So I started playing poker in middle school, and quickly started beating my friends. I would win in my $5 buy in games (we used to play No Limit with $0.25/$0.50 blinds...10bbs lol). My friends were all passive fish and I learned to play aggro from such classics as TJ Cloutier's book "Championship No Limit and Pot Limit Hold Them" and of course Sklansky's books. I crushed my friends (thinly veiled brag), for hundreds of lolers over a few years into high school.

At some point, I realized that I could play online, and of course opened accounts underage. I started playing 3/6 Limit 6Max on Paradise, but I also had accounts on Pacific poker and eventually Party. I probably put $50 online with my debit card or maybe a Visa gift card, but over time I built it up to ~2k by just running over the passive players. Remember, this is the Party poker days, so everything was soft (imo softer than 25NL these days-so real soft).

Anyway, I cashed all that money out (and felt like a baller) after my idiot friend lost $7k on Party one summer because he never folded. Jesus, what an idiot. Kid eventually got arrested on some drug charge when he was in college--a real smart guy.

That was how it was for a couple years, and I just figured that I could crush the games anytime I wanted since I was a winner back in the day over maybe 5 or 10 thousand hands. Then I started putting money on Tilt to prove it. I would deposit $50 every day and try to run it up, thinking I'm still profitable and I was just getting hit by variance.

Soon $50 turned to $200 or $300 a shot, and before I knew it I had deposited $50 26 times, $100 19 times, $200 14 times, $300 9 times, and over $400 twice. I always chased my losses, and if I lost at 50NL, I would buy in to 100. Honestly, even when I won, I would move up trying to win back my losses, with typical results. BR management problems like everyone itt.

I just added it up for the first time as I write this post, and I deposited and lost $11935.46 (LOL at the 46cents) over 2 years. Jesus. I can't even believe it as I write it. Over that time, I also was going to college--a prestigious well-known private college--and I took over $30k in loans. I didn't realize it until right now where that money went. I always just lied to myself and said I was a winner overall "back in the day" and that more than made up for my losses.

At around that point, I knew poker was –EV (for me) and so I started betting on sports. Of course. I won some money for awhile, but it of course turned sour. I bet up to $1000 a game chasing losses until I was down a few k. I could pay off my bookie, but I was getting really low on cash. Around that time, I just told my bookie to **** off and starting betting online. I started off managing my BR really well, and doing pretty solid for awhile.

Then I discovered internet blackjack.

I blew my entire sports BR (~2k) on internet blackjack in one hour, betting $100 a hand. Then I redeposited and built up a decent roll again. Hell, I had even more than I lost, around $3k total. At that point, I was bored and decided to play some blackjack as I sweated an NBA total, on a game I knew nothing about. I went up two grand and felt great! I decided to cash out $3k, and just chill for the rest of the night.

Then I figured, why not just play a little more, what could it hurt? I'd stop after losing back $500, and if I won, we'd just see where it went. At first I was up to $7k (4k total profit on the day), then I decided I wouldn't drop below $6k and just see if I could turn the $1k I was willing to gamble into $4k, so I would have an even $10k total.

At that point I got a call from two friends over the course of ten minutes who wanted to go to a college bar a couple blocks away. I was like **** that, I'll just stay here and win some money in blackjack. By this time, it had gotten dark, and I was just lying on my bed, playing BJ for absurd sums of money in the pitch black.

I started losing, of course, and dropped down to 6k. But of course I was playing 3 hands at $100 a hand, and had doubled down on two hands and lost all 3, so I went from $6300 to $5800. Well I just had to make the $200 back and I would stand up. I never did, and didn't even think about stopping until I passed $5k, $4k, 3k, 2k, 1k, and eventually I bet my last ****ing dollar and lost—dealer had blackjack. I swear the dealer got blackjack every other hand.

I just sat there in the dark, in shock for about an hour, not doing anything. I wanted to break something, but I'm not stupid, and I knew I didn't have any money to pay to replace anything anyway. I couldn't sleep and felt like my whole life was over. In the morning, without sleeping, I felt even worse when I got an email that said the $3k cashout was denied because I didn't have any funds in my account. :-(

That was a month ago. I still gamble, and lose, but I haven't been playing poker or sports betting or blackjack in awhile. I don't know how I'm going to act around gambling in the future, but I still really enjoy it. I'm worried it's going to cost me more than the $15k it's already cost me though. Still, I'm intellectually "smart" and think that I can do it, but I honestly don't have any idea if I can. I'm never going to bring myself to go to Gamblers Anonymous, as I feel like I'm better than those degens, even though I've lost more than many of them.

