How Did you start playing poker?

dougee19

My 1st ever tournament was in UCC playing pokersoc when I was 17 years old, and taking it down!
followed by missing the next weeks event preventing me from back to back titles..
I then went into the macau(once I turned 18) and ran like God for 2 years and because ****ing invincible until I blew my roll in Italy and Hungary

dannydiamond

RichieLawlor wrote: »

Watched Late Night Poker, thought it looked easy, but also wanted a cool nickname like 'DevilFish' or 'Aces'

So then you join boards and give yourself the nic 'RichieLawlor'

mdwexford

Flushdraw wrote: »

Richie "Fish with Chips" Lawlor rivals any of them mate

BuChan wrote: »

lol, fish with chips! that's ****ing good. started in the monday night freeroll in the merrion. moved up to the big 20 freezeout on thursdays and then the nosebleed 1/1 cash game where most of the table played about 25bb deep. good times.

Icarus152 wrote: »

Richie "lol" Lawlor?

dannydiamond wrote: »

So then you join boards and give yourself the nic 'RichieLawlor'

Im loving the Rick Lawlor abuse on this thread, wp.

RichieLawlor

dannydiamond wrote: »

So then you join boards and give yourself the nic 'RichieLawlor'

I told ya, I always wanted a cool nickname but never got on hence the RichieLawlor

fatguy

I played 7-Card Stud with my folks for years and years, started watching Hold'em on Channel 4 in early 2002. I remember coming into college and asking my mates if they saw the poker last night. Nobody believed me that poker was a good spectator sport, expect those who'd also seen it!

One of the lads bought a poker set afterwards, and we had a weekly game as an excuse to get the lads together. I then started playing for fun in my local pub when I was in Sydney, which graduated to trips to the casino. When I came back to Ireland I started playing online, and about a year later started posting here.

eoghan104

I started off by watching my mum and the family play from about the age of 8. Picked up the rules there and eventually they let me sit in. Got into Holdem by watching LNP and loved it.

My uncle got me into playing online just for play money and i remember the first day i played you only got like 2,000 play money chips a day so i opened about 8 poker room accounts on all my friends email addresses just to saty in the game!!!

Then a mate told me about the "casino" called the fitz. He was telling me about the tournaments and me and another friend said we would try out the €20 rebuy. Having only seen casinos on the TV me and my mate thought we better dress up to make sure we got in. Ill always remember walking in in my best shirt and slacks to see tracksuit tommy in his united jersey having a go at Frank Hunt wearing god knows what!!

I ended up chopping that night 4 ways for like 800 quid and that was me hooked. 5starpool was involved in the chop too I think and Frank that owns Ban Thai. I quickly progressed to the 50dc and cash games thinking i was invincible!!!!

loads of regrets though yeh.......

jbravado

My Dad taught me how to play draw when I was a kid and was allowed to play with my folks-they had a regular card game which was always fun. I remember my Dad told me never to play with strangers as he had lost a heated pot one time with 4 jacks to a 4 kinds in the bogend of Meath.

A bit of a lull then infrequent poster here Idoubtit tried to teach me Holdem. He is literally a Maths genius,scholarship case all that nonsense. We played heads up a good bit and he tried to teach me the ins and outs. This lead to house games which Idoubtit would always win. Eventually figured there must be something more than luck involved.

Started playing in the UCD cash game Conbro Chubbs Butch John etc then it was all over.I would play all College games DIT Trinity then eventually me and another punter used to deal in the Fitz discovered a place you could play online in UCD.We played a joint account and did quite well but in those days everyone did well! There have certainly been times over last few years when I regret taking up the game,mainly because of the enviroment it exposes you too but overall I am glad I found the game.

smurph

When I was young I used to play card games every christmas with my relations, they played all kinds of games,

Southern Cross, Hi Low, one eyed jacks are wild, paduki, ,7 Card stud, etc., etc., It was for small money, and was great fun,

Many moons ago in a far away land, My uncle ran a 5 Card Draw tournament every Saturday night in my Local School hall "Our Lady of Victories", When I turned 18 he let me play in it. I was soooo young and niave and stupid. Myself and my friend Rhonda used to go to the Slipper pub on Ballymun road, have at least 6 - 7 drinks and then head to the game. I won it a few times, and won more than I made in a week at work (I was on £55 a week so it wasn't too hard)

They used to play this funny game called Texas Holdem when they got knocked out of the Main 5 card draw game. That's when I started playing it. There was no chips at the time, you played with what looked like monolopy money. It was a £3 multi re-buys for the first 20 minutes. I thought the game was brillant.

I won a ticket to play in the £150 5 Card draw Christmas game in Malahide (the biggest game by far at the time) I got knocked out early, but there was a free entry into the Texas holdem game... I Came 2nd in that for £275)
We headed to leeson street) where I hid the money in my cowboy boots lol, well it was more than a months wages...

