Hello everyone,
A long while ago I signed up with the intention of becoming an active member, when RL interfered as I took ill and needed time to recover.
Then when I finally was able to try and play again I signed up on a different website (Dutch), got everything set inlcuding playing on Full Tilt with a rake back option (when I first started out I had no idea what that meant) and before I even got to enjoy the return in my modest investment pretty much all gaming sites were banned from the Netherlands.
Recent years (2011+) things have changed somewhat, when the dutch court ruled that poker was not a game of chance and thus a permit was not required. The ruling is being challenged in a new trial, but in the mean time ban is no longer in place.
I'm not fully able to translate all that's going on, but currently it's being investigated whether or not ruling against poker/banning it and taxing it as a game of chance isn't against our constitutional right to earn income from sport or hobby. That all depends whether the higher courts will rule whether or not it's a game of chance or game of skill.
There is a lot more going on, but in a nutshell this is it. So in the mean time I'm trying to play as much as I am able, just getting tired of crappy jobs not paying well, the increased pressure of doing a hell lot more for a significant cut in pay, the list goes on and on.
I'm not looking to get filthy rich, I just want something that pays more than €8,50 an hour in a highly stressed working environment.
I learned 5 draw poker when I was very young. We used to play for cents and I always lost, because I was too easy to read. My stepdad taught us how to play poker, but we weren't very good at it. Things kind of turned for the worst and from that moment on poker really wasn't something any of us would mention at a family dinner.
For now I like to focus on the 2NL and slowly work my way up. I have played a few hundred hands already and I'm basicly still close to the same amount I had - made some silly mistakes, raised too often or too much or didn't want to fold pretty picture cards >.< I'm not bust so that's a good thing and I have learned from my mistakes so I hope things will go better as I carefully move up the ladder.
I also gotten myself some poker books, but never used them until now because of what has happened in our country the last couple of years. The books are:
Small Stakes Hold 'em (Sklansky, Miller, Malmuth)
Hold 'em Poker (for advanced players) (Sklansky, Malmuth)
Winning Low Limit hold 'em (Lee Jones)
And that's all she wrote.
Cheers,
Francisca
sounds like a good intro for a blog ? 
We dutch are already one of the heavier taxed people and Rutte really is pushing it. And yeah too many greedy poachers at the top. Not a friendly climate at all.