Quote Originally Posted by USCTrojans View Post
I am curious guys, how did you all get hooked up on poker?
I had been playing various forms of poker on and off for many years. Mainly with family.
Then it about 2001 or 2002 I started playing for play money on pokerroom.com
I was killing the play money tables but I didn't want to deposit my own money.

Then in 2005 I started looking for freerolls and no deposit bonuses. That's when I found out about this site. I won money in a few freerolls and I got an awesome $75 no deposit bonus on party poker (from this site, thanks NDN!) and that's how I started playing for real money online.

It still amazes me how much time I've spent on online poker since 2005. Sometimes, I get depressed thinking how many useful things I could've spent that time on instead of poker.

I'm taking a little break right now because I think I've been playing too much since my big win at HORSE on pokerstars.

Who could've imagined that I'd be playing (let alone coming in 2nd) in a big $215 HORSE tournament when I had never even heard of most of Omaha, Razz and Stud H/L in 2005?
It's a little mind boggling when I think about it!
(See big poker wins thread for details).

I believe it causes me to get a bit too overconfident when my luck is running well and I'm playing well.

I used to think that a $20 buyin was a lot of money for an online player and I didn't understand why anyone who was not a professional would be willing to play $50, $100 and $200 buyins when they can play the same games for $1 to $5 and risk a lot less money.

Now I get it. For most people, once you get your first big score, you think you're the greatest and you're not willing to play a low buyin where you can win say a couple of hundred dollars for first place if you already hit your first 4 figure score. It seems that the excitement just isn't there unless you can win at least as much as you did the last time you placed in the top 3 of an MTT.

Oh well...
I'm sure I have a lot to learn about balancing my hobbies and particularly poker with the rest of my life.