My introduction to poker was much like many others, I imagine. When I was around 13, my eldest brother, Bob, asked me if I wanted to play cards. I'd played various other card games before, rummy, 21 (blackjack), etc. with my brothers and my Granddad, but never poker.
After a very brief run down of the rules and the hand strengths on the card that comes with a deck of cards, we played a few hands and I won a few times. Before long Bob asked "do you think you've got the hang of it?" Having just won a hand, I cockily say that I do and Bob quickly suggests that we play for real money. Off the back of a "big win" the Dollar signs rolled round my eyes and I was already picturing doubling my money. I rushed to my money box and emptied all my change onto the table. I can't remember how much it was, probably less that £10, but it was all the money I had. Needless to say my brother cleaned me out in a very short space of time. I later learned what the term "hustle" meant and felt cheated and embarrassed. I vividly remember crying to my mum a few days later that I didn't have any money to go out with my friends because I'd lost it all to Bob playing cards. "Well you know you shouldn't play these games when you know he'll beat you" my mum replied in a withering tone. Little did I know at the time that I had been introduced to two key aspects of Poker; game selection and bankroll management. It's also probably the reason I have developed a mildly irrational fear of losing lots of money...
I didn't play much poker for some time after that; I had had my fingers burned and I did not like the feeling of losing money. The catalyst for me starting to play again was me getting my own PC when I was 16 and an introduction to this little thing called Facebook. Facebook had been around for a little while, but I'd never had any interest in it, until I left school and started to feel a bit isolated from all my old school friends. I reluctantly created an account and started adding friends. It wasn't long before I started getting all sorts of game requests asking someone to help them in a quest to save a princess or to help pick fruit on their farm and other such nonsense. The one thing that did catch my attention was Zynga Poker. "I like poker" I remember thinking and this is for free so what could the harm be? I clicked the link and was given 1 million gold coins. I was directed to open a table and before long I was playing poker. I say poker, it was more like bingo. I played almost every hand down to the river. I won some hands, but lost more. I saw some ridiculous hands; some where all 10 players got down to the river with absolutely nothing, others where someone hit a straight flush and checked on the river. Honestly, no one had a clue what they were doing! But it didn't matter, because you'd get a daily bonus that would just refill your bankroll everyday. After a while, I began to figure out that playing every hand was stupid, especially calling all the way down to the river expecting to see the magic card to come down and give me a Royal Flush. As I played more I started winning a much higher percentage of the pots I entered and my bankroll began to grow. Inevitably, though, as you start playing better poker, you begin to discover bad beats. I quickly got sick of these idiots that would call my all-ins with 9-3 when I've got AA and they win. I stopped playing Zynga and stopped playing poker for a while.
A few months later I was flicking through the TV channels and came across Poker After Dark on Channel 4. I was fascinated. Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliot were the ones I remember playing and my God! they were idiots, too! They were playing all sorts of hands. Betting and raising and re-raising with all sorts of junk. "Doyle with the Ten-Two; the hand he won two World Series of Poker Main Event Bracelets with" the commentator said. What!? A ten and a two won the World Series of Poker? Twice?! This is bonkers! I continued to watch, transfixed as these apparently degenerate gamblers played all sorts of hands for thousands of Dollars. "Tune in tomorrow for another episode of Poker After Dark", the commentator says and I felt like he was talking to me. "I will" I said. Watching Poker on TV became the highlight of my evening whenever it was on, which was not enough. I was 16, out of school, out of work and nothing to do.
"Sign up to Party Poker today for absolutely free. No credit card required". The TV advert finished and I thought, if I don't need a credit card, maybe I can pretend I'm 18 and sign up anyway? I fired up the computer and Googled Party Poker. I downloaded the client and signed up. I was convinced the police were going to knock on the door when I put 1986 instead of 1988 as the year I was born, but I told myself they would have no idea and continued. When the client first opened I had no clue what I was looking at. Rows of text and numbers that made no sense to me. I managed to open a table and clicked join, only to get a message that said I needed a real money account to play at that table. Slightly panicked that my non-existent credit card would suddenly get charged just by me opening a real money table caused me to quickly shut the table and the whole client. A quick Google search told me how to get onto the play money tables and I was away. These players we much more professional! That guy even folded before the flop! This was so much better than Zynga.
I enjoyed playing on Party Poker play money for quite a while. I was a good way for me to spend my days and avoid being bored. I discovered Sit and Go's and Multi-Table Tournaments, which were great fun, you could end up with more than a million chips sometimes. I felt like a genius sometimes ready to go pro as soon as I turned 18. I particularly recall a hand with pocket Aces in the early stages of a tournament. I hit a set on the flop and I checked so I could trap my opponent. He bet and I shoved all in and he folded. What a great play, I congratulated myself, picking up the pot of about 12 big blinds. What a legend.
I eventually got a job working at the local supermarket meaning that I could not spend all day playing for play money online. But it did mean that I had a reliable income and I was nearly 18...