Originally Posted by JJones29
I am an 18 year old degenerate living in England. In this post I will aim to sum up my experiences with poker. I will start with my story (tl;dr), then my opinion and I wonder how many similar tales to mine there must be for the sites to make so much in rake and still have pro's cleaning up for $20k-2m a year a piece.
Aged 17, my 'first love' and girlfriend of 2-3 years breaks up with me. I'm devastated. Around this time I've recently started playing home games with friends on weekends. First few weeks were like 8-10 man £10 buy in sng's with some beers. I win the first 4-5 weeks we played making a couple of hundred. This soon became a warm up before the more serious among us would play £40 4 way sng's after the 9 man. We would stay up all night watching 1 outers hit thinking they were the sickest thing ever. £20 a hand flips also became common to feed our adrenaline. Then I payed a mate £10 to set up an account on stars (as I was underage) and put £200 in for me. I remember his state of shock when I told him the very next morning that I had lost the £200 and gave him another £100 asking if he wouldn't mind. I ran this up to like $1000 in a day. Then lost it within a week. Bankroll management, tilt and just being a fish I think. Over the next 6 months our live games got even more serious with many of us playing at college in our breaks, sciving lessons etc. When bored we'd hit the bookies and play martingale style roulette. Somedays winning £50-100 others losing £100-200.
I begin to take poker more seriously, ghosting 2+2, watching random strategy videos, high stakes poker, reading blogs etc. Around this time I receive 4 university offers (from Imperial, Warwick, Bristol and Bath) from respectable institutions to study maths, I'm still on course for 5 A's at A level. In the January (2010) exams, I play a gig till 2am night before exam then come home and grind 2-7am before a 9am exam. I get a B in that exam and need A's in all exams to go to imperial, so that was that out the window. I think I mainly played the $4.40 180 mans on stars here and had a few $216 wins. But by this stage I am up like £500 off friends live (soft games) and down nearly as much online. I ended up burning a fair amount when I first discovered $0.25/0.5 heads up ($1k?), and before long lost all my money and was in debt a hundred or 2 to friends. Spend 6 months wasting away my last year of college partying a bit, playing gigs, playing hockey but always thinking about poker. Night before major summer exam I play the turbo takedown and cash for $180. Remember going from chip lead with 1000 to go to being out in 950th due to 2-3 consecutive coolers then a tilt shove of 33 into KK. I then blew it all before going to bed.
By this stage I was a proper degen with no bankroll management but my actual poker game was/is not too bad (although probably nothing special). Then my parents find out I'm in debt and have gambled like £800 away. They confiscate the internet while they go away. I go to a mates to play a first depositors freeroll as I've just turned 18 and on my own account now. Finish 2nd for $500, after being offered a chop for $700 I turned it down to play heads up then took a beat. I immediately shipped $215 to pay off 3/4 of my debt. Then lost the remaining $285 in front of a non-poker playing friend who thought I was crazy - played $1/2 heads up or something. Went to a casino as I was now 18, on the final table bubble of a £50 MTT lost my decent size stack all in pre AKs vs A2. Went again a week later, won a £30 MTT for £920 running and playing well. Felt invincible, won another £200 on cash table that night. Stayed up 48 hours straight playing poker at casino, then waiting for an hour in a bus shelter for bookies to open to burn the free hour until it was past 10am so I could casually go home without waking parents, only for mates to come over and play cash game all day and night again.
Either way I had come into a free grand (really just put me back to even gambling but felt like I was up). So spend £200 in cabot circus shopping and treating mates to lunch at nice restaurant (yeah I'm baller). Then put remaining £800 online, play $0.25/0.50 heads up. win to like $2k then lose it all. Lost like 5 buy ins run bad then tilted into playing $0.5/1 where I won it back, then felt invincible and got coolered at $1/2 where I wasn't rolled. Anyway lost it. Couldn't believe what I'd done etc. Results day for A levels, i get AABB missing my AAA offer for Bristol by 2 marks. I get smashed parents pick me up passed out in some back-alley in town at 2am, apparently i didn't recognize them as my parents 'Your not my ****ing Dad' etc. I had total blackout don't remember a thing. Go through clearing get into Surrey. Get my hands on $200 2 weeks before I start, nothing to do all day every day so grind. Up to $4k from heads up sng's by freshers week feeling invincible. In freshers week get carried away, get it up to $6k playing out of roll but good. Come home smashed one night, blow the lot playing George Danzer heads up PLO $2/4 4 tabling. Next day am devastated, and hungover. But sober. Associate playing sober with winning. Lose my whole semesters student loan, £500 overdraft, and another £450 over my overdraft within next 2-3 days.
