Moca Choca89

Well the story goes, I began playing poker as a way to focus my energy away from the London pub life I had found myself in at 18. I guess sitting around with one type of degenerates countered the other.

I remember within the first few months of working a real job, I was more broke than I was before I was working. I found myself in £800 debt to my brother which was contributed from a range of things, including playing poker.

I didn’t know much about poker, only that good hands done better against bad hands, but didn’t know anything about the maths and theory behind poker.

I came in with the knowledge it was a skill game and never considered it gambling even though I obviously was at the beginning. It didn’t take long, a few months, before I read the book ‘Harrington on Holdem’ I learnt pretty quick and now had a dynamic to play tournaments in the local poker club.

I actually done OK with using tight hand ranges against my opponents loose passive styles. I still for a few months could only really break even, I would have massive upswings and always loose my roll back on tilt, but at this point I at least wasn’t a loosing player, just breaking even. Guess I didn’t have enough money to be a loosing player.

It was probably around 6months into my time playing poker I decided to type the words ‘top training sites for online poker’ into google. I came across a list. They all seemed pretty expensive and I didn’t have enough money to join the one the most well reknowned site at the time.

It was at this time I became aware of the site ‘sharkscope’ which had a small section of coaching videos on them, which were very reasonable for the players they had on there. I bought 2 of beanmo’s videos and over night, and I mean literally over night I went from a break even fish to an 14% roi winner in the 9man normal speed SnGs. Within weeks I had a few grand on my account and signed up to the Cardrunners training site. Here I learnt further concepts of poker.

It was at this point I met Flippetyflop.

He was sitting next to me as we were both grinders of multiple tables of online sngs in the poker club, The Western. He was the first person I had come across that knew the term ICM other than myself. We became inseparable and discussed strategy intensely from then until this moment as I type this sitting next to him as we talk strategy like the old days. We both managed to sustain high roi’s in 9man SnG’s but would find ourself broke again after a couple of months each time because we would play higher and higher stakes every time we went on a loosing streak.

It was here when I learnt that bankroll management was the key to being a winning player. It was at this point that I quit poker for a month and dropped a plan on paper, I was not to touch a deck of cards for one month straight but study every night bubble spots and ICM in 45man SnGs and MTT’s. I came up with a full proof bankroll management plan which would mean I should never go bust again.

It was June the 1st 2009 and my friend rang me up saying he had $130 and wanted to trade it for £, I knew I was ready and although the amount was a little smaller than I had planned for the deposit I thought I could see how it goes playing the $5 and deposit the rest if I needed to as I had saved money to play from the previous month working. I never looked back again. I was robusto in 3weeks after winning an MTT for 6k and left my job to play full time poker.

I moved to heads up SnGs after I reached the mid stakes, and there wasn’t much action in 45man SnG’s. I then came across HUSNG.com and on my first day playing $50 games I was up $700 and the second $500, I knew I had stumbled across what I was best at. I just read my opponents betting patterns so well and was rarely wrong, I remember making numerous king high calls on the river and even value betting king and ace high in the first week with success. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to define ranges back then. I played strictly normal speed sng’s until a new game was introduced which changed the  world of poker for me forever ever……. HYPER TURBOS.

Initially I was scared, they made me tilt, they made me play a lil out of my bankroll and they had no limit to the downswings but more importantly, no limit to the upswings. I have to say thank you to Serkules at this point, up until this point I had found most of my direction on my own or with the help of Flipper. It took him really crushing the first 4months to make me see it was the way poker was heading and you could win consistently at them.

I moved up from the $100 games to $1000 games in around a year and now hover between these stakes. At some points I have found myself playing $5,000 at high points of my career. I have had some big swings but through out I used bankroll management to move down and up the stakes with ease and enjoyed most of them bar the couple of 6 digit ones, but tbh, I am kinda happy I am 23 and able to say I lost over $100k a couple of times and still have a few more to back it up .