My entry into poker:
My name is Julian Sch., I am 23 years old and study business administration in Münster. Besides my studies and already during my school time I had developed a great enthusiasm for poker, playing with friends as well as with PokerStars. Since I have made now already nearly ten years experience with this gambling, I would like to write here a small empirical report.

I started playing poker at the age of 13 when school friends taught me this game during breaks. So within a short time a certain fascination developed with me, because I always thought about different strategies and tried to analyze the playing behavior of my opponents by means of facial expressions and other reactions. But even then it was important to me to constantly change my strategy in order to be unpredictable.

About a year after my first poker experience, my parents gave me my first computer for my birthday and I started playing online poker. So it was now possible to play poker anytime and independent of the schedule of my friends and acquaintances. I thought that was great, but at the beginning I wasn’t allowed to play for real money by my parents. I chose PokerStars because it seemed trustworthy to me because of its popularity and it was easy to use.
So I spent months playing for virtual chips, trying different strategies here and there and making big setbacks in unexpected situations as well as big winnings. These experiences with play money rounds were fundamental to my later successes and continued enthusiasm.
So I can only recommend it for beginners: Play with play money first and find out your success strategy before you play with real money.

Real Money Time

But as I got older, I guess 15 years, I also became a big step more independent with my own bank account, which also allowed me to make my first deposit (ten euros) at PokerStars. My enthusiasm and progressive experience, both at real tables and online, made this possible even for my parents. But I had to make sure I was careful and responsible with the money I deposited and not play at high stakes tables. I have not yet abandoned this principle. At best, I was willing to play at tables with a big blind of 0.10 EUR, which considerably reduced the risk of loss and thus ensured sustained concentration. Because: If you play at tables for ten, 50 or 100 Euros, you lose your nerves at some point. A buddy of mine had lost about 600 Euros in this way (yes, a large part of his savings).

But the most important thing in my whole poker career is: I’ve never been addicted, I’ve always played for fun and I didn’t deal with my frustration while playing poker. I saw it at my buddy’s: In most cases poker addiction leads not only to high losses in the game, but also in real life, which was also clearly seen in his school grades.

My strategies and the (small) success

As I said before, I often changed my strategy, even and especially during a round. The experience was: once your opponent has seen through you, he makes you his own ball with high stakes, whether he’s bluffing or not. And worst of all, he gains so much respect and achieves that you bet too much out of anger at some point. I have been a victim of this strategy countless times until I learned to keep a cool head. Because through an inscrutable strategy and a high resistance to opposing strategies, be they clever or primitive, I was able to gain respect myself. Once you’ve done that, you can make the whole table dance to your whistle. And when you suddenly play with restraint or even go all-in yourself, you’ve become unpredictable.

The bottom line was that I could win about 30 Euro per month (sometimes a little more, sometimes less), not really much, but also with little risk. You can also see it that way: You get your hobby paid for, and that’s something.
First I chose my father’s credit card as my means of payment, now my own. This has the advantage that the money is booked immediately and you can play directly with it. I have the payouts transferred to my bank account.

Fazit

Poker was and is a big hobby for me, and that is the most important thing. If you don’t get addicted and enjoy the game with and without real money, it’s great. Keeping a cool head over a long period of time, earning the necessary respect and an unpredictable way of playing have ensured that up to now I could only make a profit (even on many losing rounds). So in about seven years of real money play about 2500 Euro came together.

Many thanks for reading through and I hope you were able to find something helpful in my report. In any case, I wish you good luck and fun at the poker tables!

Written by Julian, 23 years old, from Münster