Question of the Week #10 (Closed)

[royalraise85]

For this Question of the Week we're doing something a little different. We want to get to know the members of our poker community some more and reward you for sharing your stories with us by letting us know why you first began playing poker and how you got to know about the game.

For can also read some interesting stories from the poker school staff members about how they first got playing poker and you can read their stories here. We've got some extra prizes for you this week too!

How did you Start Playing Poker? Tell us your story about how you first got into the game? When did you hear & learn about it? Can you remember the first poker game you ever played? Tell us all about it!

At least 50 words are needed to qualify as an entry, please give as much info as possible.
The more detail you give the better chance you have to win!

Post your answer below!

A new 'Question of the Week' will be posted every Monday morning, you have until Sunday to post your answers, the winners will be chosen by our Moderation Team.

The member with the best answer as judged by the Moderation Team will win, 1 or 2 word answers will not count, copied answers will not count, answers that do not make sense will not count.

Prizes
Everyone that submits a valid answer of 50 words or more will receive a Community Tournament ticket.
1st Place will receive T$50 and T$10 Pay it Forward*
2nd Place will receive T$25 and T$5 Pay it Forward*
3rd Place will receive T$10

Winners will be announced every Tuesday morning in the Poker Promotions section of our poker forum and all prizes will be awarded within 48 hours of the winners being announced.

*Terms & Conditions

• PokerStars School Staff such as Community Manager, Moderators or Trainers will not be eligible for any prizes.
• All cash prizes are awarded in T$ Tournament Dollars.
• The 1st place winner of Question of the Week can only award 10T$ to another eligible School Member.
• Spam posts will be removed.
• This promotion is run by Poker School who reserve the right to amend, edit or change the promotion in any way deemed fit without prior notice.
• The decision of Poker School will be final in all circumstances.
• Some accounts may not be eligible for tournament dollars or real money tickets. Poker School shall offer no compensation to any member should their account not be eligible for any prize.
• Players must be over 18+ to take part in any PokerStars School Promotion.
• Check out our general promotional Terms & Conditions for further details.

[MasterFlame88]

I remember it was about 15 years ago and when ch4 in the UK showed late night poker about 1am. Remember watching this and being engrossed by it. Very technical and also seemed like good fun as the players were chatting and laughing. I tried a few times to play online and offline with few successes and stopped for a while. I have taken it back up again after a few years out and beginning to like it again. Few places and small cashes but I would say overall improving and still learning but have a fire to keep it going and hopefully start placing more often.

[shogy22]

Hello.My name is Olgun and i am from Romania...my username is shogy22.First time when i hear the poker is when i child.i have 15 years and i run from the school to play poker on videopoker in the bar of my hood.when i have 18 i register first time to the betfred platform and i play 4 years.my bigger win was 30$ and i was happy.today i have 34 years and i play poker.I like it and bigger win of my life is 1200$.Have a nice day to everyone

[HaKaPu]

I started playing poker in 2016. My boyfriend explained to me how to play poker and reported me playing live privately.
There were 9 players and I ended up in 6th place and my boyfriend finished at 2th place.
The first game in online poker was SNG 180 players buy in $ 2.50 I do not know where I finished, but I know I did not enter the money conqueror.
The first tournament won was S & G I won $ 2
In 2017 I started to play online poker on pokerstars.

[nicoblaer]

Hahah fun stuff to remember.. I was like 14 years old (sorry I know I was under age)and I would watch my dad play (rest in peace). He played in a different site but one day we watched pokerstars advertising on tv and joined the very next day. We would play play money, freerolls and stuff. I actually still have one of those tickets you would get after reaching like top 100 on different kind of "golden" freerolls (PSO member issued nov 25, 2013 LOL). One of my best games as a complete novice (actually 2) was a freeroll to the LAPT in my country (Chile), if you reached like top 50 you would get a ticket to the final tournament and $5. I won that one twice lol. On the final tournament I was playing with my dad beside me.. I remember he told me to go all in with JJ on a wet flop like AKx hahah.. I did and lost but it was fun.. couldnt say no to my dads call (even though i knew it was probably wrong). And the $10 I earned well... I think most of you already guessed I went to play cash games and lost everyting in like 3 hands hahaha... fun stuff.

[ramoz65]

It was donkeys years ago when I started playing poker at my university Queen Mary College with my fellow students. We used to play every Sunday of the week in one of our friends university dormitory oh it was so much fun even though I don't think I walked out winner once in 2 years of playing religiously on Sundays. We used to play stud poker at the beginning and moved into pot limit Omaha by introduction of a friend to the game and if i recall he cleaned us out at first few weeks until we grasped the game and started winning except me of course I carried on losing as i wanted to be involved in every hand and if I didn't have anything I tried to bluff my self out and everyone knew what an idiot I was .

We went our separate ways after our degrees and kept in touch and from time to time we played and I continued losing as didn't want to upset ones losing habits.

