Originally Posted by Jazzy31133
Time for my contribution to the degen thread. I thought I had posted about my degen summer, but can’t find it posted in this thread and I feel like reminiscing now that I live a boring square, life.
I got into poker like we all did, watching that fat clown moneymaker luck his way into $2 million on ESPN. Was never that good, would run up an initial deposit into thousands, move up stakes, move higher, then lose it all. I existed for awhile at 5/10 NL on FTP for a couple of years, but I remember taking a shot at 25/50 and losing to that drunk Layne Flack, or at least someone who was playing under this name. Looking back on it now, how those guys just stole from us, still bothers me to this day. And not one of them ever got arrested. I heard Ferguson even dared to show his face at the WSOP and not one person knocked his ass out. Anyway, I digress.
The point is I was a break-even player at best. Understood the stats, could even read people, but had no interest in playing if the stakes didn’t scare me. And we all know what happens when you continuously play over your head or with scared money.
Once Black Friday came, I got my occasional poker fix in AC. I started at the Trop, played a bunch at the Taj, but once I discovered Borgata I never went anywhere else. Over the years I had my mini degen moments, sitting at 5/10 NL with my last $800, spinning it up to $5k and then dumping at blackjack, etc.
By 2014, I would only go to AC once in awhile and only blow a few thousand I could afford. Until early that summer I got dumped by a girl I assumed I would marry. She was beautiful, came from the same background as me and was wealthy. I just figured this was finally it. As my wife now tells me, I was a clueless dick to her and deserved to get dumped, but at the time I was shattered. If anyone has been in love and has been dumped, you know the empty sorrow, the soul crushing despair, the feeling like what is the freaking point of even living anymore. I took those feelings with me back to the Borgata.
I would be itching all week till Friday, try to sneak out of work early, catch the greyhound and ride down to AC. Catch the shuttle or taxi to Borgata and start playing any game I could get into. This went on for some weeks. I was about break even, but break even to a degen is like losing to a normal person. I was getting ancy and poker was too slow a grind. So I remember taking some amount to the blackjack tables and losing it. I then remember thinking its only Friday night and I am not going back to my place and do nothing for the rest of the weekend. I decide to cash advance the max on my card. I think it was around $20k, or perhaps a little less after fees. You feel like such a degen when they fingerprint you on those advances.
Anyways, I somehow blow $20k at blackjack in under an hour. I have no idea how someone can do that. I remember being a mixture of angry, sad and disgusted. I do not want to go home and I know have lost the most amount of money at one sitting as I ever had. I think at that point my biggest one night loss was when I had bet a 2 game parlay for $8k. So this was a huge loss figure for me.
You know at the Borgata how there are the low limit blackjack tables in one area, and right behind there is this like raised dais of a room where the high limit tables are, and to the right of that is the “credit” office. Well I freaking walked in there and asked for a $20k marker. I was kind of hoping they would laugh at me and tell me to get lost. I have never been in there or knew how any of it worked. Sometimes I dream about that night and wish they had thrown me out or arrested me or just told me to eff off.
Instead this manager guy asked me to log into my bank accounts. I showed him my checking account, my investment account and my 401k account. Logged into them with passwords right on this random computer like a total degen. I had around $40k in checking, $150k in investment account and even more in 401k, so this guy couldn’t green light the $20k fast enough.
I took the cash and went right to the blackjack table in the high limit room next to the credit place, right in front. I remember changing the cash and getting started. My whole body was shaking, but when you are in degen mode you just don’t give a crap about the consequences. You just want to get even.
I wish I could tell you some of the hands I got. I wish I remembered anything specific. What I do remember are snap shots. I remember at one point putting purple chips in three spots. I remember playing every base and splitting ten’s like a total psychopath. I remember going on the biggest heater of my life. I remember getting tapped on the shoulder by the pitboss. At that point I was kind of freaking out. They must assume I am cheating. They must think I am underage. I look to the pitboss and ask him what the problem is. He laughs and goes you know what the problem is sir. I say I have not done anything wrong search me. He looked at me quizzically for a second, I don’t know what he was thinking, but then he gestured to the dealer. He said dude, we are out of chips, we’ve called for a refill. I had literally won the vast majority of the chips from the dealer. I take this as a sign and cash the heck out.
