Player's Stories

My Evolution As A Poker Player
By Steve Ruddock

The Early Days

With a little over 2 years of poker under my belt I have decided to take a look in the mirror and try to decide how much if any I have improved in those 2 years.

Lets rewind to a summer evening in 2001; a friend of mine invited me over to his newly bought condo for what he called "poker night". While I had played poker many times in my life it had always been of the draw variety with the highest stakes being .50/$1, now when I got to his condo I was terrified, these guys were some serious poker players! They knew a hundred different games that I had never heard of like 7 Stud Chicago, The Cross Game, and a Stud game called Control. I had always fancied myself as quite the poker player, boy was I sadly mistaken! After a rough night of losing almost $30 in a .50/$1 game I decided to do a little Internet investigation to see what I could learn about poker. During this search I happened across a site by the name of www.pokerpages.com, and after reading every archived article and all the poker related info I could get my hands on I came to the conclusion that not only did I know nothing about poker, but the guys who took my money the previous evening were bad players as well! Imagine my surprise when I discovered I lost to fish.

My poker journey continued for another 6 months in this fashion, with me reading every poker article on the internet from sites like Pokerpages and Cardplayer, the purchase of some books, and playing free money tourneys at a clip of about 3 a day. At this point I believed everything I read even though I truly didn't understand some of the concepts. I knew you were supposed to raise in early position with AK off-suit I just really didn't understand why. During this time I also met a player in these tournaments who really helped my game along LADYMAKO. She explained some things to me I didn't understand, she watched a few tournaments I played in and e-mailed me with some of the situations where I may have made errors, and in general just pointed me in the right direction. I've never really had a chance to thank her, so if you're reading this Cindy "Thank You".

At this time I started getting involved with some of the local home games to, where to my amazing surprise I learned that MOST people who play poker are TERRIBLE. With a few wins under my belt, usually in the $40-$100 range, I wanted to try my hand at the dreaded casino, where everyone plays good. Or so I thought.

My journey moved on with a bus trip to Foxwoods Casino. Sitting in the smallest limit game I could find $2/$4 Hold Em, I played my way to a $7 win over 5 hours. All I remember of that session is that I didn't get out of my chair once in that 5 hours, not even to stretch my legs, I was more than hooked! I also came away from that session with the knowledge that I was better than 90% of the players in the game, and I still felt that I had a lot of room for improvement.

Now in addition to a weekly home game I was making a trip to the Connecticut woods every 2-3 weeks. With my new found realization that I am a better poker player than anyone I know, most of the people I play with are under the assumption it's the luck of the cards, I started playing more and more and even talked them into bumping the stakes to $1/$2. As a consistent winner in these games and at the casino I was probably playing in the neighborhood of about 8 hours a week in live games and about 30 hours on the Internet.

Practice Makes Perfect

It was around this time that those concepts that had eluded me before became apparent. When I played a hand now I was not just playing my good hands because they were good, but I was forming a plan of attack with them based on other player's decisions and my own experiences. I now fully comprehended what people meant when they described a theory and also started to understand the reasons WHY these theories work.

At this time while still playing in my weekly home game I moved up to $4/$8 and $5/$10 hold'em at the casino. With my new understanding of the game I quickly became a winner at these levels as well. It is about this time I started realizing my strengths and weaknesses at the table. My strengths were my knowledge of the game, the amount of practice I had put into poker, and my ability to learn from my mistakes, not a stellar list of attributes but enough to make me a small-scale winner. My weaknesses were not readily apparent but included among other things not always playing correct pot odds, loosening up when I was running good, and not playing my opponents but playing the board.

I realized there was something else missing from my poker repertoire, an intangible that I really couldn't practice. I sensed my major weakness was processing information. Now my dilemma was how do I improve in this area? Luckily it was around this time I started getting bored with Internet poker and started playing gin and backgammon as well. Between gin and backgammon, in just a few short weeks I found my poker game vastly improved. Is this what I was looking for? I couldn't believe the improvement in my hand and people reading skills, in backgammon after 1 match I could usually tell you where the person was going to move on every roll, in gin I started remembering all the cards and learning opponents tendencies such as dumping high point cards early. With these new skills I was rejuvenated and ready to once again hit the poker tables at full force.

