About

Welcome to the brand new Poker Project. Woohoo! Ok, I admit, sometimes I’m overly excitable. That’s me in the picture, btw. My name is Kris Fields, for those who don’t know. I’ve been a professional poker player for almost 5 years now. I created this site about 4 years ago, and have maintained it ever since. Version 2.0 is a marked improvement over 1.0 already, but it’ll get even better in the coming weeks.

About Me:

As I said, 5 years ago, I began my “career” as a professional poker player. I had just finished watching the movie, Rounders, and thought, “I can do that.” The only problem I had was a complete lack of funding. I had absolutely no money. Thank goodness for freerolls! I googled the phrase “play poker for free” and found my way to a little known site called America’s Cardroom. At the time they were trying to drum up business by offering these awesome single table freeroll tournaments where the winner won $10, without ever having to risk an entry fee. I played and won a bunch of those, and was soon armed with $70. I took the $70 and hit the cash tables. Unfortunately, I was outmatched, and quickly lost about $40 of it. At that point, I cashed out the other $30 and took it over to Poker Room, where I began playing $5 sit-n-gos. I quickly got good at those, and was cashing in a good percentage of the tournaments I played. My bankroll was growing. After a few weeks, I was up to about $300. I withdrew a small fraction of that to invest in a couple of poker books, which proved to be an extremely good investment. I believe the first book I bought was David Sklansky’s Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players.

Eventually I moved up to $10 tournaments, and then $20, and so on. After a while, I tried my hand at cash games again, and found I was much better than before. I started to make my way up the cash game ranks, playing mainly limit hold’em. After about 6 months, I had over $10k. I switched to NL hold’em, and lost about half. I was devastated. The worst part was, I could not figure out what I had done wrong. I kept going over all the major hands in my head and I was confident I had played them all correct. I requested my hand histories and checked to make sure. Yep. Hand after hand I had gotten drawn out on, and coolered in unavoidable ways. My confidence (along with my bankroll) was a little shaken, so I dropped down in limits and took to the tables again. Thankfully my losing streak was over (for awhile), and it didn’t take long for my bankroll to surpass the $10k mark. I kept playing, kept winning, and kept moving up in stakes. After about a year and a half, I found myself playing at the highest stakes I could find online (which at the time was only 10-20nl at Poker Stars). I would always play four tables at once, and I would normally win. I don’t recall when, but eventually Poker Stars began to offer $25-50 tables, and I immediately jumped up, and was extremely happy with the 150% raise. When I heard that Party Poker was also offering $25-50 tables, and that their competition was even easier than elsewhere, I switched. Oh my god, were the players awful there. I felt invincible. I even started to make a mark (albeit a small one) on the tournament circuit. With my surplus income, I bought a house, put a large down payment on a house, and invested in the stock market. Things were going great, and I couldn’t fathom what could happen to stop my amazing run.

And then Bill Frist stuck his foot up my ass. As most poker players know, he was the Senator responsible for sneaking the UIEGA (Unlawful Internet Enforcement Gaming Act) onto the Port Security bill which was a huge blow to the online poker industry, and consequently a huge blow for me. Although the bill didn’t make it illegal for players to play online poker, it did make it illegal for financial institutions to deliver funds to online gaming sites. Long story short, as most of you know, some of the major online poker rooms (Party Poker included) closed their doors to U.S. players. And it also became harder to deposit money into poker sites still accepting players from the U.S. The bill not only made the games harder online, but it pretty much destroyed the revenue I was enjoying from this site, as I was earning most all of my money as a Party Poker affiliate, and that gig was pretty much up.

At the same time as the bill was passed, I was learning the headaches of being a home owner, and also going through the end of what had been, up to that point, the longest, and by far the best relationship of my life. All in all, I was depressed, and playing poorly. I began losing. A lot. 2007 marked my first losing year ever. Considering I still spent a good chunk of money in that same year, it isn’t looking pretty right now. My goal, and hope, it to turn things around in 2008. If I don’t, I’ll have to sell my house before the turn of 2009. And I just now got around to having my office recarpeted. Damn it.

-Kris Fields

Juice It Up, Poker Stars
Juice Crusade, Full Tilt Poker

p.s. Check out my blog if you’re curious how I’m doing on my “God I hope I don’t have to sell my house” goal