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I wrote in my coaching bio that I would be providing a full poker history, so here it is...
I graduated from college in May and am currently working as a teacher in Boston. When I was in HS, poker was getting big, and very popular at my school. I assumed that it was probably boring and the sort of thing that some old guys do in their free time. I never really got involved, did not know the rules, and was just involved with other things. The summer of '05 after I graduated, my friend started playing .1/.25 on his sister's blackjack account on partypoker (lol). He made like $500 or something, and this drew my attention. So... I had him teach me how to play. He taught me to play the high cards, and the pairs, ldo. Open to like $3 (12x) w/ high pps and AK, maybe to like $1 or $2 w/ mid-pairs etc. Although this sounds hilarious now, it was fairly optimal at the time. This was the time that all the present high stakes ballers were getting rich on Party and UB, so you can only imagine how poor 25nl was. Anyways, my friend taught me the rules, we played some HU in his basement etc.
Freshman year of college I threw some money on Party and had a go at it myself. After about 3 or 4 unsuccessful $50 deposits, I had to spend some time on the sideline. Tbh, my friend hadnt done that great a job teaching me the rules, I was playing for money at a time when I did not know if a straight or a flush was better, and I kept losing with straights K-4.... Anyway, over winter break I had surgery on my elbow (baseball injury), which gave me time to focus on getting better at poker. Which at the time meant reading 'Play Poker Like the Pros' by Phil Helmuth, watching the WSOP, and playing freerolls. Gotta start somewhere I guess.
Went back to school, was in a sling for a few months, so I continued playing micros on party and some freerolls on FTP. At this point I think I found 2p2 and started reading up a bit. Summer came along and I had more time to foster my emerging gambling problem. I won a bit at 25 and 50nl and what not, and in accordance with my friend's advice, I started rat-holing 1/2 w/ def no more than probably 5 bis. This wasnt really successful, but then I think i won a freeroll or something and was able to build up like a 2k roll. Party Poker shut down for US  , came back to school started playing 50nl on FTP and I quickly moved up to like 1/2, probably w/ about a 20 bi roll. I did pretty well, over that year I won a tournament or 2 on full tilt, won a bit in cash games, turn $100 into 10k on cake then lost it all playing 5/10 and 10/20, which I almost don't regret b/c the games were so juicy at the time, I found cardrunner (I think around the time that Brian Towsend joined as an instructor), and I bought pokertracker.
The summer after my sophmore year (this is...summer of '07 I believe), I played a ton of 1/2 on FTP and ran up a decent roll. My junior year at school -- this is last year at about this time -- I cashed out a bunch of money from FT (I was a pretty big NIT at the time) and I stepped down to 100NL 6m to work on my game, which was really mediocre and roboty at the time. At the end of the fall, my baseball coach told me that he would prefer if I found something to do other than playing baseball to do with my time(I had played my sophmore year at school after recovering from surgery -- although mostly rehabing and keeping score). Anyways, baseball or other sports in high school, which had occupied most of my free time for my whole life up until now was over. This left time for a ton of poker my junior year. I started watching like every single CR video ever made, playing a ton, and discussing strategy w/ some friends I have at school who are quite good. Over winter break of my junior year, I went through a really bad run of cards and decided to cash out all of my money except for like 4k. (Cashing out almost all of my online funds and rebuilding from virtually scratch used to be my policy during downswings  .)
I decided that my plan for 2008 would be to play 100nl 6m and FR for 1k hands per day for hopefully 300+ days of 2008. I would move up stakes w/ 100bis, or take shots w/ 50b in games I felt very comfortable in, my goal would be to win around 35k. At this point, having played aprox. 202k hands, I am little bit behind my "# ofhands goal", but WAY above my "amt won goal". So, I guess I can't complain. Over the last year I have played the greatest number of at NL 5/10 and 10/20 cap as well as a bit of 200nl and 400nl 6m, HU and FR. I have also played and done well in a bunch of MTTs which has helped me move up in cash games more quickly.
Over this summer (summer of 09) I played my first WSOP event and a bunch of 5/10 live.
Best of luck.
-Dan
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