I began playing poker on zinga poker on facebook back in 2010. My then boyfriend taught me the basics like recognizing a straight from a flush. It was fun accumulating a huge play money bankroll. But, it was all for fun but never thought anyone could make real money playing poker.

And one day while I was hanging out with my boyfriend and his friends, my boyfriend told me to join on their game since it's more fun when more players are playing. My boyfriend knew I knew how to play, but his friends saw me as fish. After the night was over I basically stacked everyone and took home close to 3000 pesos. Everyone kept saying that I should play online and I could make decent money. I kind of shrugged it off but my boyfriend said it would be a good idea since USD is big in my country, the Philippines. He said even if I won small, it would be quite big winnings for us.

I was always loosey goosey at no limit so I was going in circles winning one day and losing the next. After a year, it kind of got frustrating winning and losing what I won on the previous day. So, I stopped playing online.

But one day at a casino, I was walking around trying to find a good super 6 table, philipino version of buccarat, then I saw something I've never seen before, poker with 4 hole cards. I saw a friend and began watching him playing. Although it was pot limit, the pots were huge due to everyone calling and I was hooked. At first, I only played very strong hands like AA(broadways) and I did manage to win overall but not by much. I read some plo from scratch and some basic plo videos online and managed to get some fundamentals. Once I start to win steadily at the casino, I decided to get back online and give online PLO a try.

I started low, the lowest at 2PLO and managed to climb up to 25-50PLO after almost two years of playing. Unfortunately, I had to withdraw most of my bankroll recently due to personal reasons and here you find me now writing my first post of my poker diary.

I started with a bankroll of $50 on pokerstars. Hey don't say it's too low because $50USD is like huge in my country. It's more than my monthly rent so it's very big money ;). I'm starting again at 2PLO. Everyone seems to hate this limit but I do enjoy it because there are so many funny players who play very funny. I only play 2-4 tables but 2 tables is where I feel comfort. I will play zoom but only when I'm mobile but zoom isn't my thing. I rather play 6max ring tables and get reads off funny players. Also, I can't use my PT4 on zoom since I have a mac ;(.

Aside from poker, I recently graduated with a degree in English at the age of 18. Yes, it's very young but what you must understand is that while I was attending school, we had no middle school. So, elementary was from K-6, and high school was 7-10 and off to university and college. Our government recently change it to K-12 to have an educational system more like the West. My younger brothers and sisters give me the evil eye when I tell them that when I was 15, I was already in university.

After I graduated with my degree earlier this year, my parents wanted me to get a job in the government. My dad is an admin in the government and he had set up a position for me but I want to explore before I start work. And I was making decent money through my monthly withdraw from poker so I was not in a rush to get a job. I still don't know what I want to do with my life career wise but I'm very lucky I have poker. Poker gives me that breathing room in my life so I can take my time into exploring whatever life has to offer. It doesn't hurt I still get a small monthly allowance from my parent. Secret, they don't know I've been making money from poker.

So here I am now hoping I can grind up through the micros again. I think I chose a great place to record my thoughts as I start my journey again.