You Make Time For Everything Else

PokaBunga Poker Stories are back! Like we said every poker player has a poker story and we are out to get all of them.

Amartya Sen, is an IIM Kozhikode alumnus of the batch of 2013. He met us when PokaBunga’s word started spreading and we got talking. Finally, we got to hear his Poker Story spanning over two colleges VIT, Vellore and IIM Kozhikode. Thank you, Amartya! It was wonderful hearing your story.

“I started playing on Facebook first, and then got hooked onto it after seeing Casino Royale. The scene where Bond slow plays a straight flush gave me goose bumps! Within a few weeks after that I picked up the game seriously and started playing mostly with friends. I played almost a year at low stakes, slowly after that we raised the stakes at a periodic rate. Finally I met some guys who played at pretty high stake buy-ins. There was no looking back after that. Long story short, I play everywhere and at any stakes (that my bankroll can handle) now.

It started off with a friendly discussion with a couple of my friends. They played casual games only, so we sat down with a deck of cards, later the word spread that we played poker; we didn’t need any advertising. The buzz itself brought me in touch with the ‘real’ players and we were rolling since then!

We coordinated after classes, usually one of the guys volunteered to host it at his room.  We had no rake or anything. We split the hospitality expenses amongst everyone, we made an excel sheet to keep track of winnings and made the transactions at the end of the month.

One thing I have realized is, if you really like to play poker then you don’t need to find time for poker, you need to find time for everything else.

Everyone had their own style in our group, some were aggressive some days some were not in the end what came out was that everyone had a maverick style of playing but everyone knew how to play and we developed our game together.

I was called the Straddler for straddling every time, a guy whose min bet was 600 got nicknamed 600, we generally gave nicknames over professional famous players based on style of play and fan following, for example a guy who was very good at playing bad hands got called Dwan!”

Quite the man of words, Amartya! We like your spirit and how you don’t have to make time for poker, you have to make time for everything else. We hope your spirit lives on in VIT and IIM Kozhikode and the poker culture continues. We dedicate this video to your poker story.

Cheers!

Poker is Infectious

Every poker player has a poker story. It usually starts off with a friend or a relative or a video or a movie. One of our friends thought it would be a nice idea to talk about his poker story, so here we are.

Once upon a time...

"I played poker a couple of times, but never too seriously. It was online poker. I don't remember which one. I lost interest because it was mostly a fun game and no one took it seriously. Then, almost an year later I was invited to a poker game, by an attractive lady friend. There were about 8 of us and I had a girl to impress. So, we started playing. We played for about 4 hrs. I bombed. I was worse than the worst possible player ever. I was down by 4 buy-ins! At the end of the day I hit it off with the girl, but my ego was bruised. So, I decided I wanted to learn this game. I met a friend who had played a tournament in Goa and I started playing. The first few days were a disaster. But after a week of poker nights every single night, I started getting better. In fact I started winning pretty big!

We soon started having regular poker nights and about 10 people in the group. 6-7 of us were regulars. We usually played in a bedroom, until we found an abandoned pool table. This pool table was the perfect hook. People started pouring in, because it looked pretty professional. Apart from the aesthetics, the regular players' game improved a lot! We used to watch WSOP, Poker After Dark, any and every video we could get our hands on. We talked about tells, strategies, popular bluffs, favorite players and soon it turned from a hobby to a passion. Initially it was just a tug, but soon it was an unquenchable thirst! I had to watch more videos, read more blogs, books. That feeling was wonderful.

The best part about playing poker was, I made some amazing friends that I'm pretty sure I will always stay in touch with. I have moved to a new city, but I still look for games and new people to play with. A dream come true would be to play in pro tournaments and if possible, one day, in WSOP. I am in love."

Pretty nice, huh? We love poker stories and we would love to hear more of them. So, mail your poker story to pokabungaindia@gmail.com

Cheers!