Back to Foxwoods; now playing only $5/$10 games I had turned into a much more dangerous player. I started winning more and learning more, I was improving every session. I started to frequent the casino much more often, usually at least twice a week, this trend continued for about 12 months where I was earning twice as much playing poker than from my job. Also at this time at the bottom of an article I found Daniel Negreanu' s E-mail address. Now what would possess a 5/10 player to contact a poker professional?

When his response appeared in my inbox the next day I was more than a little surprised. His advice was clear, concise, and most importantly honest. In my opinion Daniel is the best person I have talked to at explaining things clearly and at making them easily understandable. In just a few short e-mails I had an even better comprehension of poker strategy. This would be a good time to give Daniel a big thank you as well, "Thank You".

The Plot Thickens

We are now into the early summer of 2003, and I find myself in the beautiful city of Berlin, Germany, I will save you a lot of reading by not saying how I ended up living in Germany. While Berlin is an amazing and truly a must see city it is not a hotbed of poker activity. With a lack of games I spent a lot more time studying and thinking about the game than ever before. Finding only a small home game, a very nice setup though, the host had a professional table, casino quality chips, and a very good knowledge of the game. Unfortunately we were lacking players, with only a couple of mathematics majors from Humboldt University and a few displaced Americans the games tended to be shorthanded and much smaller stakes than I was used to. As a side note my first game in Berlin was with a student from Pakistan, one from Iran, and 2 Germans, throw in myself and you have a truly international, and incredibly friendly, game. Maybe poker is the key to world peace! Now for anyone unfamiliar with European poker, they like pot limit! Pot limit at this time was by far my least favorite style of game, but it's amazing how quickly things can grow on you. Now I love pot limit and spread limit games. I also spoke not a lick of German when I arrived, and the players in the game really accommodated me by speaking mainly English, their second and in some instances third or fourth language. But in Germany as a whole I had to learn to read peoples body language and facial expressions to be able to communicate some of the time. What a poker asset this can be! I recommend any player who is serious about poker to transplant themselves into a non English speaking country, you will be amazed how much you can understand by body language and even tone of voice when you have to.

I found myself a winner in these small European home games as well. Regrettably due to some visa problems I had to leave Berlin after about 3 months. Making my way back to the States with no job left me in quite a sticky situation.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Coming home was truly bittersweet for me; on one hand I missed my family and friends as well as casino poker. On the other hand I left my girlfriend and an incredible feeling of belonging somewhere. I really feel I was meant to live in Berlin.

The second day I was home I spent at my fathers house, knowing I like to play poker he told me about a 32 person tournament someone was holding. Two days later I found myself back in an American poker game with $3200 up for grabs. I'm sorry to say my pocket aces were cracked halfway through, I flopped a set and lost to a runner, runner flush, and I found myself on the rail. After the tournament I went to Foxwoods with another player and turned $140 into just over $1000 in 5 hours playing Omaha Hi-Lo, the deck truly ran over me.

I now make my way to the casino 4 or 5 times a week and spend my free time analyzing hands I have played or writing essays and articles on poker theory and strategy. Like the famous t-shirt saying, to me "Poker is life, the rest is just details".

I feel I have come full circle since that summer night where I was introduced to a new kind of poker. I always feel I am the best player no matter who is at the table with me, and there are some good ones at Foxwoods. I also am now into a phase of my poker career where I have independent thoughts and do not "play by the book" but have in a way written my own book. I now have my own theories about the game and work on every little facet of my game.

Why do I feel I have arrived as a poker player? When I can tell someone why I knew I had them out-kicked with AT, and have them look in disbelief at me knowing exactly what they were holding really confirms to me the skill factor involved in poker. Today I was knocked out in 5th place in a 35 person local tournament, after my 3rd tough beat at the final table, having the remaining players acknowledge how well I played and my bad luck, and the all the players watching say how I made some really tough but correct lay-downs in big spots that they wouldn't have been able to do, meant something to me, one player at the table actually said he had to shake my hand twice, like Ray Liotta said in Goodfellas "RESPECT". As a side note to this story I didn't swear or curse my bad luck I stood up and said "good hand" gave a little grin and collected $200. To me knowing I played correctly and finished 5th is more important than making a mistake getting lucky and winning.

As I write this 90% of my income is coming from poker (so the no job thing hasn't been a problem), I am happy, and still spending countless hours away from the tables working on my game. Where is my poker journey taking me? I'm not sure just yet, but I am sure I am going to enjoy the trip and I am going to do everything in my power to make it a smooth trip. To be continued....