I've been a member of FTR for about two years, and during that time I have spent a tremendous amount of time playing and thinking about poker. This is actually my third poker blog, and i'm hoping this one mirrors the first more than my most recent. I have had modest financial success from poker, but i'd like to someday play at the 5000NL tables -- something i used to fantasize about when i was 16 and watching those games.

When i first joined FTR late in 2006, i was a losing small stakes player. It would've been cool if i had become a great poker player the moment i joined, but it didn't happen. It actually took about 6 months after i joined FTR for me to take the first major step in becoming a better poker player, which was starting my first poker blog. Shortly after i started writing, i found out about and joined Cardrunners. Doing this made studying much more productive and entertaining, and very quickly my game improved. Over the course of the summer i switched to 6Max and went from playing 50/100NL to taking shots at 400NL. To this day i've never managed to keep my foot in the door at the entrance to midstakes, and after a couple failed shots and playing/running bad i was back at 100NL by the beginning of 2008. Not surprisingly, around February of this year my enthusiam for poker dropped off sharply and i stopped playing.

Because i had taken a break from poker i needed a new method for paying my bills, so i returned to working full time. After a couple months of this i was starting to miss poker, and so around the middle of May i returned to playing. I quickly rebuilt my roll and by the end of June i was in a position to take another shot at 400NL. Unfortunately this shot didn't work out either. But the story won't end here.

I consider myself a very competent poker player and i'm confident i'm intellectually capable of understanding the concepts and ideas necessary to succeed in much bigger games than i'm playing today. My shortcoming has always been my work ethic. Last year a long running blog, as well as a passion for poker, helped keep me motivated. The only goal of this blog is to stay focused on playing and improving.


I expect the content of this blog to generally consist of hand histories, session summaries, and thorough explanations of random poker concepts. Also definitely some shout outs to all the ballers who are helping me become a better poker player!