Tuesday, April 04, 2006

In the beginning there was Paradise

I finally entered the world of online poker in mid-November of 2005 after talking to some co-workers who were playing at Paradise. I started with a $200 deposit and immediately headed to the $5 SNG's and loved them. I got off to a lucky start and had some early success, finishing in the money in 5 of my first 10 played (this took place over the period of a week - no high volume player here). This of course clearly meant I was a poker champion destined for greatness. I then promptly lost my next 9 in a row. Ouch.

In the first month of on-line play I was very unfocused. I would play some SNG's, some multi table tournaments as well as no limit ring games. I just hopped around from game to game and played whatever suited me at the moment. Overall, I was clearly doing better at the ring games but the tournaments were the most fun for me.

When I had free time that wasn't being occupied with playing poker I was reading everything I could find about poker on the internet. All the beginner info I could find about starting hand selections, post-flop strategy, etc. Somewhere along the way I stumbled across this strange form of poker referred to as fixed limit. My only experience with poker was basically from all the tourneys on television which are almost always no limit, so limit sounded pretty goofy to me at first. I gave it a try though and immediately liked it. I think what appealed to me at first was the lower risk on a single hand. I could not lose my whole stack all at once. I played at the lowest limits available but quickly moved up and settled into 0.25/0.50 at Paradise. Anything lower seemed like play money and with a $200 deposit that seemed to be an appropriate limit. When I played no-limit I stuck to $10 max tables but would switch between full ring and short handed.

I was bad but fortunately, many others at the tables were worse. Basically, I made some money playing ring games and lost money playing SNG's and MTT's and it all evened out. All the while I was slowly working off deposit bonus and referral bonuses at Paradise, which essentially covered tourney losses

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