I just joined this site a few days ago actually just to see how the game I loved had been transformed after BF. I had never thought of poker as my sole source of income so just kept thinking of it as a hobby. I started in high school grinding free roles where I would win like 20/30 bucks then grind it up to about 800 on cash tables. Would do this from 15 years old to 18 years old periodically just to get a good feel for the game (would ususally lose the 800 bucks when I got it so would just start over and learn from mistakes
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Then once I turned 18 in 2007 decided to deposit and play 11 dollar rebuys 11 dollar sats. to Sunday million etc but never more than 50/100 bucks a week. After 4 or 5 deposits or something I hit my first big score for about 6k in a Sunday mulligan and was beside myself. I had just multiplied my whole life savings by 2.5 times in about 8 hours. Generally, like any kid who all the sudden has a bunch of money he/she doesn't understand the worth of, I lost it all when I went up in stakes too quickly. I even took a loan out of the bank for 200 bucks because I was at that stage of degeneracy. Fortunately this could not have happened at a better time. I was able to learn the importance of the money I was really going through (so for later on) I could learn to manage my money better. I took a total of a year and a half off of poker before coming back to it to try again.
I worked 15 hours a week during my senior year of high school to accumulate about 3,000 back from what I lost but I always felt like I could do something special in poker. This time I set a strict deposit limit per week I would use and stuck too it (no more jumping to the higher stakes before I was ready or without a significant role). Fortunately for me, after another month I got third in a 11 rebuy for 7k and had everything back I had lost. Two days later I played the Sunday mil. and got 400th or something for 500 bucks and told myself I would enter the 215 rebuy without adding on or rebuying to reward myself for keeping my goals. The unthinkable happened and I binked it for 58k...
Afterwards I was stunned for another 4 months or so over what just happened. All the sudden I had more money than I could begin to imagine. I thought I would start fresh on a new avatar on Full Tilt and see what I was really capable of at the higher stakes. I started off just basically playing the Sunday majors or other high buy ins because I was playing only when I had free time from my studies in college (always wanted a back up plan). Ended up getting two six fig scores on Full Tilt. I had learned once cashing that first 58k to withdraw 80 percent or more of my winnings immediately after and pay taxes on them, because it just didn't seem like a good idea to put that stuff off. This habit of withdrawing winnings allowed me to take most my winnings off of tilt and saved me from the debacle of black friday for the most part (my condolences for the people that had it stuck on there
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I always told myself though that no matter what I earned from poker, once this started exploding for me, I wanted another job as well. Currently I'm back in college pursuing a major in Psychology and minor in Economics. I'm hoping to go for grad. school, after I finish up this year and next year of undergrad, to get my PhD or MD in Psychology.
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