Just a few days back I was reflecting on one of the many mistakes I continuously make and the trades description act would probably argue I can no longer classify blowing large sums of money on casino games as mistakes anymore but purely par for the course. Over the past 11 years I've won and lost large sums of money more times than I want to remember and despite quitting all forms of gambling for months at a time on several occasions, the lure of poker, a game in which I'm up probably $20-30k in, has always been too much.

Anyway, without going into a wealth of detail (I'm sure I will throughout the thread), I've decided that I have very few other options than using poker as a way to try and dig myself out of the rather large hole I've created. I've borrowed £300 from my partner and deposited on a euro site to play SNGs. I currently have around £3k (and rising) of payday loan debts, with ridiculous interest. I owe about £2k to family, £5k to my savings for a house deposit which my gf doesn't know is missing and a £15k bankroll which has vanished. The situation is bleak, but if we don't have hope, we have nothing.

I'm going to be grinding the 25e HUSNGs and I think I will be withdrawing anything I make over a 1k bankroll until the payday loans are paid off at least. I have been playing for 3 days and the results are as follows so far:

Starting bankroll - €339
Day 1 - €646 (+€307)
Day 2 - €923 (+€277)
Day 3 - €1053 (+€130)

I start a new job on August 21st so hoping to get good volume in until then and hopefully get back on my feet with 2 incomes. My daily goals are pretty simple; no casino games/sports betting and don't play any games I don't have a minimum of 20-30 buy ins for.

I was hesitant to post the thread after reading a few others where the OP gets slated for his gambling issues but **** it, here we go. I'm hoping to look back one day and see how much my life has changed for the better. If you want to lecture me about my issues, you're wasting your time. If you want to follow the ride, I can't wait to share it with you.

Gl all.

Piece of advice, don't hide the missing money from your girlfriend. I'm reading into it but if you have a joint account for a house down payment I assume the relationship is rather serious. If you value the relationship and have an ounce of respect for her come clean with that **** ASAP.

We don't have a joint account, we're just saving in our own bank accounts. I'm fortunate enough to have a job that pays well enough so that I could save enough were I not be able to replenish the money through poker but that's not ideal.

Put in a good grind today. Finished day 3 on €1228 giving me a profit of €305 for the day and so far today (day 4) I'm on €1520 giving me a further €292. Will need to withdraw soon as I forgot to mention in the last post that I have my car insurance (£500) and credit card bill (£200) to pay off in the next few days. I'm keeping the thread short and sweet for now but hopefully will get into it a bit more once I'm feeling a bit better about the situation. I'm cautiously optimistic though, got a decent roll for the stakes I'm playing.

GL

Thanks.

Didn't get to play yesterday but put in a solid grind today peaking at €900 profit before dropping to €600 before quitting. Bankroll is €2132, been mixing in some 25s/50s and hopefully a similar day to come tomorrow.

Unfortunately need to start withdrawing soon, will need to take out about £1.2k by 20th/21st so need to keep running good!

Would anyone watch a HUSNG twitch stream or is it too boring?

Every successful grinder was once a busto degen. Work hard, hang in there and GL man.

This or at least replace that money ASAP before all others.

Best of luck I hope you continue to run good for the sake of your debt and situation. I highly suggest taking out that money over $1k ASAP. Hopefully you can keep your head straight throughout this and pay off all debts and then continue to build a nice BR after the fact. Good luck once again.

no.

Payday loans are a really bad idea dude. It sounds like you are learning the hard way. You should have sold your possessions first or lived on the street before you let yourself get into debt and taking payday loans. You'll be paying interest on those forever. Can you borrow any more money from your family? Try and find out and use any money you can borrow at zero interest to pay off your payday loans. Sell your belongings. Do anything you can to get out of debt ASAP.

Good luck.

Good luck on the grind. You know what to do, and most importantly what not to do. Just stick to that and you’ll be fine.

Cheers bro!

The loans are accruing interest at a crazy rate so they will be the priority + I have a year or so to replace the savings, plenty of time. I'm currently torn between whether I just cash out down to 1k and start back at the 25s or carry on grinding the 25/50s for as long as possible then withdraw at the last minute.

Payday loans don't double overnight, the interest is very high for a loan but the repayments are manageable given I have a full time job, but I would still end up paying like double the loan back over a 6-12 month period. Unfortunately I can't borrow anymore from parents, too many questions would be asked but things are starting to look positive anyway. Thanks.

Thanks mate, gl to you too.

Another good day, bankroll is now €2836 giving me a tidy profit of €704 for the day. I put in a lot of volume today, was up about €500 within an hour and then was just swinging down and up for an eternity. Unfortunately the site I play on doesn't allow tracking so I can't show any graphs but I think I am going to start posting some interesting/funny hands going forward. At the moment the complete focus has just been on the grind if I'm honest. I have one more week before I start my new job so would be nice to make whatever I can in that time.

