New here

Hi guys,

I've been trolling this site for a bit and have decided to become a member today. I've been playing poker seriously for about a month. I've added 100 bucks to pokerstars and am down to my last 20. I'm trying to have poker as my second income, but as you can see from my earnings that it looks like I got a long way to go.

I play S&Gs and Tournaments in hopes of getting first. I just wanted to hear from some of you part timers and full timers as to how long did it take for you to become successful? At what point did you become successful...(ie. after your first major win? After you read a poker book? Did someone show you your flaws?...etc) Did you guys encounter many setbacks before getting where you are?

I think you will find the story is different for different people. Some people literally just deposited $50 or so never deposited again and now have several million. Tom Durr Dwan only made two deposits online and now he is a multi millionaire. another example was some european girl called Anita or something who at 15 asked her parents for there credit card to make a deposit on stars. Naturally they refused so she made an account and started with free rolls to try and build a roll from nothing. by the time she was old enough to legally play she had already passed six figures.

These of course are rare exceptions on the extreme end of the scale, on the other extreme end you have people who over several years have literally gone through 5 figures maybe in some cases even 6 or 7 figures and still to this day cannot make it as a winning player at any level, and maybe gave up after a decade or two or lost everything they had.

There's a number of reasons why this is generally if you ever read the storys on people who did make it big so fast they often in fact I don't think i ever read a story where this wasn't the case have a strong back ground in strategy games eg Chess other card variants, etc or a strong mathematical back ground.

If you don't have a background which has grown a type of experience or skill in a similar area to poker eg chess maths backgammon even strategy computer games (ELKY a major team pokerstars pro was very good at starcraft before he turned to poker) then you may take longer then others.

I myself took a good year and a bit and several grand before I became a winning player. I only got myself to the point where I had long term results with statistical significance and a large enough bank roll to start doing it as a sole source of income at the beginning of this year.

It really does depend most players take at least a good year or two though before they are able to make a regular living of poker.

This is a game of never ending learning mate.

It'll take u a year or two b4 u start to see profit from poker.

Use this site to read up lots about the game and make sure u read about "bankroll management". It'll help u make ur deposits last longer.

It's taken me about 2years untill im starting to profit from this game. But I stick to BankRoll Management so im not making tons atm. Slowly grinding up the levels
I've read lots of books, but I have to say it's mostly this forum site that has helped me anylaize my game to become winning player. So do some scouting round this site and im sure u'll start to become a winning player

Other things to help u with ur online game is poker software such as:
PokerTracker/Hold'em Manager/Poker Stove (this is free and very usefull) and sites like PokerTableRatings.com and OfficialPokerRankings.com which are good for checking out the competition.

There are good books and some crap books around but the harrington on hold'em's are the best to read. But like I said dude it's a never ending learning game. U gotta put in the hours of learning and experience b4 u start to become mr.$$$$$$$$$.