Hi All,

I thought it was about time for me to post one of these.

So, my story so far:

I am completely self taught at poker, none of my friends were really interested in poker more than just playing casually. I mucked around on pokerstars and fulltilt for a while  just for fun before black friday until I discovered Heads up Sit and Gos. I loved being able to play almost every hand, I loved how much action were in them compared to full ring tables, and how personal the battles would get. When I was younger I won 2 junior chess tournaments in back to back years with over 200 entries in each which included people 1 year older than me. I played interschool chess without ever being defeated. I have always been a strategic thinker and I loved the strategy and 1v1 thinking involved in HUSNGS, it really suited me. 

I started with regular speed heads up sit and gos on fulltilt poker in 2008/ 2009. I started low and worked my way up....I was doing really really well, I got all the way up to $30 HU sngs and was maintaining a 12% ROI over a decent sample. I won about $3000  + rakebacks and was pretty happy with how I was going. After this I moved up to $50 games, I don't know whether the games were tougher or whether I was playing nervous, or just running bad...But after 230 games there I had won 118 and lost 112, this had me slightly below break even. I was becoming very frustrated with the game and not enjoying it, I started to think I wasn't as good as I thought I was. When black friday happened I just kind of stopped playing after that. I had other things going on in my life, and the money I was making from $30 was good but not THAT appealing. So unable to move up, I just kind of moved on.

Looking back, I know 230 games was not a big enough sample, I didn't really give it a real shot. Now I realise I think it was a credit to my play that I was able to rise up to $50 husngs with no help from anybody, no training, no coaching, no forums, no friends to discuss hands with, just learning through playing and picking what I thought to be optimal play. I didn't have poker tracker or any software, so i wasn't even able to analyse my play or track my EV. Recently I have returned to poker, 25 years old and now far more mature. After discovering how much turbos and hyper turbo husngs have taken off, I was really keen to get in on the action. But I made a decision this time, If i want to get anywhere, I have to do it properly......I have to embrace help from other people, I can't just expect to be so good that I can work everything out myself. Most good players got to where they are from working with other people, talking strategy, discussing hands and improving. I would be completely naive to think I can just do it all on my own, and compete with the other top players that surround themselves with good players who all have far more experience than me, talk strategy, improve and evolve with the game.

I found this forum, I read mersennearys ebook, I purchased the premium video membership and started watching videos. I purchased poker tracker so I could track my progress...already I feel like my game has improved dramatically fundamentally. I look back and cringe at some of the things I used to do in those $50 HU sngs, I really wonder how far I could have got back then if i had the support I needed. I am now taking all the steps I think I need to so that I can be successful. The only thing holding me back is putting in the hours I want to, I have a girlfriend and a fulltime job which doesn't allow as much time for poker as I would like. But I've started putting in some extra hours after work, I work near the beach so i head down there with my laptop and play until all the traffic to drive home is gone. It's going good so far, and here are my results since installing poker tracker:

OVERALL:

$7 TURBOS

$3.50 Hypers

Showdown / Without Showdown winnings (overall, the trend is the same through hypers and turbos)

This is my overall sharkscope Graph since from when I started:

So that's my story up until now, my goals for 2014:

1) Move up to $15 Turbos and $7 hypers this month, put in a decent amount of volume (minimum 800 games). I will re-evaluate after I have done this, and then look to move up the $30 games and beyond by the end of the year.

2) Branch out to some other players - As i said, none of my friends play poker. I need some good experienced players that I can talk strategy with, talk to about hands and improve with. All good players say you need to surround yourself with other good players to improve.... Let me know if anyones keen to chat on skype or facebook or whatever you like.

That is all,

Ben