Giveaway 2000th Post Giveaway (1 Viewer)

Man I must have been like 12. Played a small tournament with my cousins. I believe 2nd got their money back and I got at least that.

I was the youngest of the crowd so I was extremely shocked and proud to cash. Hooked from then on.
 
I started much older than most everyone here. I grew up in a household and culture where gambling was very taboo. I was 33 first time I played for money on a cruise ship. Buy in was $100.

And I don't actually hate @Josh Kifer, I just pretend to because I want to fit in!
Oh, you'll learn to hate me. Oh yes. You will.
 
I remember playing with change as a child because we didn't have chips but I don't remember keeping any. I was around 20 when I first played Hold em' for $$$ and had no idea what I was doing at the time.
 
Was around 12 years old. My buddies and I would play poker...each of us had a zip lock bag with pennies, nickels and dimes and we would play some crazy wildcard stud games like queen what follows, 5 and dime, and baseball (3s & 9s wild, 4s get a free card). A lot of small change went into the pots but I don't ever remember anyone busting out..for $3-$4 in change, we could play for what seemed like hours.. lol
 
Was around 12 years old. My buddies and I would play poker...each of us had a zip lock bag with pennies, nickels and dimes and we would play some crazy wildcard stud games like queen what follows, 5 and dime, and baseball (3s & 9s wild, 4s get a free card). A lot of small change went into the pots but I don't ever remember anyone busting out..for $3-$4 in change, we could play for what seemed like hours.. lol
We do some of those wildcard games. Trying to find a balance between NLH and wildcard games. As most of my players are wildcard games.
 
I was in college around the poker boom when Paradise Poker gave me a free $10. Twenty years later, I'm still playing.

Sometimes I wonder what I would be up to if I had lost that $10.
 
started playing poker in high school around 16/17 when the WSOP started getting big on TV. Started out playing basically sit n go tourneys with winner takes all for like $20 buy ins. now I usually play in small stakes home games for fun.
 
First time I played cards was blackjack with my dad and siblings on camping trips. We would bet our candy as currency. First time I played for money was after I was asked to deal a game of stud at an old folks home during my volunteer hours my junior year in high school. The next time I came in they asked if I wanted to play and I was given a bowl of nickels and quarters from one of the residents.
 
Was about 21 playing real money, before all that was play money on pokerstars or free rolls, even most home games were totally just for fun before that.

Thanks!
 
Around 17 in barracks getting rinsed by the old hands, remember playing railroad and Maltese cross among other things though it was many years ago now!
 
Around 17 in barracks getting rinsed by the old hands, remember playing railroad and Maltese cross among other things though it was many years ago now!
I think I can guess at the Maltese Cross but what's Railroad?
 
I still have not played poker for money or for funsies for that matter. Apparently I need some more degen friends.

First time playing a card game for money was blackjack on a cruise ship. I must have been 18 (or looked it) in order to sit at the table. Every hand I played I remember thinking "well, that's an hour of work". Love blackjack to this day but have zero bankroll for it.
 
High School: me and three friends would play $2 tournaments, that were so laughable its almost embarrassing to type this. Everyone started with big stacks of dice chips, red were $5 (at least we got that right) and white were $10. We only raised the blinds when someone got knocked out, which meant blinds only went up twice once it was heads up :LOL: :laugh: one game literally lasted for days.

The first time I played for, what I considered at the time was real money, was the summer before senior year of high school. Me and my 3 friends managed to find 15 other people, and hosted a two table tournament in my buddies garage. One "table" was a pub-sized billiard table, and the other was half a ping pong table with a bed sheet over it. $20 per person, top two got paid. The excitement building up to this night was indescribable.....I got knocked out in the 7th hand, AQ vs AA, flop was QQA. I chain smoked cigarettes in the corner the rest of the night
 
Haha, good question.

Must have been around 13 and we played for whatever money we had taken to training camp, didn't do too bad either!
 
I would have to say during the poker boom. 2004ish. I was just back from my first deployment and a friend of mine introduced me to Texas Hold’em. Sure, I’ve played 5 card draw as a kid for no money, but this new Texas Hold’em was the shit! I was hooked. Then I saw table plans on another forum and built my first table. My wife has been annoyed ever since.
 
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High school. nickel dime quarter. Limit stud with wild cards. Usually a bottle of Firewater or whatever we could find. Once we got drunk, we'd start playing in-between and gut.
 
How do you like that... I am a "boomer".

I started playing for "real money" (more than unaccounted change) during the poker boom. I was house hunting, and while touring a house, the owner was playing on Party Poker. I was more intrigued by the game than the house, and shortly afterward started scanning sites and settled in for the long run.

This year marks my 20th year. I was 36.

I'm still down, but I'm playing for larger stakes, so I may yet break even before I die.
 
Maybe in 1998 or 1999, I recall playing draw poker with friend in his bedroom 3 handed. $5 per hand (no betting other than that). We'd take turns between $5 games in poker and $5 1v1 in Mortal Kombat II for the SNES. I recall getting crushed in both.

First time playing actual hold'em, 2003. It was at the local yacht club where a friend was running a 4 table $50 freezout. Our local version of Texas Dolly won. No one knew strategy cept this 75 year old guy who's likely been playing since the army. I did not cash but did learn the rules and made the final table.
 
Been playing since I was about 10. My family used to play mixed games for change. Pots weren't actually very big but they felt like they were at the time. After I'd bust out I'd search my room or couch cushions for more change to buy back in. :LOL: :laugh:
 
I must have been 13. My great aunts and uncles played everytime they gathered at my great grandmother's house. It was a right of passage. For a couple years I brought whatever change I could find and save to the gatherings, in hopes of being able to play on that table. I would still hang around, watch and learn the games and the hands, when I was told I wasn't allowed to play. I was too young. One day, the invite happened. My mom was like "did you bring your change?". Without skipping a beat I pulled ziplock bag of change from my pocket. Everyone at the table laughed. I played all kinds of poker variants. They play dealers choice. Usually dime antes, this was a little over 27 years ago. The last hand of the night was always the "bomb pot", $1 antes. I was hooked. I had already learned all the hand strengths. I have no idea if I won or lost that day. That didn't matter. Getting dealt in was the win. I love poker. And takes me back to the good ol days, every time.
 
My family on my fathers side is pretty big, he had nine brothers and sisters and four of them all had four kids each, all of us within 5-6 years of each other. So at family get togethers we cousins would play draw poker and some stud games. My grandparents had a set of interlocking .5 gm chips that we would distribute, we didn’t play for money (nobody had any, these were the days when you could get 3-5 pieces of penny candy for an actual penny) but just got bragging rights until we played again at the next get together. We did other stuff of course, having 16-20 cousins around always led to something. Eventually got sone paper chips, then some Bakelite, and played a monthly game with work buddies. Then dice chips came out, and we were king cotton with huge sets of all colors.

Who is this Josh Kifer everyone hates? Is he a politician or a TikTok influencer?
 
Early years of degen started around 7 or 8 during Chinese new years. All the cousins would take our newly acquired cash and play this dice game. Cards came much later.

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Hmmm... vaguely remember playing poker around 11 years old, but do remember when $$ came into play was around 16. Finding enough people for "regular" poker was always a challenge, so the go to game was Tripoley with 4 of us. Not exactly poker, but close enough and lots of fun back then (ahem... like, the 80's... before poker was on tv)... :)
 

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