I was always in love with the game and around 8 or 9 years ago went to Macau which Pokerstars held tourneys in central town can not remember the name of the Hotel and still carried on my losing streaks until decided one is better study a bit and at the time I was living in Malaysia but I couldn't get any books on poker there as it was forbidden due to religious reasons . When I came back to England got good few books from Doyle Brunson (the only thing I learned from his book was use suited 67 and that pays well it said) to many others and did improve my game but yes still carried on losing at different casinos.

Went to Macau good few times and last time was City of Dreams in Macau and still carried on losing. But i couldn't stop as I knew I have poker talent somewhere and I need to explore it out . When I say I carried on losing I mean I have been successful at poker its just I am ever so greedy and want more and more and that the bloody greed is peoples downfall and mine too.

Its good few months since I started playing online and yes I have carried on losing due to my greed and believe me and watch this space that I will make it in poker and will become professional. I have to say except University time I have always controlled my Bankroll and never overstepped , i just play with my spare money and truly enjoy every moment of it. JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF YOU CAN DO IT

[steventhebig]

I first encountered poker in highschool during a camping activity organized by the school. It was taught yo us by a techer who supervised the camp for entertainment during a night in which normal activities had been cancel because of the climate. We didnt bet in those games but they got my attention to the point where I started watching poker repeats on espn. During the next school year I introduced my close group of friends to the game and it immediately became the exam week game (in Ecuador, at the time, we took exams every three months of all the content learnt during the year which lasted 1 hour and were taken with 3 exams daily with 1 or 2 hours rest between them) we played micro games in the periods between exams and at the end of the week we played a big sit and go kind of game at a friends house which had a poker table and plenty of chips. After the first year we even bought an automatic shuffler as a group. even after 3 years passed and we graduated we organized games from time to time. We started betting (and i creates my account) at this point and it has been a real challenge against guys who know you and read you easily due to time of exposure. Even until this day we play we we are all in the country given that most of them went out to study and ended up working abroad. On college i continued to play in the poker club.

[tempha80]

It all started for me through being sat at home with nothing to do. A day of lazyness with nobody getting between me and that sofa. I gripped the TV remote like a wild West gunslinger looking for trouble. Pow, pow... Within seconds I'd flicked through at least 30 channels and found nothing. Then it appeared out of the blue. I found myself on a sports channel that usually, either remained encrypted or showed the sort of sporting events, that should just be labelled "events" like, "The cheese rolling world championship" or "European Tiddlywinks Tour". Something stopped me that day, something stopped me from continuing my massacre of the up channel button on the TV remote. That something was an two words on my screen. Poker Tour, swiftly followed by a bellowing voice of the American commentary. This guy sounded like he was from the deep south. His accent was so Hillbilly, he made the guys from "Deliverance" sound like Prep school geeks with a PHD in linguistics. I was captivated immediately. At this point in time I wasn't even up to speed with the basics of Texas Holdem. That didn't matter. This American hillbilly commentator made a card game sound like the players were combatants in a Gladiatorial fight to the death. It didn't stop there. I then noticed, to the right hand side of my TV screen, the caption with the payouts for each player. As each gladiator departed that green felt arena the pay jumps increased to values only seen on Wall St. One hour into the viewing of my new favourite sport of all time, I was fully up to speed, like I was Neo from the matrix. Plugged in and fully aware of the intricate betting wars taking place with every hand. (I know Kung Fu).
Before I knew it 4 hours had gone by on this same channel, I clicked the menu button. Surely this is going to end any minute now and I'm back to repeatedly hitting the UP channel button on the remote, until I find something as worthy or the button no longer works. To my amazement and joy I had another 8 hrs of this gold.
The next week I could do nothing but eat, sleep and S*'t Poker. It wasn't long after this, me an 8 friends had a regular Saturday night meet up game. Between ourselves in our little game we were the poker gods. Titans pitting our wits against one another for a winner takes all mini tournament £20 buy-in. Not really, we all played ABC poker and hoped to have the best of it at the end. Gradually are standards did rise and the first bluff to be be shown was epic. The only problem for my friend who showed the first bluff with 72o. Somehow that's become his go to, signature hand. Times have moved on a lot since then, we now play a regular cash game in our local club, with no limit buy-in and thanks to the tutorials from pokerschool, I managed to scoop myself a tidy sum of money just the other day. The beautiful thing about this game, it will never be fully mastered, while some top pros go on winning runs, they will never ultimately dominate the game. And while the element of luck continues to play a part, 30yrs, 10yrs or 1 days experience, it doesn't matter, every dog has its day. That's why I love this game, coz all you need is a "Chip n a chair" lol

[Konar7600]

