The start and 2007

I thought id start by going through the history of how I started with poker, I know Jamsym is really interested so this is for him especially

Just around the time I was 19 I got into poker after playing 3 card brag with a bunch of my mates, I was always the most enthusiastic about it, I always loved gambling and up until this point had succesfully bet on football for the year. The maths of it came pretty easy to me plus I loved football and Gambling, it was perfect. Poker became even more perfect because there was so much more money to be won!

So I heard about poker from the website I used to tip football bets on, started messing around with play money for about a month, then I did freerolls for a month. My mate Marc was also a degen gambler like me so we both got into it at the same time, and we grinded the absolute poker freerolls mainly, i won a 2000 man tournament and got $15 for my troubles! I lost that the same night obviously.

Anyway after 2 months of learning the game, I fancied myself pretty good at it so I got the courage to deposit my first £10.

I started playing $1 and $2 sit'n'goes built it up a bit and took a 3 BI shot at 5c/10c and never looked back. I played 2-3 tables of this level showing profit every day for about a month, after this I played 10c/20c for a few months whilst playing micro mtts, I remember winning a $1 mtt for $109 which was massive for me at the time!

Then came 5-6 months at 25c/50c after i had over $700 in the account, i felt i was overrolled for this level. I moved up to 5-6 tables all 6 max and discovered my first love- Rakeback.

I was getting 25% rakeback at StanJames and realised how sweet it was to get a lump some straight into my account.

I messed aroung with 25c/50c for a while and got lazy, played the odd mtt here and there as well and had really good results, at this point I was living with a mate of mine Neil in his flat, we had an awesome time and a great summer, I got lazy living here though and it was his place so I decided to move back home for the start of 2007 and convinced my mum to give me a few months playing poker as long as I went to uni in September of the same year.

So this was to be my first year playing "professionally"

And it finished as follows:

YEAR 2007

JANUARY : PROFIT £3058 (Only Mtts)

FEBRUARY : LOSS £120 (Only Mtts)

MARCH : PROFIT £1032 ($0.5/1 NL)

APRIL : PROFIT £640 ($0.5/1 NL)

MAY : PROFIT £1770 ($0.5/1 NL)

JUNE : PROFIT £1645 ($0.5/1 NL)

JULY : PROFIT £165 ($0.5/1 NL)

AUGUST : PROFIT £1713 ($0.5/1 NL)

SEPTEMBER: PROFIT £3460 ($1/2 NL)

OCTOBER : PROFIT £3394 ($1/2 NL)

NOVEMBER : PROFIT £1340 ($1/2 NL)

DECEMBER : PROFIT £7549 ($1/2 NL+ Big tournament win)


OVERALL : PROFIT £25 645

(CASH : £19 840)
(MTTS : £5 120)
(CASINO : £752)

To take you through the year, I started first few months playing 20 small stakes mtts a day non stop for 20+ days. January was awesome then February reminded me about variance and how much it sucks. I played a little at the casino 1/1 games during this time with a mate of mine who plays there for a living (ste) I did relateively ok, but i was mega mega tight.

From March onwards I decided to go back to cash and now I was rolled and brave enough to tackle $0.5/1.

Luckily through my dad I found a deal with a well known pro Malcolm" The Rock" Harwood on his site http://www.rockpokeronline.com/.

I played through this deal on Betfred under the alias: christianu up until December when I moved to a different site which offered a rake race. Suited me perfect as I could put the hours in and by this time I could play 16 tables easily. Just before this I played a big online MTT through my mtt fund as part of my deal with therockonline and got a nice score, im not sure the exact amount but it was around $3-$5k. Awesome for me at the time.

I also moved up to 1/2 towards the end of the year and had good results, Id moved up all the levels now from 5c/10c to 1/2, i wasnt a massive winner but did well enough, I played very very nitty, something like 9/3/1 lol, funny looking back but it was all the rage at the time.

So In December I had my best month at my new site, and felt really excited getting into the new year. 16 tables came 2nd nature to me at this point.

As you can tell I never went to Uni! Never really planned to and my family had finally come to terms with me wanting to play poker and not get a job!

Also I finally got a new apartment to live in for 2008 which was my target at the start of the year, move into my own nice place in town and i managed to achieve it! I moved in with my mate Ste and im still here atm. Its pretty expensive but worth it, the place has a swimming pool/gym/jacqusi, really nice and modern and living in the town center is awesome. Ste moved out, and I lived on my own for a while and just recentley another mate of mine, Brett just moved in. He is starting 09 with poker aspirations himself, im gonna help with what i can.

Anyway that wraps up the start and 07!