Greetings to all of you crazy FTR kids. Allow myself to introduce... myself. I was kingnat's college roommate for two years, and we've been good friends for the past twelve or so years. We've competed with each other over that time in video games, board games, live poker games and fantasy football and baseball leagues. About two years ago (I believe it was April of '06), he told me he'd been having fun playing poker online and asked me if I had ever considered playing. At first I was skeptical about playing for a bunch of money against anonymous people on a server in some offshore country. However I was also intrigued at the chance to put our strong math and game theory skills to use to make some real money. After a couple weeks of prodding and answering my dozens of questions, he convinced me that the big online sites were legit and offered to get me started by loaning me part of his bankroll to clear a bonus on Party with it. He was gracious enough to let me keep the bonus to begin my own bankroll. All I had to deposit was $10 to open a Neteller account and I suddenly had $110 to work with.

And so I started out, probably the same as a lot of you. Grinding my way up through $5 SNGs on Stars. kingnat pointed me to this website for some strategy advice and I began lurking and reading. I learned the "tight is right" early and loosen up on the bubble approach and somehow cashed in 17 of my first 21 SNGs. I plateaued out after that but kept winning steadily. By August I had over $300 and moved up to the $10 SNGs. After treading water for the next six weeks, I hit a major heater from mid-September all the way through October and was absolutely crushing the game for a huge ROI over that stretch. I managed to get the BR over $1300 and began taking shots at the $20 SNGs. This is when I hit the dreaded downswing, losing in 22 out of 24. I decided I was getting burned out on SNGs and wanted to try something different. kingnat recommended low stakes full ring games. Again I began reading strategy posts and we started discussing hands and situations via email. I slowly turned into a winning player at the $10NL and $25NL cash games. I purchased Poker Tracker and PAHUD and started taking notes on any unusual plays by opponents. I was having fun playing poker again, but life got in the way of that for most of 2007. I had to withdraw 70% of my BR to put towards a house downpayment and didn't play for about four months due to moving and doing projects around the new house. Once summer hit and it was too hot to do stuff outside, I started rebuilding my depleted roll at $10NL, and sprinkled in a few $4.40s for variety. Then football season hit and I lost interest in poker again until late December.

For a few glorious days before Christmas, kingnat and I were basically free of obligations and we went on a cash game and $4.40 binge which has relit the fire under my ass to try to win some serious money online in 2008. Numerous times over the past couple of years, kingnat has encouraged me to register and start posting on FTR. But I didn't feel ready to become a contributing member of this community until I was sure poker would be a longterm continual undertaking for me. I think I'm finally ready for that now. So to help me stick with it and continue to improve and expand my poker horizons, I'm creating my own Operation thread. My biggest goal is to make a couple thousand dollars by July. My wife and I are planning a two week trip to Ireland/UK and winnings from online would help us get there. Currently I'm 6-8 tabling $25NL during the week when I can and 4-6 tabling $50NL on the weekends when the games are softer. I have logged over 100k hands in PT and have a modest winrate at all levels. There is definitely room for improvement. Ideally I want to become a winning player at $100NL this year, but that seems a ways off. I'm just now figuring out how to beat the $50NL game and the learning curve appears quite steep to me. A secondary goal is to improve my tournament play in $4.40s, VIP freerolls and some of the $10 or less daily/weekly big guarantee tournaments. And lastly, I'd like to become a winning player at $25PLO. I started playing $10PLO earlier this month and enjoy the game. It is beginning to click for me, but I often feel lost in many situations postflop such as when trying to determine if my two pair or set is ahead or not.

So, um... yeah. That was a lot of words. Thanks for reading and I'll do my best to give something back to you guys in exchange for all the great pearls of poker wisdom you've provided me.