How did you get into poker

[onespeedo]

When I was moving regions in my job in 2003, my boss at the time asked what I wanted to do for my leaving do. Myself and a few of my colleagues had seen LNP and had enjoyed it, so I suggested we all go to a proper tournament and a few drinks in the casino. They all jumped at the chance and off we went to Grosvenor Walsall. Although none of us won any money that night, we all enjoyed it and there are 5 of us who still play regularly, although 3 stick to on line games.

I've never regretted it - not sure what I would do for an evening out nowadays if I didn't play poker!! My ex boss hasn't regretted it either - he continued playing and recently won $79,950 on the Sunday evening Poker Stars tournament.... I should have asked for a share! 

[Scottish Dave]

For myself, it was like so many others, Late Night Poker!

Strangely enough, i was just about to turn in one night, when my mother knocked on my door (still lived with parents) and told me to put the TV on and put it to channel 4 as there was this programme on about poker or something. and figured id be interested since ive always played card games all my life. Mainly due to my old grandfather

She has been interested in poker also, so we both watched it together.

I watched it that night, and every week after, if i was busy she would record it for me.

Although i watched this religiously i never actually played the game, just observed it. Until 2003 when i decided to join the Cryptologic Network for a silly £5 for a little fun, i won a few games and was totally obsessed with the game after that.

It did, however take me another 18 months or so, before i got involved in an actual live home game, Ill tell you the name of the home game (to the embarrassment of the rest of the guys, teacake, Rod, Patman, Div, and Renny) we called it the TPT....Tannochside Poker Tour...Tannockside is the area we live in, and since we rotated the venue of the home game every month between all our houses, it was effectively a tour!

We played together as a group for about 1 year before we started heading into The riverboat, Glasgow to try our hand in a broader field of tourney, however after our first visit, most of us swore we would never return to that embarrassment of a poker tourney. I wont get into it, since this aint the time of thread to do it.

Then we got word via Blondepoker.com's Forum that there was a new poker club in Glasgow about to open, so we watched intensely, so as to get in there as soon as it opened. We wanted to try to have an input into the type's of tourneys they presented to the public, Mainly we were trying to get more Freezeouts (Deep Stacks with sensible clocks) as opposed to the Bingo that the rest of Glasgow offered.

Once it opened we went along and joined, had a great conversation with the owner/manager (Sid/Sinky) and realised that this was the place for us.

Since then it has become The TPT's resident home, and the introduction of DC and Blondepoker.com has only made the venue the best in Glasgow, BY A CLEAR MILE!

And this is how i went from watching Late Night Poker as a teenager with his mother, to................





........BlondeBash No.1 - Top Jock!!!!!!!..........

[Sark79]

I only recently started playing online, but I have been interested in poker since Late Night Poker on 4 and watching rounders with my friends in 99 when it was released on video. After watching this, we played a few times promising each other we would all learn to play like Mike from the movie. But a few weeks later, nobody was all that bothered about playing and went back to playing Risk ( Fantastic game I wish you could play for money). I continued to read bits and pieces from books, the internet and watch poker whenever I could on TV. I also bought rounders and the cincinnati Kid on video soon after this ( D.V.D wasn't available then). When the W.P.T came on TV, thats when I really started paying alot of attention to the game. I bought a few computer poker games which got played for hours, but after a while bacame boring because they were so unrealistic compared to what I read about online. To be honest, I had no idea internet poker was as easy to download and start playing untill last October. Since then I have been playing every day online. 

[ruthless1]

About 18 months ago i went to my local casino to see what poker they had, Rookie night was on a friday, £5 rebuys, so i played the following week. Totally hooked after that. 6months later i started playing on the net, which i use my bank roll to play the live games.

[Sheriff Fatman]

LNP was the catalyst but the first TV poker I saw was the Poker Million that Jimmy White won.  I remember sitting there thinking this game is all maths and probabilities - I should be a natural!

Several months later I realised I was such a natural that I started amassing the world's largest collection of poker books!

Sheriff

PS: One of the fun things from the Blonde Bash last week was sitting next to Malcolm 'The Rock' Hardwood, who I've seen many times on LNP but had never been in the same room as before.  I've kind of got used to seeing familiar faces at Luton before but it still provides a bit of a 'flashback' when you meet one for the first time!

[BigArmo]

Late. Night. Poker.

 

That programme has alot to answer 4 

[Robert HM]

Late Night Poker again, then John Duffie on Poker Million. Downhill ever since.

[Sark79]

Thanks  Robert, you seem to be a bright and intelligent chap. You spell Duffie the same way as I do. I was corrected on one of my earliest posts when I spelt it that way. It is actually Duthie. Its ok, it is 4:30 in the morning. That is a good excuse, its the one I use.

[Jim-D]

The girlfriend took up night work so i was left home alone with the lap top, got an e mail from william hill advertising there poker room and after watchng some cheesy poker on challenge tv thought id sign up using my sports betting money,
turned £50 into £200 on my first visit and thought i can get used to this, so then went out and purchased all the books i could find and decided to make this my number 1 hobby

Im now a poker junky......and i love it.