50nl ever since, my roll fluctuating from as high to 2k to as low as 600 in the time since. I put in wayyyyyyy too much volume for a new player imo (46k hands in February) and kind of burned myself out in a way. In march i started out with 8k hands in 10 days and lost half my roll from 2k to 1k in those 10 days...I really was losing hope. Luckily I got away from the computer for spring break...went out of town for a few weekends and also my laptop unfortunately needed repairs so I missed out on most of march.

I will also say during this time I have been very fortunate to make a bunch of friends on the 2+2 forums that have helped me develop and evolve my game. I consider myself to be a sponge and everyone that I have ever talked to about the game I feel like I have taken away things from. I'm fortunate enough this summer to have the opportunity to be in a house with a bunch of other grinders in Vegas during June and I've never been so psyched to get out of Buffalo and into that house. I'm very fortunate I've been included and I just want to be a sponge when I'm out there...absorb as much discussion/info/strategy as I can (while having a good time too obviously its fking Vegas)...I cant wait

Where I'm At Now

I'm starting with a $1050 roll on PokerStars as of April 2nd, 2009. I really would like to be at 100NL by the time I'm in Vegas in June but I can't control variance. I can only control my passion and optimism for the game. I'm really looking forward to what's ahead and hopefully I can see continued success now and in the future

I'll probably always be ranting about random stuff in here (helps me get things off my chest) so hopefully this blog will be entertaining