12.21.07

I needed something to do after Work

Posted in How I got into Poker, Working Experience at 9:14 pm by Brad Daugherty

I worked during the day so to entertain myself at night, I started hanging out at Intermountain Billiards in Boise playing pool and occasionally playing some poker. I was 19-20 years old, making good money, and not a very good poker player with plenty of gamble. With that combination I put many bad beats on my opponents but usually ended up going broke. When you are young you have no fear, especially when you have plenty of money. This makes me smile now days when all the young guns think that I am tight because I don’t ram and jam like they do. I have been there, done that.

Back in those days we only played no-limit 5 card stud and no-limit lowball. The typical buy-in for a player was $20-$50. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money now but this was in 1972. A lot of players who bought in short would just shove all-in whenever they played a hand (same as the short stacks do now). So there was a lot of all-ins in those games. The blinds were either $1 or $2, with anyone at the table being able to straddle and someone else re-straddling. The straddle back then made it double the straddle to come in. For example if the blinds was $1 and $2, it was $4 to come in. If someone straddled for $4 anywhere on the table it was $8 minimum to come in and so forth. Which is unlike most of the games today where the only place you can straddle is in first position and it isn’t double the straddle. So, you can see sometimes back then, the games had lots of action.

BradPoker

12.20.07

How did you ever get into poker?

Posted in How I got into Poker at 7:28 pm by Brad Daugherty

I have been asked many times. How did you ever get into poker?

I have always said that many things have happened that influenced me into taking the direction that I did. As a kid I remember running around the kitchen table looking at my family’s hands while they were playing pitch. It was a social thing that all of my family liked to do when they got together. They were usually joking and laughing while they were playing. As a youngster I always wanted to play but they made me wait until I got in my teens before I got to play regularly. It was always a lot of fun but especially when I was able to make a high bid with a bad hand.

My first memory in poker was in the fall of 1968 riding a train from Payette Idaho to Kansas City Mo and back. My two teammates was Jim Miller and Jerry Nicholson, we were representing the State of Idaho at the Future Farmers of America National Dairy judging contest which is held every year in Kansas City Missouri.  We had a great time on the trip coming in 5th in the judging. The part of the trip that stands out the most on the trip besides the Juicy fillet mignon we had there, was playing penny ante poker on the train ride each way. I don’t think we even slept on that trip. I guess quitting a big winner with 35 cents extra in my pocket made me feel like a great poker player. Boy do I have a lot to learn.