goukaku!

In my last entry i was contemplating if i should start playing poker or not, and i have recently decided to give it a shot. I don't live in japan anymore which means i can finally start playing without being branded a criminal. I have been playing on and off for about 4-5days now, i made an account on Pokerstars and transfered $15 and it's been going good so far even though +$2 in 4-5days isn't really a sick streak. I have started on the lowest limits and i'm planning on just learning the basics and just try to grind my way up.

I'm not sure i'm going about this the right way though, is $2 profit normal for 4-5days? been playing for ~1hours each day. I read up on SSS and basics on how to start playing etc. but the problem is i'm not seeing a pattern when i'm playing. People are playing kind of stupid, at least that's the way it feels to me, they try to do stupid bluffs, betting, raising etc. when it makes absolutely no sense. It is kind of like when you scout someones base in SC and you see something stupid like roach/hydra den with no gas and you're thinking "wtf, that makes no sense, what do i do?!" Now i obviously don't know how to play every hand perfectly but according to the guides and what not some of their plays makes no sense. How do you play properly at these stakes in order to be able to climb to the higher stakes later on? right now all i'm doing is playing the extremely good hands which means i have to fold most of my hands, that makes climbing extremely slow.

Also, for all the swedes out there (or other people that might know), is playing on Pokerstars ok? i heard a lot about taxes being an issue? withdrawing $20 or something like that will probably not be a problem but in the future, is it worth staying at PS? i have $10 on SvS but i seriously despise their software and it just feels stale playing there.

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Hello everyone,

First of all, i'm more or less new to this site, i've been browsing it occasionally for a year or two now. Some people might recognize me from TL where i spend most of my time. I'm Swedish and living in Japan at the moment.

Anyway, the other day when i was on the train on my way to school i was just standing there in this humid train forcing myself to look out the window in an attempt to not accidently get a glimpse of the guy in front of me who had the ugliest, weirdest kind of wig i have ever seen, honestly made me feel like barfing. In order to not keep thinking of that wig and seeing it everytime i closed my eyes i kind of forced myself into thinking about other stuff, and out of nowhere i starting thinking about a post Rek made over at TL some time ago, it was basically a story about how he got started with poker and where it took him etc. I remeber thinking "hey, i can relate to some of that" and the more i thought about it the more it would make sense for me to try to play poker.

Now i'm not sitting here thinking "ok, lemme just pick up poker and then i'll start looking up nice $10million apartments to buy with my inevitable profit" I know that very few people can actually make a living off of playing poker, i would just like to find a new hobby and try to get good at it, and if i can pay for the beer the coming weekend by playing poker then that would be great, but i'm not expecting to turn into a millionare.

I'm the kind of guy that has a hard time getting into new stuff but when i finally find something i really like and i can stick to it forever. Take Starcraft for example, i got into it about 10 years ago and i've been playing it ever since, because i loved the game so much and it was always so fun trying to improve, during this time i never even bothered to play any other games except the occasional game here and there, i was set on becoming better and better at Starcraft. Now the bad thing with my situation is that i often try to pick things up like playing guitar or various other instruments but simply end up quitting because there was no sense of instant gratification, i couldn't see myself progress and that made me really disheartened. Despite this i still think that i might be able to get good enough in poker to be able to enjoy it as a hobby, i love to read up on things and whenever i have time i try to pick up as much information on the subject as possible which to me seems like a good thing.

One thing that makes me wonder though is that many of my friends who play poker are pretty smart and if going by the same logic as used above, they should be really succesfull at poker, however, they are not. Why is that?
I would love to pick up poker and if possible get as good as possible at it, but things like that makes me wonder if it's actually possible through pure effort and dedication or if it's just certain kind of people that "has it" and no matter how much effort i were to put into it i still wouldn't get anywhere. Just for arguments sake, say i wanted to become above average and actually reach that "dream level" where i would be able to support myself through just playing poker, would that actually be possible through sheer dedication and effort? I would be really hesitant to pick something up if there were things in my way that i could do nothing about, i want to have the oppurtunity to be #1 even if the chance of that happening is below 0.1%, i still want to know that there is a chance and that it's all up to me and my efforts.

I feel like i'm losing track of where i was going with this blog post, basically i just want to know what you guys think, should i give it a try? did you feel the same way? etc. I have more or less zero experience with playing poker but to me that makes it all the more fun in the beginning when everything is new. The biggest problem right now with trying to get better would be the fact that i'm living in Japan for at least 3 more months and as far as i know it's illigal to play poker here, don't know about play-money though, in any case practicing here won't happen, but i still want to use this time to learn as much as possible, any suggestions as to how i should go about in learning as much as possible without actually playing? I guess it's also worth mentioning that i'm extremely motivated when it comes to getting better.

Basically what i'm trying to ask is.

Is it worth giving poker a try?
Can everybody become a good poker player?
What is the best possible way to learn without
actually playing?

Thanks

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