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Dave Ulliott

Due to my success in my first ever real money tournament I entered the same $20+2 tourney the next night, picked up $600+ for 3rd place. I cashed out all but $100, because I had to revise (and I wanted to see that big fat juicy cheque). Well, screw revision, straight back to playing poker in bed on a cold winter morning. My $100 quickly withered down to near nothing, due to playing wildly (Come on, I had made $1600 in the past 2 days, the most I had ever made before this didn't exceed $100) and being over excited. I actually went down to $1.75, I got dealt pocket 4's, clicked 'raise $1.75', 5 callers after a re-raise to $6. The flop produced a 4, and my set held up against pocket kings and collected  the $10.50 pot. From that $10.50, I made just under $2200 playing a $1-2 NL ring game in 2 days. YES! The most incredible run of luck I had ever witnessed, I had just made $2100 playing tiny $1-2 NL Hold'em.

The start of 2004 brought new higher limits to PokerRoom, $2-4 NL, in reality this was $1-2 blinds as PokerRoom described the games by stakes not blinds. I was accustomed to playing only one table at a time but noticed one player was making about $1000 profit a day playing 3 tables. I started playing 3 or 4 full handed tables a day. In 19 days, I made $28,500.

In 3 of those days, I made the same amount as 2 months of my Dad's salary. Obviously no one at home believed me, so I cashed out $16,000. It was pretty hilarious when the cheque came, my family honestly thought I had printed it off the computer. The cheque took an agonising 6 weeks to clear. I returned to University and showed my friend how much I had in my account, his jaw dropped, no exaggeration. He started playing and turned $50 into $500 in a week with a little guidance from me, but his head over inflated and the bubble burst, he eventually lost it all.

I was running the No Limit scene at PokerRoom, just as I had watched others people began to watch my play. I was acknowledged by the people I was playing with practically everyday now, and occasionally a fish would enter the room just to insult me. I really enjoyed the recognition I was receiving, plus I was still making a profit but no where near as much as January. My exams passed, I did absolutely no revision but the exams were pathetically easy. I could concentrate on poker, I never went to lectures anyway only tutorials where you had to hand in the homework.

PokerRoom once more introduced higher stakes, bumped up to $5-10 NL. On the first day I ran into a guy (who I would later play some great hands against) who was playing recklessly, he got incredibly lucky twice taking $500 off me. This was the biggest loss I had suffered ever. By this time I had cashed out all but $2000 from the remaining winnings of January and the next couple of months, so 1/4 of my bank roll was gone. The new limits brought an influx of much better players that reduced the number of fish at the site and made it increasingly difficult to make huge profits. Most of the players recognised my ability and avoided getting into expensive confrontations with me. (Continued: The Great Depression)