Learning Poker

  This is a letter (email) that I was asked to submit to an online poker forum. As you'll see if you continue to read, Poker has become an important part of my daily life. Because of that I am always in search of information that will help me improve my game. There are many forums online that are developed to serve that purpose. In this case the forum has asked me for a letter of introduction to post to share with it's established members. I had intended to write only a few sentences with a brief description about myself. A task much harder than I thought. The following letter is the result of my efforts to introduce myself to one online poker community.

  I can remember back in the mid 60's when I was about six or seven years old and growing up in southern California. I remember my mother coming home super early on Saturday mornings. I was usually already spread out in front of the TV and watching my favorite Saturday cartoons(back when cartoons were really cartoons)She would roll in all bleary eyed, the results of too much reefer, alcohol and twelve straight hours at a poker table. Friday nights were my parents "bowling night". Traditionally after bowling my dad would go to the bar with his buds and my mom would go to one of her teammates house where they would all play poker through the night. She loved the game and was very good. Sometimes when she had an exceptionally profitable night, she would come home with greenbacks of every denomination stuffed to the top of her purse. On rare occasions she would even throw a few of those bucks my way, just because.
    That's where my love of Texas Hold'em began. She taught me the game at a very young age and, because she loved it so much In fact I think poker and I were here only loves at that point, and it showed. She invested a lot of time teaching me the game's foundation and then, it's finer points. Inevitably things went downhill between my parents and they split but Friday night bowling followed by all night poker play remained a constant until mom finally moved out. My interest and my mom's interest in teaching me the game remained as well.  I loved that time and attention that I got when we played together. Years later after they divorced she moved out to Vegas because of her love of Holdem. In fact, the following year she even made it to the final table at Binion's annual Hold'Em championship. I think that was in '77. She was very good.
    I played on and off, nothing serious for the following twenty years. My love of the game never waned however life demanded more and more of my attention and, well, you know the story.
    All of that changed when I was about thirty-five and was convicted of a white collar crime by the federal government. I was sentenced to five years in a low-security federal correctional center. Suddenly I had all the time in the world to play Hold'em and there was no shortage of games available. Running a poker table in prison was a very profitable venture for anyone that had the balls to do it. It involved a lot of risk and hard work to keep one going.
      In prison there's only a few things available to fill your days. You can get a job in the prison factory, do drugs and probably end up dead, read and/or write a lot or play poker. There were other things but those were the biggie's and I chose the latter. A couple of side notes about playing prison in poker: 1. It makes time fly  in a place where it otherwise practically stands still and 2. Don't play if you can't pay. I saw my fair share of "fish" become "owned" by more experienced and serious players and so, if you wanted to play long-term, you learned the game..fast. It was at this point that my respect for this game reached a new level. Because I had a few connections I was able to get in on a straight, solid game and was playing eight to ten hours a day, four or five days a week...and I learned the game.
    When I was released in 2001 internet poker had come into it's own. I don't think it even existed when I was first locked up. I dabbled with it a bit but, again, my life needed most of my attention and energy so I didn't do much with it until about a year ago. Now that my life has settled down I've been playing daily and although online is a lot different than playing live, I've become quite comfortable with it. In fact over the past few months I've managed to make a small steady additional stream of income from it. I still love this game and don't think I'll ever tire of it. It's been the one constant throughout my life that's always brought me pleasure and rewards.