I insta pay back my marker, pay my credit card advance right away and go to my room. I had sat down with $20k, gotten to a low of like $10k and run it up to just over a $100k. I remember walking out of the high limit bj room so happy, but thinking very briefly I wonder if this is the worst thing to happen to me.
The thing with betting big is that when you try to go back to your normal stakes, it feels like a giant waste of time. Like my old stakes were beneath me. I take my new massive roll and start sitting in games I had no business being in. I would play the large PLO games they had, I would play the highest limit poker game they had. I remember once night around the superbowl, the one where the pats beat the seahawks at the last minute, playing in a room next to the high limit poker room in the back of the Borgata poker room. It was like this room off to the side with a gate. I had never even noticed it before. I was playing in some massive PLO game and had no idea what I was doing. I remember playing with Shaun Deeb, who is really fat irl, and this kid called Paul Volpe. They kicked my ass so hard. I remember playing in 2/4 stud and the game revolved around this old angry guy named Norman. There was also a douchey pro named Mike I think in the game. He would take the most crap I have ever heard.
Anyways, after floating around for a few months randomly jumping from plo to stud to high limit and no limit games, I discovered the 2/4 mixed game that ran Friday to Sunday. And I was totally hooked. The games were so crazy compared to the boring hold em I was used to. I learned about triple draw, badugi, badacey, super stud, ace-to-five, and other crazy games I don’t even remember.
When I first joined those games, I think people assumed I was good. I was young looking and played such high stakes. But within a month they all realized I was a new fish. The funny thing is at those stakes they tell you right to your face. I was told several times, there is always a seat for me, I was in way over my head, I am bleeding money. Compared to other younger players I was a real pleasure to play with. Respectful, never threw a tantrum, no showboating. I think a couple of the pros even felt like they liked me. I remember one pro, Jordan, tried to teach me the games and how to improve, but I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted to drink and splash around and be a freaking moron.
I slowly blew through the epic black jack winnings and began taking out more $20k markers. I remember I had just gotten off the phone with the Borgata one night and my roommate walked into the living room and was like, dude did you just wire $20k to a casino? Wtf is wrong with you.
I eventually started playing in underground games in the city. I blew about $40k in those games and looking back on it, I was clearly getting cheated. But even knowing that I still played lol. I also think I was the only degen mark they ever encountered that paid off his debts on time. They even asked me once to stop writing such large checks, could I please make it out in $5k increments lol.
After blowing another $20k one weekend, I went back to my room and looked in the mirror. Disheveled, grumpy but most importantly just unhappy. The thrill of high stakes was gone. It was not a rush anymore. It felt like every week I would work and then go to AC to get kicked in the face. I lost so much cash in the 2/4 and 3/6 mixed games that I cannot blame it on run bad or variance. Someone has to be a real terrible player to lose that much in those games. Look I understand the pros probably cross booked each other, soft played and squeezed me – but I lost something like 25 straight sessions.
When I finally walked away from the disaster, I had lost $100k in blackjack profit and another ~$325k of my own money playing the pit, high stakes mixed games and games in the city. The amazing thing is I was able just walk away. I have not been back to AC since the end of 2014 / early 2015. The money I lost was all the money I had saved since 2010, busting my ass as an analyst and associate. I am grateful I finally stopped before liquidating my retirement accounts, which I had been contemplating at one point. I remember wanting to kill myself during the degen run, but never really had the courage to do it.
I wonder if the regs at the mixed games think I am dead in a ditch somewhere, blowing all that money so regularly every week and then never showing up ever again. Does anyone know if the 2/4 mixed still runs every weekend? Anyone here ever play in the game back then?
