Really inspirational. I'm 17 and looking to make a good headstart in Poker. Best of luck, will be following.

Tom flipped HU 4 Rolls.

Sorry everyone, my laptop has been broken and it's getting fixed now. Will take 1 week still apart from that I havnt played for a while except a little on microgaming. Had a terrible day the other day which was pretty degen. Total roll £70k been thinking a lot about what to do still not sure. Will update properly once I get my laptop back. Probs will get this thread locked soon too but may make a new one.

Noooooooo. This thread is full of epicness. Keep it alive!

lol!? buy a new laptop?^^

Dont tell me you lost it all, mate? Buy new laptop and continue the grind IMO.

Use your eyes?

But who is waiting 2-3 weeks on a laptop to be fixed? I know I would have just bought a new one, and if I was to have anything of importance I would get it fixed so I could save some data.

Hi I will buy my stars name is 7LDAWG7

Is Tom sleeping?

y0.

sorry for no updates. here is my final one and no one probably cares anymore but oh well.

TOTAL ROLL - £70,300 in savings bank. £2k cashout pending. + random bits like student loan. roughly $118,000



Whats been going down?

Still havn't played since the last update. Got my laptop back and all my programs were wiped. Downloaded ipoker and ongame to get my rakeback. Got £400 from ongame played roullette all on black and lost. got $750 rakeback on ipoker put it on red and win to $1500. keep playing get to $3500 by hitting two numbers with 25 on them each time and hit and running someone at 10/20 for 500. lose 500 back betting on the 1st 12 numbers cus my housemate said it was a good idea. then hit a number again back to 3800. lose back down to 3200 or something. cash it out for £2000. actually now i think about it when i got to 1500 i lost 500 and put 1000 on black didnt look walked to the shop and when i came back saw id won, nice.

.........................................

For the last few years of my life, poker had def controlled me a lot. It for sure has taken over my life. Well, i say my life but more like my brain. I still saw friends everyday throughout this time, but all i ever thought about was strategy and bankroll. Literally 24/7 for years of my life this is all that was in my head. Nothing else mattered to me at all and i lost respect for a lot of things in life. I don't know how i would be if i never found poker.

Since my laptop broke, my bank card was lost and i didn't have my car i've actually had a really good time. I havn't thought about poker in the way i used to for a very long time. I used to sprint home from school to watch the latest training videos everyday. I used to sneak around and lie just so i can play poker and be alone. This is not good. I lost respect for myself and my family. I went home the other day and actually had a really nice with my family for the first time in ages. I used to never want to go home or see them. Now i realise that the whole time it wasnt THEM, IT WAS ME. i was the problem, they couldn't see what my problem was because i never told them.

When i used to think about my future all i thought about was poker and being the best at it. Being a high roller don daddy taking million $ pots of the chumps in bobbys room. When i used to read the high stakes forum here i thought they were my idols. Now i can't think of anything worse and the people i read in the high stakes forum now i think wow what a massive loser please dont let me turn into that.

When i started this thread i didn't have much respect for online poker and the way that its done. The way players act and the way the sites act. I've pretty much lost all my respect for it now. It's so unbelievable to me what really goes on. If i ever ran a poker site it would be so different from whats currently being offered. I feel like if i get out now its about the right time too. Games suck balls, everyone is pretty fawking good, usa players are dead, all the sites are shady as fk, its just a total mess and not a mess that i feel like getting involved in again.

When you sit in front ofthe TV do you sit there and watch it or do you sit there and think? Not just think, but constantly run through new ideas and thoughts? When im watching TV with someone i find it incredible how they can just sit there and take it what people are saying. I can focus for maybe 30 seconds on it at a time but the rest of the time im just staring and thinking.

what else hmmmmm........

whats next?

i just did an exam the other day, i have one more next thursday then this uni year is over. couple of things coming up, might be going on a 3 week trip round europe on the eurorail. not sure yet. seriously considering setting up a business. been racking my brain very hard and have a few decent ideas. going to investigate more into them and see what happens. apart from that who knows. im not going to be playing online though thats almost for sure! i'm gunna start heading down to g casino for the house dealth tournies a couple of times and week and also play the cash games.

i've been eating well recently. also been going on runs and doing weights / sit ups. feeling good apart from those damn little cigarette ****ERS. i had pretty much quit, now its back to epic fail and yesterday was a peak of nearly 20. going out tonight too so that will not help.

there are about 5 to 10 major things in my life still that need to be addressed for me to feel 'complete' as a person IMO but right now its going well. i said earlier about poker taking over my life, i would like to say im glad ive been apart of it though because i've seen some things that 99.99999% of people will never have a clue about. i was there when 200/400 NL ran everyday on FTP with genius28 omgclayaiken david benyamine durrr brain townsend gift of gab urindanger john juanda. i was there when plo took over and 200 400 had about 9 tables going every day of it. i was there when rail heaven was introduced. i was there when isildur took on the world and saw it all live. i was there when training sites were introduced. i certainly dont know much, but i can certainly say experiencing this happen over years while every single other person i know in real life is clueless to it is fairly ****ing interesting. i've learnt a lot, but feel like i did not make the most of it at all. i hold myself 100% responsible for that. if i wasn't such an idiot i could be doing a lot better than i am, but i did what i did.

