A little about my poker, Part I

I guess I should give a brief (hopefully) background about my poker playing, given the title of the blog. There's not really much to tell, actually. Other than 4 years of goofy dealers choice games in college for nickels, dimes, and quarters, my poker playing began in the fall of 2004 in a monthly home game with my golf buddies. We still played dealers choice (blend of 7 card stud-based split pot games like hi/lo, Chicago, with some 5 card draw thrown in there). About the extent of my strategy knowledge was a nugget I remembered from a book I'd glanced at years ago, which said that the average hand that wins in 5-card draw is a pair of jacks, and the average hand that wins in 7-card stud is 3 eights.

I guess I'm naturally conservative in most things. In this game, I was playing not to lose, as opposed to trying to win. I didn't enter many pots, folded to any aggression without having a hand, and didn't bet or raise myself without a really strong hand. Pretty easy (although maybe not fun) to play against, but you can keep yourself out of much trouble with that approach. I was probably a small winner for 3 or 4 nights (months), and noticed one guy was the consistent big winner. Now, we weren't playing for huge stakes ($60 buyin, $2-max bet/raise), but I'm (too) competitive, and I wanted to be at the top. But I didn't do anything about it.

One night, someone suggested we play Texas Hold'em. I'd never even heard of the game, and wasn't crazy about playing with a disadvantage (again, too competitive). Well, I had no idea what were 2 good cards to come in with, and I'm sure I played way too many hands. I stunk it up that night, and had a month to think about it before the next game. So, the next day, I started searching for poker strategy on the web. I don't remember all the sites that I came across, but I did get some decent advice, and started to read about the different online rooms.

Coming up....the beginning of my online play.