Well for me poker till about 2005-2006 was just somekind of casino games, like black jack or something, where people are just gambling at and nothing special happens. Like maybe it is for the most people who havn't play it before. But then while accidentally zapping my TV, i have found some of WSOP broadcasting, which i started to watch and that's basically how i been hooked up into the game lol. The action, charismatic players and the ambience of best Las Vegas casino's were fascinating and i started to watch the whole serie of it. I have learned rules of the game just by watching pretty fast and then heard there are also online poker rooms, where i can try myself in it. But i am a person who is not eager to investing money in somekind of games so i started to play at the play money section first. Been playing there for months from time to time and i loved the game! And i also found out that my play money bankroll is growing dramatically from week to week. I was a newbie of course but i have beated my opponents badly! And after i have reached highest play money limits of the poker room i have thoughts: "hey! if you are good here, why not try real money section?"
But on one hand i still didn't want to invest money, on other hand didn't want ordering credit card specially for that. So i started to seek for ways playing it real for free. Then i have found a poker school website "PokerStrategy", which offered at those moment of time 50 bucks to play at Pokerstars with to anyone, who have passed their poker quiz. That's what i've instantly done after second try and looked forward to play it real from now on. After 2 days i have received my first real bankroll, but stupidly started to play at cash tables, where i blew away all of 50$ pretty quickly, as i was unexperienced player and played weak.
Surely i was kinda upset of wasting such opportunity, but on other hand i have learned that i must have a bankroll management and not playing so reckless as i did. I have bought a book of Dan Harrington on Hold Em, which also kinda opened my eyes on that point, that poker isn't a game of luck at all and i have started to study playing better. I started to search other ways of building my Bankroll from scratch again too. Started to play every freeroll i could find and was happy it was december and there were a lot of them around. I had few times luck going deeper and could collect my first 30$+ again.
Then i started to play lowest SNGs with it, but keep playing freerolls of course too and trying to earn enough sum by that to go at further limits of SNGs. Honestly i am doing the same thing since then, just with the difference of that i am playing higher limits of SNGs and only freerolls, which i think have good value and are not totally waste of time. Over the time i did also added more poker rooms where i play it and started to keeping eye on their promotions and reload bonuses too.

[oseatz]

When I was like 13 years old, I was hanging out with a couple of my older friends at one of their places and they were playing cards. At the time I had no idea it was poker, but the idea of the game got me interested real quick, cause there were gambling and money involved. Instead of chips, they used small numeral coins, like 1c, 2c, 5c etc. Long story short, I learnt the basic rules and got myself into the game ASAP. Don’t really remember the exact 1st game of that time, cause we used to gamble those coins at every chance we got, but what I do remember is, that when I was getting close to turning 18, I began an extensive research about poker to learn the game and understand it more. Was watching poker shows and following poker news as much as I could. Was getting myself ready for the day I turn 18 and would be able register, make a deposit and play on stars for the first time. Remember having great beginners luck at 1st. So yeah, that’s about it. The rest is history.

[Sabmajstor]

First time i saw poker chips was in high school when one of my class friends bring them to the school. They look very nice and fancy just like the cards. Lot of us start to play and it was very fun. In few days we put a little bit of money too, and school suddenly become interesting place . Few of us started to learn about game tactics and in a no time we were the best in class, so we start to play some tournaments in our home town. It was very exciting, and i fall in love in poker, and that love lives today, mostly on pokerstsars..

[Ryanmcb55]

I remember being about 12/13 and always having a facination with cards due to my dad being a magician. I first started at that age playing free games like governor of poker and zynga poker. Once i hit 18 i joined stars when i seen an advert and have been obsessed ever since. The game is a battle of mind more than cards and a great way to learn new things and think differently instead of just making money.

[mytzu071189]

In 2007 my brother in law was playing online Tournaments. Was looking interesting and i ask him to learn me. After few tournaments i was watching him playing and learning from him i start playing freerolls. This awesome game which is poker cought me very quick. I win the very first tournment i played 13$. I start playing watching and playing live poker... I still play and i stii love poker , still earning money . My winning record is 5000 $ (hot 22$ pokerstars)

[neptun1914]

I started around 10 years ago in the university. At this time poker was experiencing serious boom in popularity and some of my colleagues were speaking about this game allowing to easily win big money. I decided to give it a go also. Back then poker was not regulated in my country so there was a bunch of different sites offering freerolls. I also played with friends live but we did not have money for chips so we used cents instead of that. I played for around year but did not have the time nor the will to learn anything and improve my game. Most of my colleagues also dropped when they saw that the game is not so easy. My first game was freeroll on i4poker room i think or something like that.

My second stage of playing poker started around a year ago. I had very long travel with bus during vacation in Peru (almost 20 hours) so i decided to play again few hands. Well this sparked again my interest and now i am trying to really understand it and become good player.

[JackedB]

Hey, I first found out about poker on a PS2 game named GUN, so I play there and start to figure out the rules. After that, a year later I heard about Pokerstars and I joined. I played the KO stt and I won 2 games I think, and then I started focusing on studying and in my free time I would play here. That's it, will I make millions from poker? Who knows. Will I try? Definitely.