Cliffs:
-won money in high school, thinks he's a baller, looks down at friends who lose
-loses $12k in $50-$500 buyins on FTP
-Loses money sports betting with a bookie
-wins money sports betting online, then degens another $5k off in internet blackjack after winning a bunch initially

Awesomely degen, but can you actually give any reasons you're better than the other degens at GA?

I think you would fit in at Gamblers Anonymous

LOL

if anything those guys are better then you. atleast they can admit they have a problem and are trying to fix it.

Considering the recentness of the events portrayed in your post"blackjackfiend", I'd definitely consider going to GA meetings. You acknowledge how much you've lost which is good, but that's where it needs to stop. How did you even fund this cash as a student is what I'm wondering? Anyways, don't feel as if you're "better than those degens"; C'mon man, they're admitting they have a problem and dealing with it. I guarantee you there's people there who have lost less money than you have, but are recognizing their problems early on. Don't wait until you've lost 100k and then you feel as if you are on the level of "THOSE degens". Just go now.

Lol at a full blown degen story, followed by the beginning of the true degen story. Quite possibly the best 5 words IN THE ENTIRE THREAD.

AHAHAHA exactly what I was thinking!

hahahahaha. i'd like to see the post-internet blackjack story.

but you've lost $15K and haven't figured out that your problem needs GA?

nothing degn about that

[QUOTE=RelaxedPrecision;16219680]LOL. I lost a job, got another one, got let go, got another one, got my hours cut. I'm running bad at life. Ridiculous how many interviews and opportunities have slipped through my fingers.

2010 is my year tho. Doing real well at my job, getting a few extra hours, I just work, study, and apply for jobs all the time now. I log in here from time to time for entertainment. God is good to me. He has even helped me with my gambling addiction.[/QUOTE

now thats a ****ing D-gen imo

I just played with a guy that dusted off 56 buyins in 6 max plo in one session
It was low stakes but its still degen imo

Got a pretty decent story about my friend.

One of my good friends whos name is kyle is one broke dude. I showed him how to gamble and the whole online poker thing and such. He is so broke that he owes his parents like 2k, his friends like 1k in total and the people he lives with like 3k in rent. One day, he is over my house and were bored thinking of ways we can play the poker online. He comes up with this plan to call his friend and ask for his credit card number telling him " That he has a parking ticket and needs to pay it now or they will tow his car" or something like that.

Anyways he obviously lied to his good friend that was just trying to do something nice for him. So he fires up absolute poker and im watching him. He says **** poker im just gonna play blackjack. He loses that 25 dollars in like 2 mintues, and than sits there doing nothing and finnaly says f it im gonna do another 25. He does this running up a debt till to 200 dollars and looks like hes about to cry cause he lost 200 dollars of his friends money when he was only gonna borrow 25. He finnaly tells me that hes gonna make one more 50 dollar deposit which he does and deletes the text message and the payment method on absolute poker so he cant make another deposit.

With the 50 dollars he starts doing really good, he starts off by betting 5-10 dollars a hand and than when he gets up to a couple hundo he's betting anywhere from 25-50 a hand. He runs really good and gets it up to 1k. Its late at the time and i say "kyle just cash it out, you can do good with that money." he tells me no maybe tomorrow. Before he goes to sleep he calls everyone he knows telling them he won 1k and that hes gonna pay the people at his house the rent money he owes them. We take a nap and sleep for like 15 hours.

The next day he fires up absolute poker again and im not lieing to you when i say this kid goes on the heater of a lifetime and turns that 1k into 5k in about 1 hour time. I tell him kyle cash out 4k and gambollll with the other 1k, and you can pay off almost all your bills. He says he will cash out 1k which he did, So i say whatever and watch him play. He than goes on the cooler of a lifetime betting 25-100 at first and is just getting crushed. At one point he bet 500 dollars and got 20 against a dealer's 6. Dealer hits to 21, obviously and he is just so pissed. He than finishes pissing away his other 4k instead of doing anything good with it such as paying back bills.

