My poker career began in the fall of 2006. After learning about the card game through my friends and various media, the online poker provider Everest Poker was my first port of call. First I learned the rough rules and procedures of poker at the Playmoney tables. Beginners are advised to hold back their ego a little and approach the game cautiously. After a few weeks I made a deposit of 50 dollars with my Visa credit card. So I decided to try the real money tables. Now the question remained which variants and bets I should prefer. As a rather risk-averse person, I initially set myself the goal of preserving the starting chapter and not having fobbed off the small bankroll after just one week. So Microstakes. The choice fell on Texas Hold´em in the Fixed Limit variant. The small blind was one cent and the big blind two cents.

Poker is not just a game of chance. I spent part of my free time at home at the PC, learning about the math of the game and choosing the right strategy to make long-term profits. The tight-aggressive playing style was most suited to me. Over the weeks and months, my starting capital had tripled. It wasn’t a spectacular hourly wage, but it was the fun of the new hobby that was in the foreground. Little by little I inquired about other variations. Since I had only played cash games, so-called ring games, I wanted to play tournaments. I discovered that there were so-called freeroll tournaments for new players, i.e. tournaments for which you didn’t have to pay an entry fee, but could still win a few dollars. In 2007, I finally won a freeroll tournament and added $15 prize money to my bankroll. Inspired by the successes, I ventured to higher stakes and buy-ins. My second poker year ended with a big bang: my poker balance skyrocketed to four figures. Thanks to a win in a $10 tournament at Everest Poker against several hundred competitors, I won over $1000 in just a few hours.

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In 2008, the question of whether I should professionalize my poker game even further arose for the first time. I looked outside the box, opening a poker account with Pokerstars, FullTilt, Party Poker and more. At the same time, I needed a Moneybookers account for deposits and withdrawals. The poker market was still quite competitive at the time, and most of the opponents were gamblers and gamblers who threw their money down the throat of a small elite of professional players with bad gambling and hanebüchenen bluffs.

During 2009 and 2010, I decided to reduce my online poker gaming volume and instead play more live poker in private home games and casinos. The online gaming experience was very helpful at the live tables. But back to the online world.

Since I occasionally enjoyed sports betting and many sports betting providers also offer their customers online casinos, I played on BWIN, Betfair and William Hill Poker. New innovative vendors like PKR with its 3D experience also attracted me back to the tables. Since 2012, however, I have been playing almost exclusively on poker stars, as they have managed to take a dominant position in the online poker market. Today I spend a maximum of ten to twenty hours a month at the virtual tables. My current areas of use are zoom tables and spin and go tournaments on poker stars.

Experience report written by Vince, Sebastian, 30 years old, without a place of residence.