Just out of interest, do people think it's better to play the 25s and cash out anything over 1k or play 25/50s with 2.8k+ (maybe 100s if I can build to 3.5k/4k) and take the additional risk that comes with the increased profit per game?

Payday loans aren't that bad, yes they have a very high rate of interest per annum, but usually the amounts borrowed aren't that huge, and the repayment window is not large so in dollar amounts you don't end up paying that much. Obviously the users of these loans don't have access to more traditional forms of credit for whatever reasons.

You don't have any valuables you could sell or pawn? Sure you could repay the loans, except when next month comes around your bills are going to be the same plus now you have mounting interest. In your OP you claim you have 3k in payday loans (and rising). Pay down your payday loans. Eff poker, get another job and pay down those payday loans.

Instead of being asked awkward questions by your parents you would rather have payday debt? If your parents knew you were in high interest debt they wouldn't help you out? Get rid of your payday debt ASAP. Do whatever you have to. 100% interest over 6-12 months is insanely ******ed, don't act like it's no big deal. Talk to your parents. Sell or pawn your valuables. All the money you lose in poker is costing you double.

Started typing a response but can't even be arsed. I did say in the first post that I'm not here for lectures, especially from people that make assumptions about my finances. I have disposable income at the end of the month which I can use to pay off chunks towards the loans, but this thread and journey is about grinding poker, profiting (no idea where you get this lose money at poker idea from when I'm up 2.5k euros in the first week and 5 figures lifetime) and sorting out my financial situation through poker.

I'm not going to respond to any more posts about how I should deal with my financial situation and will reiterate that this is about poker. Up another 200 euros today so far but will hopefully put in a big grind this evening. I've also managed to get my dad to pay for my car insurance which I will pay him back over the next 4 months for through my salary. This has saved the bankroll a €500 hit which helps the grind.

Time to power through!

I would just keep grinding at your current limits, you seem to have hit a niche for your skill and the audience you are up against. Going from 330 to 2.1K in a couple days is a pretty good thing. Don't let your wins blind you from your goals and push you up the limits too fast chasing quick returns. Settle in at this limit for the month and hopefully continue the run good.

Family is less likely to push you for repayment, so if you can keep a 2K roll, stay at the 25s and 50s and cash out everything above to get those payday loans taken care of quickly, you can then focus on the other ones, that have less interest.

Gambling should not be your method to get out of a gambling debt, but you seem to have an edge in poker, so just do your best to avoid the other forms that have caused you to lose money you don't have.

Best of luck!

Thanks bro, not a bad idea at all. Kind of riding the heater at the moment so will just reassess each day. I 100% agree that I need to avoid other forms of gambling and I haven't gambled on anything other than poker since the beginning of this thread.

A really good day at the tables giving me a €1k day! Mixed in some 100s to go along with the 25/50s once I got to 3k but still a bit tense when 3-4 tabling and only 30bi because it only takes a bad hour to lose 10+ bi in HU. Fortunately I've run pretty good but putting in a lot of volume so feel like it's well deserved at the moment.

One spot I've been struggling with recently though is where you're meant to barrel as a bluff but on the site I play on my opponents seem to struggle to fold. Now I completely understand the positive to this is that I can barrel lighter for value but it's so frustrating knowing that fundamentally it is correct to barrel an A turn on a K83A board looking to put pressure on 8x/3x and then Kx on the river. I'm not sure if it's a confidence thing or what but I'm finding myself just giving up so often on the turn and they get to showdown cheaply with Q3 or 86 which they would likely fold to aggression. The majority of times I've gone for the 3 barrels I've been called which is playing on my mind a lot but obviously the sample size is lol and selective memory comes into play I guess.

Despite the success so far I definitely have a few leaks I need to work on. It's never really been a part of my game I've worried about; I've never had a subscription for any training or had coaching but I really think I can be a top midstakes player if I invest time into these areas.

But for now...

They're without a doubt the absolute worst way to borrow money.

Great job!

Since the 100s do have some high variance, I would say try to avoid them and stick to the 25s and 50s for a few more days. You seem to be doing very well there, so the goal should be to get to 5K+ and then cash out back to 2K to get those payday loans taken care of. Once you have those off your back, you'll feel a lot better.

The 2K will leave you with a good chunk to continue attacking 25s and 50s, and you will have already accomplished a lot with taking care of those payday loans. As I said earlier, the biggest thing right now is to not let your success drive you to jump up limits too high, too quickly, chasing that "easy" money. You have found a level you do well at, so leverage that, even it if it a bit slower, and you should be able to get yourself out of this hole. The last thing you want is to see all your early success go into the muck, because you blasted off your bankroll trying to run over people at the 200+ games.

Keep the momentum going!

FML, wrote a long arse post and when I clicked post it asked me to log in again and I lost everything. Here we go again...