TOOK ME AGES TO WRITE THAT... THERES STILL A LOT MORE I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE BUT ITS HARD TO THINK OF IT ALL AT ONCE. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE THREAD. I WILL UPDATE IF I EVER HIT £100K OR IF I START BEING AN ONLINE DONK AGAIN.

IN A BIT.

i will leave you with one of my favorite tracks of the moment called GOOD ENOUGH BY SERIAL KILLAZ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ClhDKelos

p e a c e

Very nice post, thank you.

GL

thanks. i should also say thanks a lot to everyone who posted in this thread and supported me on this little journey. i may not have responded to every comment but they are all very much appreciated (unless ur a douche)

Haha. Really interesting insightful post mate. I feel the same way on alot of levels, in terms of poker taking over my life. I don't play as high (I play NL100-200 with about $8k), but it has taken alot of work and time to get there, and I really feel it's not been worth it. My studies have suffered; I used to be a straight A student, and got into Warwick to do Maths and Physics, which is a pretty prestigious degree at a great Uni, yet I'm likely to achieve like a 2:2 this year (my first year), and that's just not good enough. I love my friends and life at uni, but I like you, make excuses to be alone and grind, and I rarely think about anything else, and I'm so lazy with all other aspects of my life because of this. It's very inspiring to me how you can just drop online poker like you're doing, after having so much success (you have £70k at your age is amazing).

I'm really not sure what my plan is for the future. I would like to say, I'll cash out my money, and be happy with what I've made; I'm pretty sure I'd live a fuller and more healthy life without it, but it's such a hard thing to just drop it completely, when it's become such a big part of my life and daily routine. I'm pretty sure I'll continue to grind a bit this summer (not as much as at uni, as my parents don't know I play so will have to be discrete), but then I may well take a long break, as I can just feel my life slipping out of control gradually, and it's just not cool.

I also at one point had alot more money (about $14k, but I've gradually lost it back, swung horribly up and down (biggest losing day of $5k was devastating for me)), and that kind of annoys me. It's like I need to get back to my highpoint before I call it time for a break. I know this is degenerate loss-chasing thinking, but that's what poker does to me.

Anyway, as I say great post, and excellent thread. Wish you the best of luck with whatever you do in the future, and keep us posting if anything exciting happens! Cheers,

You've basically summed me up. First year at uni, smart and now almost failing the year due to poker.

first year doesnt matter anyway. just sort your heads out and you will be fine.

Good for you, it's a pretty unhealthy way of life and can be very consuming. gl with your other endeavours and you are in a fortunate position many people your age would love to find themselves in.

Yea Ridiculous how degen I am!

Our first year counts 10% also, which absolutely sucks, and I am also close to failing , but pretty sure I won't. **** online poker is a bitch. Literally not sure what to do now, but pretty sure I'm not gunna quit online pokerz

Thanks for the update tom, I love the way you can write down your thoughts and and everything. You seem to see things kinda black or white though.

Read through your post and can say that there is a lot of things I can relate to. I'm glad you seem to have found a way where you are now happy and enjoying yourself. Best of luck with uni and any business plans!


I'm in second year doing maths at one of the top 10 universities here in UK as well (though I'm an EU student), on my way to failing this year. Now it is not only as a result of poker - which I have played way too much live, but also me being ill over 5 weeks of revision for January exams etc. As a result of bad results I've been less and less motivated to study and chosen to work instead (I have worked for the past 6 years over summers and during my gap year before uni), which I can do online while at uni. It is a bit difficult to find the motivation to study when you need 70% in exams to just PASS the year, and you can work in a £30k/yr job as much as you want - and you enjoy it.

I have now found motivation, because I do actually enjoy my degree, and my friends are amazing here. I'll just hope that the university let me retake the year when I end up failing (still have several exams left), and then I will find a balanced lifestyle where working and poker has a set amount of time I will allow it to take up. I am not addicted as such, but at the time I enjoyed it more than studying hard to pass a degree.


Don't know why I just wrote this, but you're certainly not alone out there!

woah that was a hard post to swollow. I'm pretty young myself and I've just started my poker journey. I always looked at this thread as an inspiration, but from your recent post, the view from the top isn't what I'd thought it would be. If someone can make £100k playing online poker (most of our end-goals) and still be unhappy, I'm not sure how I should take that. Should I cut my losses now and learn from your mistakes, or ignore your post and hope to make £100k like you did by 19/20 y/o?

In your situation, most +ev decision would be simply quit poker, until you have finished university. I know how bad emotional swings can be because of poker. Also money dont bring happiness. What you feel inside does and poker is against every positive instinct of human nature.

Yea, maybe. I do think it's possible to find a balance between poker and other aspects of life, and live very contently. It's just I haven't managed to find that balance, and I allow degeneracy and poker to take over other aspects. I'm sure I'll sort myself out!

I sort of feel the exact same way. my peak was £111,000 and that number enters my head constantly although a lot less now than it did before. I feel like i'm missing an arm or something without it. When you think about it though is that little bit more money really going to make you anymore happy or satisfied? Maybe it will for a while but in the long run all the effort put into getting it back i doubt is worth it (for me at least).

I think if you are going to try and do something, you have to commit 101% to it or its just not worth it. If you try to be successful at poker for years on end and still encounter the same problems everyday like tilt etc then its pretty unlikely things will ever change.

Everything is about balance in life and poker makes the mind unbalanced imo which leads to bad things. Of course, this isn't true for everyone.

ty and good luck my friend.