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I began playing poker at the beginning of my Junior year (2003) when all my buddies in the Chess club, along with the rest of the Moneymaker-pipe-dream-obsessed world, started to pick up the game. The instructional lessons of chess they used to give me on weekends slowly shifted to hold 'em, and mid-way through Fall semester I cashed in my first 100$ into Party Poker and played NL25$. I busted by the ended of the semester.

Spring semester I took a shot again, and hung tight around 200~300$. When summer break started, I broke 1000$ while playing NL50$ tables at Gary's place. It was quite possibly the single most exciting win I've had in my poker career.

I struggled a bit over the summer, and ended up giving up with the conclusion that my previous run had been just luck. But two weeks before the start of school I found another rush/revelation -- I'm still not sure which -- and made about 5000$ playing the NL100$ 6-max tables. I was on an insane run where I was all-in every 30-ish hands, and usually as a 75%+ favorite.

I continued to do well at the NL100$ tables, but with class and other things I ended up slowing down the pace. I took some nasty spills in December, and changing gears to play Limit with 2/4$, 5/10$, 10/20$ and 30/3$ Sit n' Go tournaments all ended in disaster. I blew another grand or so in Vegas on poker.

January 2005 started off as a bad new year, taking even more hits as I suffered another massively negative run. At one point I had maybe 300$ in the account while playing in 4 tournaments. 3 of thouse tournaments were 100/9$ SNGs and I did OK; the last one was a 500/35$ multi-table step tournament. I placed in that one to qualify for the 1000/65$. And I came second in the 1000/65$ for a 4500$ win, which erased my last two negative months entirely. But talk about rolling the dice. If I failed to win that one, I was down to where I had started at the beginning of the school year.

I continued to play tournaments through January and Feburary -- mostly 100/9$s and 200/15$s. I was on a regular pace, and then I took another ugly spill, dropping something like 3000$ in a single sitting at the 200/15s. I think I ran into 3 sets with top-two to start the session off.

I took yet another break away from the game, and started looking at other sites to branch out. I started playing the NL200 games at Prima; thought about redepositing at Stars and cashing into UB. But as I was investigating other options, Party opened their NL 1000$ tables and changed their blind structure. I played NL 1000$ quite literally the morning these changes took effect. I think I did okay, but calling with AK to a river all in on a 1.8k pot had my heart beating so fast I couldn't even look a the screen when I called. That was way too high for me to be sailing, and I quickly decided that I needed to play lower.

I settled into the 400$ and 600$ tables; and happened to start playing PL since the average pot sizes seemed to be larger. As I continued to play the game I realized the limitations on betting sizes really suited my game. It game more room to read players, and less opportunities to make large overbets both as payoff and bluff strategies.

My first session at the 600$s brought me +2k; I stopped after losing a 1.8k pot that should have put me at +4k -- but my opponent rivered quads against my made boat after getting all in on the turn. Upsetting, but that week I continued to do well. And PL600$ has become my staple bread and butter. I've been having a really good month, but the last few days have petered off.