Cloud Poker / Nick Cantwell / 17 November 2008 / 2 Comments

Hi and welcome to my new home on the net!

So first I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Nick, but in poker circles everybody knows me as "Cloud" (struggling to come up with an original poker name, I happened to be looking out of the window...).

I have been playing online poker for around four years, and as well as playing I have been blogging poker for the last three years - and it has been said that I am a much better poker blogger than I am a player - which tells you nothing about my blogging ability, but everything about my poker ability.

My poker journey started with single table tournaments, and for the first couple of years these were the only games I ever played, and but for some very dubious bankroll management (like deciding my buy-in based upon the roll of a dice - some readers might remember that disaster) my record would have been OK.

At the end of 2007 I decided that I would try and take poker a little more seriously - I joined a training site and my results started to improve, and 2008 has been pretty good. The last couple of months have also seen me make a major move in my poker journey - a move to the cash game - which has made me realise that there is something called a "flop" which you actually have to look at. Currently you might see me trawling around the micro-stakes 6-max tables at Betfair - so say hi - unless of course you have just rivered me with a 2-outer.

My best moment in poker came very early on. I decided to take a shot at a big Sunday night event. I paid $215 out of my $400 bankroll (see what I mean about my bankroll management??) and I found myself sitting at the final six tables after seven arduous hours - and it was my only four figure payout to date.

My worst moment in poker was my exit hand in that tournament - I pushed on a draw and got called, hit my straight on the turn only to be rivered by a flush - made worse by the fact that I didn't even see the flush, and only when the chips all slid to the villain did I realise that I was out.

I spend a lot of my "poker" time struggling for control of my laptop in a battle with my two young daughters - with a Hannah Montana or Peppa Pig DVD normally taking precedence (maybe I should change my avatar to Hannah Montana on certain sites - that would keep them happy as daddy's money slips away). So most of my poker time is in the evenings when the kids are in bed - my wife ignoring my annoyed mutterings as she watches Eastenders (and who did run Max Branning over??).

So thanks for reading and I'll leave you with a final thought...

Why is it, that when you have only six free searches on Sharkscope a day, the first search is always on yourself?