Originally Posted by 6bet me
Drunk at 5/5/10. Huge f**kup.
I don't like to post too many degen stories because there is a sense of shame. I already receive enough hate as it is, even when I'm sober and making fairly responsible decisions, so I don't need to fuel the fire by posting stories of me f**king up massively and making extremely irresponsible decisions.
I want to post this though for two reasons: firstly, to be completely transparent about my journey. To show the good and the bad, the responsible and the degeneracy. Secondly, to hold myself accountable for my own mistakes. As much as I want to just brush this under the rug and pretend the whole night never happened, I'll never get anywhere in life with that attitude. I need to be honest with myself and take steps to ensure that this never happens again. So here goes:
Yesterday, I was having drinks with mates from pretty much the moment I woke up and had breakfast and beers at the bar. I got fairly drunk and then had to leave them for a few hours. I went to the casino alone and started playing 2/5. The table was fairly nitty and I was craving action and disappointed that I wasn't getting it. At least my bluffs were getting through though and I was slightly up.
Then I saw the 5/5 NL game getting up. I jumped at the opportunity to sit down there and gamble at the high stakes. From what I noticed, there was one whale at the table who was about half as drunk as I was, and he was playing something like a 50/0 over the last 30 hands. He never raised a single hand preflop and he would do a tonne of limp-calling, even with hands like 64o. He also tended to donk bet whenever he flopped top pair and check every other time, although I learnt this the hard way after paying him off with 99 after he limp-called pre and donked 3 streets into me on a Q327Q board.
He was a nice guy though. He stacked me for a 2k pot when he limp-called with 64o then we stacked off on a 5423 board when I had AJo. Immediately after that, he apologised for the suckout and bought me a free drink (alcohol is damn expensive in Australia - something like $13 for a Jack and Coke). I then proceeded to spill that drink all over the table and over my clothes.
I actually only left $250 down at the 5/5/10. Even though I'd donated almost 2k to the whale, I won most of it back against the regs when I managed to hit hands at the right moments, like getting a J978x runout when I had TT and getting a 864Q7 runout when I had 55.
So then my mates come to the casino and we're having more beers at the poker room bar. We're just having a conversation and everything is good, but we decide we want to play some 1/2 together. We figured that the max buyin is only $100 and nothing can really go wrong. We'll mainly just be sitting there socialising and folding.
The problem is that they're not able to get us all on the same table at 1/2 NL, but they can do that for 1/3 PLO. We figure that we can each just buy in for the $100 minimum and fold most hands. One of my friends is dirt poor and I had to stake him $100 for 50% profits, so I figured that I'm only risking $200.
What do you know, one of my mates goes bust within 5 minutes and asks me to lend him $200. He transfers the cash straight away and everything is good. Then he busts again and again, playing like a maniac and 3betting about 50% of hands, and each time asks me to lend him another $100. Only this time, he says that he passed some transfer limit and it won't let him transfer anymore, so he says he'll have to transfer the rest tomorrow. He managed to accumulate a $700 debt to me that night and tbh I'm not sure I'll be getting that money back, which is why I've decided to add it to my own losses.
My other mate, who is being staked, drops a few minimum buyins too and I keep rebuying him another $100. I think I gave him $300 total. He was playing pretty snug though so I don't mind, like he x/folded KKxx on a Q95 flop when the SPR was 1 and it was multiway. It's fine to nit up and make these kind of folds if you want to reduce variance imo. He only stacked off preflop when he had either AAxx or a perfect rundown like T987.
Despite downing pint after pint of Carlton Draught, I actually think that I'm playing okay. I'm being somewhat disciplined preflop and generally putting my money in good. At one stage, I build up a $700 stack and my other mates are done with poker and ready to leave the table. I could leave at this stage, roughly 1k down, but I tell my mates to wait 2 more hands.
One hand I get something like AQJ5 double suited and throw in a 3bet squeeze. We get to the flop, I forget what it was but I had something like TPTK with a BDFD, so I went with my hand and lost about $350 there. Don't even know what my opponent showed up with.
But I do remember the second hand: I had AAxx and this annoying French guy who had previously stacked my mate was laughing and begging me to juice up the pot, so I naturally obliged. He calls a raise OOP with TT32r. The runout comes QT44x and I just pot pot pot get it in. Standard cooler.
On the way to the food court, we stop by a blackjack table and I punt off $200 there. I know basic strategy so this was just run bad. I was about to chuck down hundreds more but my mates stopped me. So we leave the blackjack table, get to the food court and witness a fight. A glass gets smashed and police get involved. I see a guy get punched in the face a few times and I almost wish I could take that punishment instead of the financial loss.
Then I realise I left my money in my casino account, so I tell my mates to wait at the food court whilst I withdraw some cash. My mates tell me sternly that I'm not to gamble and that if I'm not back in 5 mins then they're leaving. I agree to that and assure them that I won't gamble. I don't tell them this, but on the way back to the food court, I quickly play a few more hands of blackjack with substantially bigger bets this time, but leave about even when I realise that time is going fast and I need to be back at the food court before they walk off.
It's about 1am at this stage, we eat and I'm pretending that it was a great night and all, but secretly I'm only thinking about the money and the fear of not being paid back the $700. One of my mates trains it home and the other one walks me to my apartment. I had this tingling urge to return to the casino, but once I get into my apartment, I pass out drunk in the bed.
At 9am, I hear an alarm and wake up to my girlfriend laughing at how hungover I am. I try to calculate how much I lost last night but I'm not even sure. Somewhere around the 2k mark. Not a great start to a career as a professional poker player, but what can you do? Sh*t happens.