Then I heard about a Casino in Dublin called the Merrion, where I headed into. They had dealers and chips WOW..... and I never looked back..

Then I heard about the Fitzwilliam Casino opening up, and I started going there. I sat down at the omaha £100 game one night with a single black £100 chip, and won 7.5 K, I ran like god, the next week I played the biggest pot I have ever played, last hand of the night, against Tony Cooney, ther was 8K in the middle, I had middle set and a king high flush draw, he had an up and down straight draw and the Nut flush draw, which he got on the river, there ended my stint at the £100 game. I started to spend too many nights in the Fitzwilliam playing, and cut back big time. These days I play mainly festivals now and weekends, mainly because the structure of the tournaments have improved so much that a bog standard €55 double chance game can go on until 4.00a.m.

The game can consume you at times, and I have to say I have great respect for anyone who plays cards full time, it must take alot of discipline. Trying to explain why you love the game to non poker players is a complete waste of time, so don't bother trying, they will never get it.

You definitely need to have friends and interests outside of Poker, to keep you grounded so to speak.

Anyway enough of my "back in the day" nonsense.

HibsAreIt

Started playing about 3-4 years ago id say in the place were the bad lads would go,we`d mainly play for tobacco and the odd $5 thrown in.
Mainly play online now and the odd game with mates,ventured into a few casinos but never realy got into it tbh.
Gonna sit back the next few months and do alot more reading up on the game and a wee bit of micro limits

5starpool

I started playing nearly 6 years ago at a home game organised by a few lads at work. 3 of us went for the first time that night, but the other 2 never played again. Bit of a difference. A few months later we went to the €20 rebuy game in the fitz, an went again a few weeks later for the second time. Then I started to go on my own and stopped playing the home games after a while more.

Killme00

Walked in to the Merrion one Sunday evening and got seated in a cash game next to Vera, Sammy, Victor etc etc. Played for hours that night and had a great time, havent looked back since.

William Money

Then a mate told me about the "casino" called the fitz. He was telling me about the tournaments and me and another friend said we would try out the €20 rebuy. Having only seen casinos on the TV me and my mate thought we better dress up to make sure we got in. Ill always remember walking in in my best shirt and slacks to see tracksuit tommy in his united jersey having a go at Frank Hunt wearing god knows what!!



probably just the usual thermal vest, shirt, heavy jumper and padded jacket!!

during the summer he occasionally takes the jacket off!

copperfacegaz

well i started playing poker about 4 years ago .. all started after i was in a car crash and busted up my neck and back which left me lying on the couch for 2 months .. flickin thru channels as u do i found wsop on bravo channel .. i started watchin it everyday and became addicted ( didnt see the rush back to work after this) , when i got better i started sampling in the local pubs.
After this i found the red cow on mondays nites with pokerevents ,, had some great games there and great craic .
When pokerevents finished up i wandered into many a casino to find the SE my preferred choice,, and thats me !!

applehunter

Played in local pub game in Cork then moved to Dublin 4 years ago where I headed along with housemate to the Thursday €20 game at the Jackot. Won the 1st time I went, probably the worst thing that can happen:o

Played pretty regularly live since then.

Hank Scorpio

2 years ago playing 1$ sngs on Paddypower, remember the feeling when i won my first one was great :pac:

Hitman Actual

KarlNedCarew wrote: »

Funnily enough my substitute maths teacher taught me and my mates in fourth year, being fourth year there was always a pack of cards or 2 floating around the group and playing cards was a good way to keep busy and "quiet" without y'know doing schoolwork.

I think you're confusing your life with an episode of The Wire.

KarlNedCarew

Hitman Actual wrote: »

I think you're confusing your life with an episode of The Wire.

I've never watched The Wire

eagle eye

I have been playing poker since I was very young. I got into Texas holdem though a cash game of five card draw I used to play twice monthly on a Tuesday night in a pub.

Some guys started a game and we all came in earlier to play it. I won the second night and another 15 times with three seconds and three non cashes in 22 games in that pub. I then went to a poker events tournament and won and finished second in two of my first three outings. After that I decided to try Galway on a Wednesday night with much less success I might add, although I won my seat in the 1k IPC a couple of years ago. I was winning constantly at SNGs at this time. At the IPC I went out of the main event after 9 hours and made 4.5k by the next morning playing 100 euro sngs.

I regret only one thing and thats going on to understand the game through maths and books. I honestly believe I was a better player before I did that, I naturally understood the situations without having to think about it at all, but now through learning I've got rid of most of the natural ability I had. If there was just a real eternal sunshine of the spotless mind machine, I would be first in line to get rid of the poker knowledge that I have picked up through books.

robinblinds

You can't lose natural ability, surely you can only add to it?