I am Jens, recently turned 24 and come from Berlin. At this point I would like to tell you my very own poker story with all its ups and downs. Even as a teenager I was fascinated by the poker boom. The trigger for me was Chris Moneymaker’s victory at the World Series of Poker in 2003. But back then I was only 11 years old and couldn’t play poker online or in a casino. That’s why I played with friends from time to time, but it bored me quickly because they didn’t take the game seriously and played very badly. I myself regularly bought poker magazines and read articles about strategies and current tournaments.

My enthusiasm for the game was over after a few months.

About 6 years later, in 2009, I found out that a classmate of mine was also playing online poker and he was making a little money. He was playing NL10 and NL20 on the iPoker network at the time and made all his money through rakeback. But it still fascinated me, because as a student 20€ is already a lot of money. However, he was always relaxed and managed to lose 50 or 100€ within a few minutes, because he knew that he would make money in the long run. Almost every day after school I went with him and watched him play. We often exchanged thoughts and possible actions and I was looking forward to my 18th birthday.

When it was finally time I bought a PaysafeCard for 50€ and sat down like my friend Kevin at three NL10 tables and one NL20 table. It took me about an afternoon to lose the money. At first I did not understand exactly why, and so I bought PaysafeCards again and again in the following months, which I gambled away within one or two days. I quickly realized that things couldn’t go on like this, because as a student I simply didn’t have the money to lose regularly. Still, I wanted to keep playing poker. That’s why I banned myself from continuing to deposit until I figured out how to really play profitably. So first I watched some Youtube videos and got interested in Sit and Go tournaments. On the lower limits ICM is the determining factor, because in the late phase a lot of money can be earned with this concept. That’s why I read into this topic and expanded my knowledge. Later I also found an ICM trainer, who confronted me with one decision after the other. At the beginning I had hit rates of 50 or 60 percent. But since I enjoyed poker as a whole so much, I probably spent a week or two practicing with the ICM coach for hours every day until I reliably made 98 or 99% of the decisions correctly. I also talked to my friend Kevin about why I lost so much money, because I wasn’t embarrassed anymore that I was worse than him. I saw it much more as a chance to learn from him.

In this conversation I learned that he didn’t start directly on NL20, but played his way up from NL2. Besides, he didn’t start with several tables, but only played at one table until he made constant winnings.

So when I started my next attempt, I wanted to do it right away. Therefore I only deposited 10€ at Titan Poker. These were first supplemented by 10€ Free Money for new customers. In addition I received a deposit bonus, which I had to free gradually. I only planned to play 10 and 20 Cent Sit and Go tournaments. That went well for a few days, but of course I also had a losing streak. It got me so upset that I played 5€ tournaments and destroyed my entire bankroll. This happened to me two or three times, until I also recognized Tilt as a big problem. I read many articles on this subject and realized that as a professional I also have to accept bad luck. Since I absolutely wanted to become a professional, I decided to become more relaxed. Of course that didn’t work out right away, but when I got excited, I just stopped playing for the day. So I didn’t endanger my bankroll unnecessarily.

Once I had this factor under control, nothing stood in the way of a quick ascent. When I gradually increased my bankroll, I was able to climb to 50 cents and one euro tournament. I made sure that I always had at least 25 times the tournament buy-in in my account. So even a short streak of bad luck couldn’t hurt me. I also bought a trial version of Pokertracker 4, which allowed me to analyze the playing behavior of my opponents.

I could quickly move up to tournaments with a buy-in of 5-20€. Here I achieved a return on investment of about 7-8%. So in a 20€ tournament I made a profit of about 1,50€. In addition, I received 50% rakeback from Titan Poker, which increased the return on investment by another 5%. Statistically I could already earn 2,50€ with a 20€ tournament. Since I played about 8-10 tables and mixed tournaments of 5-20€ I had an hourly wage of about 30€, because a tournament only lasted 25-30 minutes on average. Thus I had 2000-3000€ loosely in the month to the disposal during I made my Abitur.

And this is where I made the biggest mistake of my poker career. Because a lot of players would have saved their money, invested in stocks or used them to get better and to go further up the limits. But I preferred to party in expensive discos and buy branded clothes. Of course my poker game suffered from this, because instead of spending the weekends with grinds I was on the way. I also stopped improving. Poker no longer had the highest priority and it was not a hobby with which I earned money, but a tough business, because of course the opponents always work on themselves. At some point I realized that I didn’t have a chance anymore because I just didn’t feel like working on myself anymore. I had my last 3000€ paid out, which I had distributed on Neteller and some poker sites and also use these to make me a nice life. My poker colleague Kevin had a similar experience. He climbed up at about the same time as me and earned as much money as I did, because we always support each other. But also with our expensive escapades we were always on the road together. Altogether I won about 45.000€ in this time. But I didn’t save a single cent on it. Poker was therefore a very good opportunity for me to be financially independent during school time and in the first semesters of my studies, because in a few months I had more money than my father, who actually earned not badly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be successful in the long run, because at some point I lost the fun of playing poker. And this is exactly what distinguishes me from the numerous professionals known from the Internet and television, because some of them have been playing poker for decades and still have fun with what they do and can be successful over all these years.

 

Experience report written by Jens, 24 years, from Berlin