Tell parents. FML, etc. Find a real nice girl at uni, have an awesome first semester borrowed money off parents for food and her for going out. I talk to her about poker and she even agrees to put me in a sunday million. Deposit like $270 sunday morning, get it to $400 odd, then back down to $215. I unreg the sunday mill and martingale heads up SNG's, losing like 9 in a row, getting my money in good in 5 off them and 4 flips. Couldn't believe it. But no sunday million for me. Lose another $200-300 over following few months, taking shots etc. Couple of occasions win up to $600-1000 then lose it. Few $500 scores in MTT's, not uncommon to turn $50-500 grinding $11.50 heads up SNG's before I inevitable lose my BR management, or just end up 6 tabling heads up at 6am at the tail end of a 8 hour session and can't sleep. Have a habit of ending the night on $0 after a nice win. All this time parents are monitoring my student account, but I have another account they don't know about that I use to deposit etc. End up depositing into the overdraft of this account on top of being in £500 debt to mates. Then borrowing more off mates to clear the excess on the overdraft. Or winning some cashing out to clear it then playing with the profit, which I then run up then lose.
Over new year went to casino won like £200 a night on 2 nights, all from my last £30. Then blew the £400 night before going back to uni degen'ing it up playing blackjack. FML. Girlfriend from uni breaks up with me and head ****s me at start of semester 2 turning whole flat against me. Living together was a bit intense. I get counseling about gambling. Break a flat mates nose when drunk, get moved halls. Take part in a sleep study for a clinical trial for £500.
Discover rush torneys on fulltilt. Put $45 online. lose multiple $4.40's, then last $11 chop when heads up in won for $500. Blow it. Then win a $1 for $150. Blow it. Come 3rd in a $7.70 180 man, get it up to $600 then blow it. Then self exclude on fulltilt and stars after being over my overdraft. Get mate to clear excess on overdraft (£100), put that £100 on skypoker, go down to £5, win up to £750. (Yes AA vs 10 10 £400 pot). Only lets me withdraw £107 which I do - the poker money's (not online-casino) has to be held for 24 hours to check I didn't cheat etc. I blow it playing £3/6 heads up where I the stakes get to me and I play weak passive like a pussy, getting check raised off most flops. So now waiting for 107 to come through and waiting for 200 to go out of an account with balance 100. Hopefully the withdrawal goes through same time as deposit so I don't go into this unarranged overdraft so I avoid fees. Just exluded myself from skypoker. Tried to deposit to UB but transfer won't go through from my bank.
Not sure why I'm such a degen but I am, wish I wasn't. Even now I'm just writing this for my own benefit at 3.30am when I have an exam at 9. Last semester I got a high 2-1, I'm capable of a first in a maths degree which will earn me way more money than poker but I still mess things up for myself. Not sure where to go from here. Logical thing is not to play poker, save to pay debts back. So annoying though when I know I can win more heads up SNG's than I lose etc, and my 180 man tourney record is pretty good. But I 'bankroll-tilt' so easy. Think I originally let myself get sooo into poker to take my mind off the heartbreak of the break up mentioned at top but might just be looking for excuses. I'm still a fun sociable guy with fair few mates at uni, need to sort out housing for next year urgently if I'm gonna stay at uni. I play hockey 2-3 times a week, and play trombone in the big band here to a high standard. People who only know me on the surface think I'm a really impressive guy..
Cliffs: Play online poker underage, repeatedly run the $10/100-$500/$1k-$0 cycle. Win £1k live MTT, blow online. Hit $6k, blow in 1 night drunk. Blow student loan and £1k overdraft. Questioning sanity. Wonder why I degen over BR management so often. In debts to mates.
Any tips/advice/stories of anyone who has been through anything similar. Worth battling to refine mental attitude so I can win at poker or give up? Can someone help me put this in perspective?
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