I would like to thank Outstanding Poker for getting me started on the right path for my poker hobby!

A recent Carbon Poker Sunday $150,000 Guaranteed tournament had 1,423 entrants, 144th place was good for in-the-money and I was fortunate enough to finish 28th for a cash of $570.  My $109 entry was earned in an $11 satellite which made it even better.  I was eliminated when I shoved QQ vs AJ unsuited as a 71% favorite and my opponent flopped his ace.  I was in 13th place and would have moved well into the top 10 at that moment had my hand held up but that's poker.  I realize that $570 isn't all that impressive to some but for a part-time hobbyist like me it was quite exciting.  I followed that one up with a 2^nd straight cash in a $100 entry tourney when I came in 18^th in the Carbon Friday $15k.

I just started playing poker for the first time about 4 years ago when I discovered a “Hold-em app” on my new I-Phone.  After playing that game for a couple of months and learning some of the basics, my wife bought me my first poker book.  It was January of 2011 when I stumbled onto the Outstanding Poker Training School.  I loved the video format and the clear, concise manner that the material was presented by Tim McKillican, Rob Green, Matt Taylor and the rest of the OP professionals.  I found it much easier to absorb than my other research from various books and magazine articles.  After watching the fundamentals series of 17 videos by Tim, I backed that up with a series of videos from Rob.  I also watched Matt’s series on Multi Table Tournaments, which helped me to have a much greater understanding of tournament poker. 

I do realize that the main objective of OP is to teach members how to enjoy steady earnings in micro stake cash games and is not about tournament play.  I have had some success at 25NL cash games and for some odd reason I seem to do even better at 50NL.  The main reason that I have gravitated toward tournaments so far is because I really enjoy the competition.  I also have done fairly well at sit-n-go’s and normally limit myself to short-handed tables of 6 because I always feel much more comfortable and competent than at full-ring tables of 9 or 10.  That is entirely because of my education here at OP.

Having said all of that I intend to focus much more of my attention on cash games in the coming months.  While I have enjoyed some minor success lately, I know that large tournament cashes can be few and far between and the variance is just too high in the long run.  Because I have a full time job I will never be able to grind multiple tables 50 hours a week like some of the other OP members.  I would be pleased to simply develop this hobby into a very lucrative part time job and eventually maybe even make it into a portion of my retirement plan. 

As far as my game itself, I feel good about my start but I know that I have only barely scratched the surface and still have a tremendous amount to learn.  I look very forward to continuing that journey with the help of the lead pro Tim and the entire pro staff of Outstanding Poker.  Thank you!