My Poker Story

Because of my love for poker, I keep up with several poker blogs. Not only do I enjoy playing it, I enjoy reading about it, and I learn a great deal about the game from the blogs I read. People who don't play poker probably don't understand the "draw" (pun intended) but it's a great game that has been dissected, scrutinized, analyzed, glamorized, commercialized (t.v.) and condemned since its inception, which some say was in Germany in the 15th century.

My personal journey started in Biloxi in the early nineties. Ron and I went to New Orleans for a few days and then took a little side trip to the gambling boats. One night we went to a free show at the Grand and a somewhat older lady who was sitting beside me started telling me about her new favorite casino game - poker. She told me all about the poker room, how to get started, what to expect and how much fun it was. I didn't even make it to the end of the show we were watching. Halfway through it, I convinced Ron that we should go upstairs and play poker. We each bought in for $40. They seated us at different tables, playing 1,2 no limit. We didn't have a clue what the hell we were doing. Ron busted out after about fifteen minutes. He walked by my table and said, "I'm going to bed." I tore myself away about five hours later, not because I was broke (I had more than doubled my money), and not because I was tired ( I could have played all night), but because I felt guilty about playing so long. I was hooked. We were scheduled to leave the next morning and I begged him to stay one more night, but he was adamant. We had to go home.

It was a long time before I got to play poker again, and when I did, I didn't do so well. It was at least a year later and we had gone to Vegas. I tried my luck in a couple of cash games and failed miserably. I didn't even know about tournaments at that point. I learned about those a couple of years later...online. But the real turning point came when one of Ron's co-workers invited us to come to Bailey's to play in their free poker tournaments. We became regulars. It was a lot of fun and it was a good introduction to "live" tournament play. That's also where I made the invaluable connections that led to "real" poker tournaments, which bore only a slight resemblance to the free games. And soon after that, I took that final leap into full-fledged casino tournaments and sit-and-go's.

Our trips to Vegas changed drastically after that. I'd print out the daily tournament schedule for all of the casinos and we'd plan our time accordingly, usually managing to get into two or three tournaments a day, up and down the strip and, of course, downtown. I'm happy to report that I won several of them.

I made many trips to Caesar's Indiana (now the Horseshoe) to play in their World Series of Poker events before I finally cashed in one. And I've made the drive down to Tunica to play in some small and some big tournaments. So far, I've only cashed in the small ones there. Through it all, my love for the game hasn't waned. I'll play poker 'til the day I die. The only words sweeter than "Shuffle Up and Deal" are "Ladies and Gentlemen, you've made it to the money."