That feeling when you have back to back 4 figure days..



Going to paraphrase because I cba to write loads of paragraphs again.

- Super long grind today
- Also did some studying
- Spent 75% of the day getting 3 outed. Was down €400 at one point
- Super tilted, read a quote on 2p2 that said "most people don't succeed because they don't have perseverance"
- Back to the grind, played a terrible fish against whom I started making super disciplined folds because of how I could exploit him when his hand was face up
- Won about €800-1k from him
- Finished the day on €5365, profit of €1527
- Super happy with how I played, opted for water over my normal mid session beers
- Told my friend during the first hand of my first game today (€100 game) that today was my day with no slow starts when I got it in with A8 vs A4 on a A468
- River 4, lol

Trying not to get too on top of myself but feeling really good about poker, finances and my general situation at the moment. I know I'm running hot overall but I'm happy to ride that wave.

Edit: 5k profit, 50% of my 10k goal to clear my debts done!

Half way there, way to push past the early rough start to your day.

Thanks bro. I know €400 doesn't seem like a lot but I think it was the manner in how I kept getting back to even/small profit then just getting bent over by a fish calling a 30bb 3b jam with A3o and getting there.

I'm really tired today, not sure how much I'll grind but want to maximise the roll before I have to start withdrawing today/tomorrow. Leggo!

Put it all on black?

gl

Should've put it all on black.

The session I've just had is the craziest thing I've ever ****ing experienced. Played some guy at the 200s 1 tabling and I think I won 2 games out of maybe 17. I can't even describe his style, completely non-reg like, he would limp monsters and raise trash mainly. I was 3 bet shoving the **** out of him and they pretty much all got through. Post flop though, wow. I know what it's like when you read someone elses thread and they run through a load of bad beats you don't care about but I'm going to rant anyway. This guy literally always had it, and when he didn't, he got there. AK vs AQ, he would hit the queen, I lost 5/5 flips, TP vs flush draw all in on the turn (he had 2 unders), gets there. I make a semi bluff, turn the up and down with FD, jam into aces and brick. Flopped top pair in a 3 bet pot (he 3b) on AT2, he checks to me, I know exactly where I'm at so bet, turn Jh putting 3 hearts on the board, I jam and he calls with QQ of course, river Q. Yep wp. I 3 bet non all in twice in 17 games. Aces he snap folds, 96o he snap 4b jams.

It's one of those sessions where you start doubting every ****ing thing you do. Poker is the only game where you can be terrible and win, the only game where you can be on top of the world one moment and feel like you've never played a hand before in your life the next, where the entitlement gets so much that you question whether it's even worth playing anymore.

I know people will say I've played too high or whatever, fair enough, I had 6k so taking a shot at the 200s isn't the worst. I didn't actually plan to play below 4k but it's hard to pass up opportunities where you feel you have an edge, and I'm pretty honest with myself as to how I stack up against my opponents. The site just had other ideas for me today and it's honestly one of the worst feelings in poker. I'm likely going to withdraw 1k euros and leave 2k on to grind the 25/50s. I don't regret the decision, aggressive BRM is what gets me from 300 to 6k in a week and a half, you have to be prepared to lose sometimes. If you'd had offered me 3k from 300 9 days ago I'd have been thrilled.

My confidence is severely ****ed though. Half of me wants to get straight back to the 50s once I've posted this, the other wants to uninstall the client and send a parcel of my next dump to the poker site's head office. In my last post when I referred to saying "no slow starts" that's because I am not even exaggerating or using selective memory when I say that 90% of my sessions I lose a bunch of games before I win one. Today I lost 800 euros before I won a game at the 100s, before clawing it back. The second session, well I won 2 out of 17 vs him, also lost **** knows how many at the 50s/100s on the side. I'm not one of those that believes poker sites are rigged but when you experience what you perceive to be such brutal variance where you just cannot win a hand you really ****ing question it.

**** it. 1k pays off 2 of my 4 loans in full and 2 of the monthly payments of the other 2. I get paid on the 20th (only about 40% of my normal salary though as previous job was being paid up until the 12th of this month), that money will go towards rent, petrol, car payment, credit card etc. The main pressure is off, I will not **** up the opportunity to rebuild.

I've rambled a lot but felt like I've needed to.

Edit: Lucky I remembered to copy what I wrote after being kicked out yesterday, same happened again today. Wp 2p2.

Don't post in the quick reply section at the bottom, hit the 'post reply' button then type your response, it will save your text if the page crashes or whatever. Lost writing the same way too many times, it's annoying.

Good idea paying back those loans it's too much pressure to play a game with so much variance at your best when you feel you 'have to win'. Trying to pay for things with poker and having no margin to lose will give you some serious stress.

If you lived in a van and didn't have to pay rent, think how much faster you could pay down your debt!

Good luck.