How it all started... (Pt. 1)

So let's go back a little to how my love of poker all started...

I'd always been interested in card games as a kid, whether it be blackjack, patience (solitaire) or gin rummy. I was only 12 when Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels was released but I remember seeing it shortly after it came out and being fascinated by 3 card brag.

It wasn't until around 12-13 years ago when I got my first taste of Texas Hold 'em. When I was 14 years old, every Friday night I would have my dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching channel 4 (back when Friday night TV was actually good!). I can still remember the line up from about 8pm onwards, it was Friends, Fraiser, Father Ted, South Park, Eurotrash (lol)... in later years Celebrity Deathmatch which was pretty meh but the night was always finished off with Late Night Poker starting at about midnight.

I was instantly hooked and, unknown to me, so were a few of my mates who lived in my street. It wasn't long before the show came up in conversation and we quickly started playing some 'home-games' in my garage. They were always very small games, there were 4-5 of us, and we'd all stick £1 in and play winner takes all. Small games but I'd already got the hunger for winning.

Lambo Goes Pro

Some of you will already know from my diary on the same site but for any new readers, I've been playing on Sky Poker now for the last 3-4 years. In that time I've been slowly improving and grinding up a roll. Over the last 12 months, with a lot of hard work, a lot of help from mates on Sky like Dohhhhhhh and some coaching from Coxylboro, my game has really improved.

I was recently made redundant and as I am in the fortunate position to be able to cover my living costs without a job I decided it was a good time to take 'my shot' at playing poker for a living. Many of you will know this has always been my ultimate goal from poker so while I do not have to voluntarily leave a job to try, it makes it the perfect time to try.

I set myself the goal of playing roughly 40 hours per week 6-7tabling mostly 20NL and 30NL and went from there. I didn't actually make the decision to try this until Sunday 4^th August (I hadn't played any poker in August at that point), so played my first session on Monday 5^th August.

You can imagine how brutal it felt to stand from my very first 4 hour session to be -£100.... not a great start to my plan! I didn't get too disheartened though and managed to turn it round that same night and finish my first week as +£235

A week into this venture, my girlfriend Emma had spotted a very nice monitor in Argos which was on offer for only £75 so she convinced me to go pick it up. I've always felt like I could play more tables but I really hate overlap so haven't been able to cope with more than 6-7 in miniview on my laptop. I picked up the new monitor in the afternoon on 13^th August and played my first session of 12-tabling that night. I jumped straight into it and had 12 tables up and running within about 15 minutes of sitting down to my session. It took a surprisingly small amount of time before I felt comfortable 12-tabling with minimal (unplanned) timing out so I continued with this volume for the month (action permitting).

I've changed a lot of things about how I set-up for my sessions this month to increase focus and concentration. My 'office' is now the dressing table in our bedroom where I listen to my iPod (generally Ricky Gervais podcasts); no more TV and no more Facebook/forum mid-session.

Mentally it has already been tough and I've played through some pretty rough patches of being constantly outdrawn or coolered but I think I've coped with it very well and come out the other end. When things aren't going well I just keep telling myself 'Every minute I sit at the table, I am making money even if the results don't immediately reflect that'.

For the nerdy readers out there, here are a few stats from my first month:

No. of Days Played: 23 days

No. of Hours Played: 129 hours

No. of Hands Played: 98,000 hands (approx)
Poker Points: 12297 points (equates to around £350 rakeback)

Finally here is a graph of my ups and downs throughout the month. Unfortunately it doesn't truly show the full swings involved because the graph displays the results per day (not per session) so if I was -£100 in the morning and +£100 in the evening it just appears as a break even day.

Note: The amounts above are in £££ but the site I use forces you to display a $ sign.

Summary

I started out the month playing mainly 20NL with a few tables of 30NL. As my bankroll increased I started to introduce more and more 30NL and have finished out the month including a few tables of 40NL in my grind. I will be sticking to tight bankroll management which is obviously essential when playing for a living but my plan is to have 100xBIs for 50NL before the end of the year.