How I got into Poker - Part One

Welcome back!! Its been a couple of weeks since my last (first ever) post, but in my defence I was dying of man-flu (like bird flu only ten times worse), and spent most of my time knocking back bottles of night nurse and downing strepsils by the bucketload. I did manage a few hours of six max NL10, had my pocket rockets smashed by pocket fours (not to a set mind but to runner runner flush when he called an all in bet on a 5, 9, 10 flop) and J6s (all in pre-flop, naturally). But despite these bad beats I was able to use all my poker skills and superior knowledge to churn out a slight profit, putting me $38.93 up overall for the whole month. Whoop, whoop!!

Anyway going back to the title of this thread, how did I get into the wonderful world of Texas Hold 'Em?

It all started about two years ago. I went down the pub to watch the footie with a couple of mates, we were slightly the worse for wear from excessive beer consumption, and one of my mates thought it would be a brilliant wheeze if we stayed on and played in the pub poker league. So I paid my £5 entry fee, sat down, told everyone I didn't have clue what I was doing, and promptly went out first!! However I learnt a valuable lesson in that first game, and that was to tighten up and not play any junk hands. Needless to say in the second game that evening I made it to the final table and finished fifth. Elated with joy (and Stella Artois) at my new found talent I joined an online poker room PKR and played play money tournaments for a month or so. Then in January 2007 I deposited $50 and started playing with real money. I mainly played in one and two dollar sit and goes (sng's), and slowly my money ebbed away. I had some successes, including coming fourth in a 660 person tournament, and thought I was the nuts. 'Always play the ace' I used to say, I had no idea about playing in or out of position, and barely knew the first thing about odds. I soon became convinced that the reason I was losing money playing low stakes sng's was that the website was rigged and favouring big stacks over small stacks, since I tended to only go out when I went all in against a bigger stack (funny that, when you think about it).

I therefore decided to jump ship and join Full Tilt, primarily cos my poker hero at the time Gus Hansen played there. Check out this hand and you'll understand why Gus Hansen is my favourite player.
I'll post Part Two in the next couple of days (promise), so stay posted!!

Adios