What a year!

I started this blog last year in June. I had been reading blogs and decided that I was remiss in not participating myself. I was starting to get into the online poker community, and I really began enjoying the people that are in it. I never imagined that it would grow into this monster that it has. If you had told me last year in July that I would be playing in the World Series of Poker, I'd have said you were crazy.

Yesterday my wife was going through some files with all kinds of paperwork in it. She handed a file to me and asked me to throw out any old paperwork that I didn't think needed to be kept. Among them were cashout receipts from Aztec Riches and The Gaming Club. She looked at the amounts on the sheets and said "If that's how much they sent you, how much did you lose?"

Both receipts were over $500, and I broke the news to her that I bought into both places for $100, and played for less than a month at each. I guess I have kept her pretty much in the dark about my poker progress, and I guess I have done the same with the readers of this blog. I was SHOCKED to read about some bloggers being losing players, because I don't think I am anything special, and I have hit the jackpot with my poker play.

This blog is a GREAT starting poing for my bankroll story, because right after I started it, I cashed out of poker almost completely. I cashed out in the middle of a tournament because I got pissed off. I was ahead about $500 at that point after being down $600 originally, but the $1100 disappeared into the family checking account. In that tournament I eventually made $11.75.

Eleven dollars and seventy-five cents. I never contributed another penny of outside money to my poker bankroll from that point. What have I gotten out of it?

Late last year my comptuer died. I figured it was a poker related expense since that's pretty much all I do with my home computer, so I withdrew $600 from one poker account and bought a new computer.

In December I went on a poker cruise that I won from PokerSourceOnline.com. The cruise was free, but there were a lot of expenses like drinks on the boat, souvenirs and daily spa visits for Mrs. Bogey. This didn't include money for poker cash games. I withdrew $1500 in December.

Other assorted goodies from PokerSourceOnline include my great MP3 player which I love, 5 sets of poker chips, two poker tables, a bunch of poker books and about $320 in cash from referrals.

Poker Source Online has been instrumental in my poker success. I never would have found the incredible fish factories like Pacific Poker or Absolute Poker without them. The extra prizes and the deposit bonuses account for a great deal of my early success in poker. I have parlayed that money into THOUSANDS. When I found out I was limited to poker bankroll only in Vegas, including $1500 for the WSOP buy-in I was disappointed, but it's amazing to think I can cover that buy-in and still have $1000 to gamble with.

But I am most excited about going to Vegas and meeting some of the people I have come to know from this Blog. I hope to meet Pauly, who will be playing in the same WSOP tournament I will be playing. And of course I can't wait to meet Felicia.

The trip should be a blast, and I won't be disappointed to find that I've lost all the money I'm bringing to Vegas. Not even suprised, really.

So here I sit, with $2.25 in my poker accounts. One year in and I am completely broke. (We'll pretend that $2500 in cash waiting for Vegas doesn't exist.) Can I pull off another miracle bankroll from two dollars and twenty-five cents? Even if I can't, I'm WAY ahead of the game, and even if I was really broke, I would have to say it's all been worth it.