One week later, when the 1k check got here i come up with this idea saying lets take a trip to turning stone. All of his roomates at the time know about this check and are telling me to not let him go cause he owes them money. I ignore there phone calls and we take a 6 hour ride to turning stone to play some live pokerz. We spend about 50 on gas, and he lends me 200 dollars to play poker so he has 700 for himself and 50 for gas to get home. I start playing and am up 200 dollars fairly quickly flopping top set over middle set and am very satisfied with the way im playing. While im playing however, i see him get up from the table and rebuy like 3 times, sweating like a mother ****er obviously tilting hardcore. Finnaly when he pissed all his money away he came over to my table and told me to talk to him for a second. He asks me if he can buyin for the 50 dollar gas money and i say okay. He comes and sits at my table to try and change his luck. I watch him lose that 50 dollars and now i realize that if i lose we cant get home so i play scared for about 15 minutes and than just get up.

AFter cashing out about 400 we go somewhere to figure out what were gonna do and i tell him ill pay him back the 200 dollars he lent me and he says okay. So i have 200 to play with while he has 150 plus 50 for gas. He decides to go and playblackjack and we both lose all our money fairly quickly. So we have been to turning stone for about 10 hours (which we took 6 hours to drive to) and are both completly broke. We think about leaving and than kyle comes up with this idea to get 200 from his friend so we can give it one more chance and get some food cause were both starving at this time. His friend says okay and will do it later. We go and spend like 25 dollars on food and right when were done eating his friend says "sorry i cant i just checked my account and theres nothing in it" So were like ****, we cant get home on only 25 dollars so we go and put 25 dollars on one hand of blackjack which we obviously lose.

So now were 6 hours away, broke as **** with no gas. Luckily my friend had his laptop with him and we go on it at the casino and find a pawn shop. He pawns it for 125 dollars, and we decide to take 25 dollars to the black jack table and if we won we would both play in the mtt which was 50 dollars. We won and than an hour or so later we play in the mtt. We both dont cash so were pretty pissed and just said f this lets just go home with the 50 dollars in gas we need. We drive for about 20 mintues torwards home and than i say something like: "kyle your friends are gonna get pissed at you if you dont pay them their 1k lets try and turn this 50 dollars into 1k, if we lose it ill have my mom western union us some money" He says thats a good ****ing idea and he turns the car around.

We get back and lose the 25 dollars in less than 3 mintues at blackjack and are pissed off as hell. I try calling my mom and she doesnt answer so i leave her a voice mail. We try thinking of ideas on how we can get money and the we go to a bank and try and get a loan but we both have ****ty credit, however we did luck out with the bank we went to. We went to some sort of christian bank where they are all about helping us out. I am not joking either, this one lady there called everyone she knew and pulled together 100 dollars for us to get home. We felt really bad taking their money but were degens so what ya gonna do. Right when we leave there my mom calls telling us she will western union us the money so were like sweet we can gambol some more.

WE have 150 dollars after spending 20 dollars more on food so we decide to try another tournament. Kyle gets knocked out in less than 5 mintues, and i am doing very well, chip leader at my table. DOwn to 2 tables, with top 10 cashing i am playing tight with a slightly above average stack i finnaly pick up a hand: AA. Some guy raises from utg and utg1 calls. I reraise and the raiser folds while utg+1 calls. Flop comes K J 4 rainbow. This old idiot donk bets half his stack into me, so im putting him on kq or ak. I insta shove, he tanks for a while an than calls saying "i got outs." He flips over aq and what was the turn a 10 obviously. I get knocked out and am just pissed as hell.

We finnaly decide to go home and he drops me off at my house. When kyle gets home he calls me an tells me there is a tree in his room. His roomates were pissed at him for going to the casino and not paying them and they say if they dont give him their money there gonna kick his ass. Anyways, he ends up borrowing the money from his mom after begging and crying to her and solved that problem. Anyways after the long read thats my degen story... Hopefully making a trip back to turning stone soon...love that place...

What a bunch of losers

Yeah that story wasn't about your friend. you're just as bad as he is, and i doubt he even exists.