History (part 2)

Show me the money

I had to figure out how online poker players can get their hands on their online pokerdollars.
I contacted live support on CDpoker and heard I needed to deposit real money before I was allowed to withdraw any funds from my CDpoker account.

In general there are 3 ways to deposit money on a pokersite.
1 - Direct bank transfer
2 - Credit Card
3 - Online money processors

But CDpoker only offered payout in paper checks or an online money processors. They didn't offer direct payment to an bank account.


Scam?

I was baffled. Were all the hours I put in and the money I won fake? It sounded like a bad scam, make me deposit money and then never give it back?


Neteller

I decided that I would try an online processor. I read online that Neteller was a good company, so I made an account on Neteller, and got swamped with requests for legal documents and ID. It felt like ages before I had an active and working account, in reality it was probably a few weeks before I had an active/working account on Neteller.

I made a small deposit from my bank to Neteller and then deposited from Neteller to CDpoker. After that I could withdraw my money from CDpoker to Neteller to my bank account again. (All except the initial free $50 I had from CD-poker)

In the meantime I only played a little bit of poker on CDpoker. I didn't trust the whole online poker, until I had at least some of my winnings on my real bank account.

So my trust in online poker was renewed. I had made a profit and it was on my bank account, even if it took a month before I saw some of my winnings on my bank account.

This was still June 2007. I had taken half of the winnings as profit to my bank account, and decided to play with the remaining of my winnings I had left on Neteller of around $500, and never deposit money from my bank account again.


Deposit bonuses

On CD-poker it was almost impossible to play enough to clear the $50 initial bonus. So I didn't even try (It's still there to this day, I still can't withdraw it)

I figured that it would be more profitable to sign up to a new pokersite and get a deposit bonus that was easy to clear.
I started with an easy to clear bonus on Partypoker. There I had to play cash tables to clear the bonus, and it went well. So after Partypoker I started downloading a bunch of other pokerrooms, deposited money from my Neteller account for a nice signup bonus and after clearing the bonus, withdraw all my money to Neteller and move on to the next pokerroom.

I did that for months and saw my online bankroll grow bigger and bigger. I had cleared the deposit bonuses of a bunch of pokerrooms by now. Nothing seemed to stop me. I became better and was winning more and more. These were my golden months of bonus hunting, but then everything went wrong.


Losing my cool

I was playing mostly cash games by now, since that was the fastest way to win money and clear deposit bonuses. I was multitabbing on $0.50/$1.00 cash tables. And then I had my worst session ever.

I had 2 pair, the villain had a set, I had a set, the villain had a straight, I had a straight the villain showed a full house. I did an all-in bluff, he called with A high. It felt like being run over by a truck and being struck by lightning at the same time and the moment seemed to last forever. Every move I did failed. Switching tables, etc, nothing helped. It was by far the worst series of badbeats, lost coinflips and in the end bad play from myself I ever experienced, and every time I lost, I believing that my luck had to turn around, but it never did. I went on tilt. I kept on playing and losing... somewhere in the middle of the night on a saturday I saw that I lost all the money I had on that online pokerroom.

I was staring at my screen in total perplexity. I worked months to build a bankroll online, constant steady growth, and in one evening I lost a huge chunk of that. I still had money left on Neteller, so I hadn't lost all my winnings.

It wasn't just the loss of a lot of money, but also the fact that I did go on tilt. Never thought I could really go on tilt, but when I did, I felt so bad and disappointed in myself afterwards... How to describe it? Guess I can't. You have to have experienced it to understand that feeling.


I quit

After that day from bad beat hell I would have to take one or two step down in limits if I wanted to keep to my own rules for bankroll management.
I decided to take a break from poker.
This was somewhere around November 2007... days became weeks, weeks became months. And I thought about quiting poker permanently.

It wasn't until May 2008 that I returned to the online pokerrooms with the remaining money I had left on Neteller...

History (part 1)

First contact

My first contact with Hold'em No Limit Poker started online.
Someone on MSN asked me to join in an play money poker game on ESPN.com

I read the rules, only half understood the rules, and started played for a few hours and was intrigued.

But I didn't take it to seriously, just a fun game to wrap my mind about.

I did however wanted to beat my MSN friend with the game, or at least be a decent opponent :)


Pokerschool

This was back somewhere in 2007 that I googled a bit and stumbled on www.pokerroomschool.com

I made an account there, read everything on the site and for the first time I started thinking about poker tactics and strategies.

There is also a pokerquiz, kinda like an poker-exam :). If you win the quiz you get an no-deposit $50 signup bonus on CD-poker. (That was a big reason why I made an account there in the first place)

I guess it was no surprise to hear that I succeeded in passing that quiz (after 2 failed attempts)


My first pokerdollars

The no deposit bonus meant that I could make an account on CDpoker and without depositing a penny I got $50 on my pokeraccount there to play for real money on the pokerroom.

The downside is that you are not allowed to withdraw the $50 from the pokerroom, unless you play an totally unrealistic amount of poker there :)

It gave me a free way to gain some experience with poker without risking real money myself.


Beginners confidence

I thought I was a decent player.

I did decent on the play money tables on ESPN, and with the added pointers on pokerroomschool I though I was ready to tear up the real money pokertables.


Real money games

I started with Full ring Sit 'n Go's
I felt like that was the safest form of playing poker for real money:

1 - I never lost more then the buyin (which was I think around $1 per game)
2 - The games could be played anytime I wanted and didn't last to long (max around 30 min - 45 min per game)

I played those games a lot... and after my first weeks of playing I learned a lot, but I also was losing.

My initial $50 first went up, and then went down till the point I had less then $30 left after a few weeks.

Shattered pride: Final stand

So I thought I was a crappy player now.
I couldn't even beat the $1 Sit 'n Go's.
I was losing money.

In a mood of disappointment in myself and poker I decided to at least try and go for a big score once with the pokerdollars I still had left.

I signed up for the most expensive online poker tournament I could find and still afford with my remaining dollars.

There were hundreds of players playing in my first online Multi table tournament. Thousands of dollars were going to be divided...

It was a weekend, and I was roaring with excitement and anticipation.
Thought I was probably going to lose anyway, but I felt like I had nothing to lose.

In hindsight I think that was the perfect mindset. I was taking it very seriously, but I was ready to roll the dice if I got pushed around by gamblers.

I was ready to give up poker after I lost, but that didn't happen.

Played my best poker that I was able to at that time, and what I lacked in skills I made up with heaps of luck.

I had beaten hundreds of other poker players that day for the nr1 prize!
I had won around $1000!

I was ecstatic, I was in pokerheaven. I remembering shouting it out in my own room, behind my computer. I think the neighbors must have heard me, but I didn't care.

On top of the world, on a huge adrenaline rush I felt so good about myself. That day all thoughts about giving up poker vanished.

But the next day I started worrying... How am I ever going to get my money from the pokersite?

Why a blog?

This blog is intended for myself and my pokerfriends who want to know what's going on pokerwise.