where have you learned to play?

[jillnwes]

I learned from my son and his friends. Had poker tourney's to keep them off the streets.
Now we duel it out just like on TV.
I have all my children playing but one and she just can't take it. She is just too frustrated.
Let me know where you started playing, it's always fun to know and share.

[wilsonmja]

A former co-worker of mine had a home game every other Saturday and he invited me one time. I knew nothing about poker except that having cards in your hand that matched was a good thing.

If you knew me this wouldn't surprise you, but upon discovering how much strategy and complication was involved in poker I became obsessed with the idea of learning it, mastering it, and dominating it. Well, it's been five years and I've done one of those . I definitely haven't mastered it and will never dominate it, but I am good enough to profit consistently and I owe it to books by Slansky and Harrington and my own persistence.

Long story short: I went from being resident donkey to having my friends pool there money to stake half my buy in for a WSOP $1500 event in 2006.

We don't play much anymore, but once every couple of months we'll get a big home tournament together. When we do, there's a bounty on my head. Everyone chips in 5 or 10 bucks and if I get taken out before I get in the cash (we usually have 20 to 30 guys and we always pay top 3 no matter what) the person who eliminates me wins what's left the pool (for every person that I take out, I win from the pool whatever their contribution to it was). If I place in the money, the two other cashers get their portion back and I get the rest . It's fun and I almost always cash.

[liladypokerpro]

Pretty much my whole mom's side of the family...mom included As soon as I was old enough to count, I was learning almost every card game you can think of. Now I live away from family and I sure miss it.

[iceveins0901]

ever since we were kids we would go to my grandparents and spend hours upon hours playing cards, many forms of poker, guts, crazy 8s, gin, stuff like that.

With Holdem I learned when I went to College in 2002, I lived in a fraternity, and we would get a game together most thursday evenings, and then one of the guys saw the wsop on espn in 2003 and we were all hooked, the game got bigger and we all got better. I didnt become that serious of a poker player until 2005 when I bought my first book, SS2, and life hasnt been the same since.

[wilsonmja]

I don't know why, but Super System 2 didn't really speak to me. I applied a lot of the principles and it just didn't fit my styler or my personality or something. I wasn't comfortable. It wasn't until I started reading Harrington on Hold 'em Vol. 1-3 before I started to really show big improvement in my game.

[tony]

Hi jillnwes,

Welcome to the forums!

I moved this thread here to General Poker Topics from the Introductions.

[iceveins0901]

I don't know why, but Super System 2 didn't really speak to me. I applied a lot of the principles and it just didn't fit my styler or my personality or something. I wasn't comfortable. It wasn't until I started reading Harrington on Hold 'em Vol. 1-3 before I started to really show big improvement in my game.

I have Vol. 1 of Harrington on Holdem, but I havent read it yet, since I have been focusing on cash games but SS2 was just the spark, I have since read theory of poker, holdem for advanced players and mike caros book of tells, with a few more books on the shelves (i bought many poker books late 2006 and have trying to read since, i am not much into sitting down and reading).

[frob23]

I learned to play as a child when I was growing up. My whole family played and we would have family gatherings where there would often be two different tables going at once. Back then it was mostly stud games (and variations) or 5 card draw. We still play together once in a while. But some of the wilder habits and games have been cleaned up and Hold'em is now a regular addition.