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The first time I ever saw someone play poker was online at my best friend’s house who lived walking distance from my house. He lived with his dad and grandmother, and she was always playing this strange looking card game. At the time I thought it was some weird type of solitaire. The more I went to his house the more I would see her playing, smoking cigarettes with sometimes 4 to 6 tables up at a time. I was always curious but never asked but my idea of what poker was changed when I saw an old-school WPT broadcast on late at night at his house.
Chips, cards, and cool looking characters playing for what seemed like insane amounts of money. Instantly I wanted to learn more. I went home from my buddy’s house the next day asked my mom if we could play poker. My mom being my mom, went out and got some plastic dice chips and cards. We started playing 5 card single draw every Thursday night and I loved it. But I knew deep down that this wasn’t the same poker I had seen on TV.
Our game faded in and out, but another turn in my poker journey was about to take place. After hearing me talking about poker with friends at school, one of our teachers went and purchased two clay dice sets. We played NLHE every lunch with some funny interactions along the way.
We had two tables set up. One was the “real” “less exciting” table with legit shuffling and dealing. The other was a rigged game that everyone knew was rigged (Lots of quads vs quads, Str flush vs str flush once every few hands). Even as a new player to the game I knew something fishy was going on. This game went on for quite sometime until word got out that real money was changing hands.
For awhile poker disappeared from my pastimes. I would play once and a while with family and friends. It was always there even if I didn’t realize it. I played a small amount of volume on Zynga poker when I got to college. I remember building up quite a healthy amount of chips. I helped organize a college sit and go to help raise money for our student council. Still poker was not a focus just something I knew I really enjoyed.
Another change was coming which has led me to where I am today. I was practicing forestry in Nova Scotia Canada, and I discovered podcasts. I was tired of listening to music all the time and a friend of mine suggested it. I found some different ones but there where three that stood out the most: The Poker Guys, Poker on the Mind, and Rec Poker. I remember walking through the woods listening to the Rec Poker Podcast and they were talking about a player that someone had played against who was wearing a John Deere hat.
As they are describing all the mistakes this player was making, I was thinking to myself “I’m wearing a John Deere hat!”. As more time passed, I listened, I learned and honed my skills on the free play money tournaments on PokerStars. From listening to the Poker on the Mind Podcast I started watching the MTT Poker School on twitch and started playing along in real money MTTs. Every Sunday I would wake up early and play and rail Gareth and eventually I joined his training course. Right around this same time rec poker was holding their first ever home games.
I remember the first Rec Poker home game when I was seated with Jim Reid and Chad McVean, probably the only three Canadians in the home game at the time, and instantly we struck up conversation. From that point on I knew that this was a place that I wanted to be.
Now I’m streaming myself on twitch, low and mid stakes MTTs. Having been here from the very beginning I feel like I can contribute something to Rec Poker. My journey as a poker player. I’ve always had a passion for content creation, and I feel like live streaming is the future and I’m excited to grow not only as a poker player but as a streamer as well.
One of my main objectives becoming a RECing Crew is to build my community on twitch. I think that there are lots of recreational players like myself who could really benefit from this great community at RecPoker and I want to be the one to build the bridge between the two. A big dream of mine as a tournament player is to play in a live MTT with my sights set on the WSOP. Having never even played a live MTT before, I have a long way to go, but I’m excited to share that journey with Rec Poker!
Come and join me live www.twitch.tv/bejamin96 to join the rail and cheer along! I stream the International Series on Saturday and usually play a full Sunday schedule of small and mid stakes buyins. Also follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/Ben67230742 for updates on when we are streaming, tournaments we are playing and live action updates!