By mjbern23 on August 1st, 2008 (more posts by author)

Welcome to my new blog where in the coming months and years i look forward to keeping everyone informed and updated on my poker results and my run ins with the law......Ok so my poker results...Actually i dont want this to just be a rundown of all the poker tournys i was in and how i did but a mixture of a bit of that as well as a variety of other interesting and hopefully appealing posts for you...

I started playing poker about 6 years ago during high school BEFORE MONEYMAKER!!!! with my friends after school, and during school for that matter, when i didnt even know that a flush was better than a straight and the games were $5 6 man tournys when we thought winning $25 was high stakes...Since then i began playing online poker in a few years back first on Party Poker, where i was a donater, and now since the begining of 2007 on Poker Stars...I also am a semi-frequent player at Turning Stone Casino and play in a local Tuesday Night League...

Like 95% of other players i was generally a break-even to losing contributer for the first few years until the middle of last year when i started turning my game around with alot of long hours and dedication to the game...I have never read a poker book or watched any training video, rather have just watched alot on TV and played a ton of hands thanks mostly to playing online, where i can play on the order of 1000-2000 hands a day depending on how long i play for...I am generally a tourny player after a couple brutal cash game results including droping over a G in 4 hours one night playing 4 tables of 2/4 nl and vowed to stay off the cash games for a while...

Begining the summer of 07 through the end of last year i had cashed a couple decent amounts most notably live play during my Tuesday Night League or at a daily tourny at TS most notably last summer me and my friend heading up for a day trip and chopping 2nd/3rd for about $700 a piece,but nothing too big...It wasnt until this past January when i hit my 1st 4 digit score of $3000 after taking 1st in an online tourny on Stars...In February i finished 2nd for $1800 on stars and then in April had my first 4-figure live Score makin a final table of a prelim event for the East Coast Poker Championships at TS for just over $1200...During May and June i came close several times bubbling a couple final tables but nothing over a few hundred dollars unitl the end of June when i finished 5th in a 3r on Stars for $1400...Finally a week ago i hit my first $5k+ score when i took down the $27.50 40k guarantee on Stars for $6,000 which resulted from a 3 way chop i made where we each got $5250 and left $750 for the winner which just happend to be yours truly...A goal of mine for the month of August is to have my first $10k+ 5 figure score without directly buying into stakes any higher than $50 online or $500 live so i will frequently be trying to satalite into the majors online and live...

I would love to keep this blog updated as much as possible with tourny resluts and updates of how my online sessions went as well as live tourny reports, but also want to include random posts such as entries regarding visits to my favorite place in the world Saratoga Race Track or something as small as my song of the moment that i would like to share...

If you have any comments or suggestions on what u would like to see more of whether it be more poker stories/strategy questions and answers or if you would prefer more random life story posts like what ridiculous 100-1 odds bet i made with someone which i frequently do just let me know by either leaving a comment on here or by im, my sn is mjbern23 or you can feel free to rail me online my name is mjbern23 as well on stars...