In the beginning...

Well it was easy. I found poker due to 'Rounders', confound Edward Norton. I had played the occasional LIMIT poker at my nearest B&M casino. Basically I believed I was suppose to win/lose every other time I played. Therefore the trick was simply to lose slightly less than I was winning. HAHA.

Then came PARTY POKER...With it's fun graphics and fricken CHAT bar and realistic peoples surrounding the table...looking back PP could've used a hot cocktail waitress bending over the table somewhere. I put on a whoppin 75$ through __________. I then went to Barnes and Noble to purchase what I was sure to be my first and last instructional poker book. HAHA.

Get a load of this...I'm a newbie...pretty much. In the first month of playing limit .50/1.00 I get up to over $380. Then, for reasons unknown, I go through a BAD streak. Now, when I say BAD, I mean that I sit in front of the screen folding hand after hand, hour after hour...for about three hours.

I lose a MINIMAL amount of money but in my brain I'M thinking...JEEZ...I've been sitting here for three hours wasting my time because i've made no money...Confound Mike McDermott...So what do I do? I go UP to $2/4 limit
and continue to let the various PP characters upside my head with their "check raises" and "slow plays" and just pounding me with their artificial breasts and sympathetic chat until I lose over half my money. I didn't know it then but that is a form of TILT.

Since that time, I have bought in I don't know many times. Each time I go in with newer and betterer stragedy than the last. I've tried different poker rooms with hotter characters and different graphics thinking 'Oh yeah, This is it baby'. I've tried chat on/chat off, limit/no limit/pot limit, holdem, omaha hi/lo, stud, and yes I've sunk as low as RAZZZZZZZZZZ.

So what have I learned after 1,237 replays of 'Rounders' and such an embarassing # of rebuys that I am ashamed to admit to? It's simple. Here I'll quote it for you..."Poker is a difficult game, therefore you have to be disciplined".

I know...I know, you all are thinking that is just to simple and cheesy. Answer this...If you could take back ALL the times you've made a bad call, called under pressure, tried to bluff when you KNEW it was pointless, called 'just to see it',  played at a limit you had NO business playing, or played a GAME you had NO business playing.....You would have a lot more money in your account right now.

Why do you think the pros give away all their secrets?...well it's because it's too EASY to dismiss discipline and patience as the problem...And it's too hard for most people to adhere to them.

   by Rick Brown