Two Plus Two Newer Archives - I'm Legal Now--What's my move?

I'm not going to come here claiming to be God's gift to poker. I think I'm average at best and have a lot of room for improvement, and after lurking these forums for a few months I guess this is my conduit to big money.

I turned 18 2 weeks ago, and I'm a senior in highschool. I started playing online poker about this time last year. I remember slaving away for hours at a time in a Hubbles only to bust top 100 to what I thought was "[censored]". However, at the time I had no concept of what poker was. I was merely playing my cards and hoping they held. Around the same time, a friend of mine who had sold a Yugioh card on Ebay for $30 made a big break winning a $3 MTT. He took that $1000~ and started playing $20 180 man sngs. He would go deep every now and then and was more or less breaking even. That's until he started reading some poker books, which gave him a basic foundation for his game. He promptly sent me HOH 1, 2 and two of Cloutiers books. He won 2 $20 sngs in the same week, and I found myself finishing more consistently in the freerolls. My friend continued to go deep in micro MTTs and was even #1 on the pokerstars leaderboard for about 2 weeks earlier in the year. I finished top 27 in my first freeroll but sadly the Weekly Round 2 ended early when by KK was outdrawn by JJ. I kept playing freerolls and around February I could make top 27 about twice a week, I had the things worked down to a science. I probably made about $40 in prop bets with friends at school seeing who could go deeper in the 8PM hubbles. I finally made my first $$ in a weekly round 2, I think it was .40.

I knew I couldn't do anything with .40 in a limit cash game, so I decided to read up on omaha, since people at microlimits would obviously lack any kind of basic understanding. I spent maybe a week preparing for my .40 adventure. I worked the .40 up to $1 and immediately went to a 6 handed NLHE table. I got AA within my first 5 hands and tripled up. I went to a .02/.05 and doubled pretty fast. I then decided to take a break from the cash games and try a $1.20 sng. I got 2nd for $7. So I had worked my .40 up to about $13ish. I played a $11 tournament and made the FT for about $200. I took my 213 to a 3/6 table and stole the blinds so I could enter the sunday mil. I had been playing poker for about 2 months and I thought I was ready for the largest online tournament. Boy was I wrong. I managed to double up 3 times but then I started running cold, I wasn't too sold on the idea of blind stealing even after reading HOH so my stack quickly dwindled away. I finished maybe 100 from the money when someone called my allin with 9-10 vs my AK. I was confused as to how someone could do something like that, at this point the whole idea of pot odds still eluded me.

I was devastated. I took about a month hiatus from poker. Thats until my friends at school started to get interested. We had a game maybe twice a month for about $10 each time. I was always the big winner always walking away with about $50 profit. Poker was my source of income for entertainment purposes. I was able to do things I could never do before, I could take girls to dinner at nice places and buy an IPOD. I was convinced poker was what I wanted to do with my life.

Around April we had our first "big" game of poker. It was a $20 buyin and there were 9 people. I managed to win that and the $10 game we had afterwards. It felt great to walk away with $150~ I used that money to pay for my prom ticket, which was nice.

I decided I wanted to start playing online poker again. My friend had worked his initial $30 to about $80,000. He had stopped MTTs and played 9 man SNGs excusively and according to Sharkscope had one of the highest ROIs. I kept telling myself, that I could be like that, all that I needed was a break. I looked for a way to get money on Stars, I didn't want to ask my friend for $$ because if I lost I really had no way to pay him back, and I knew he'd gladly send me $1000. Thats when I remembered my grandma clicks ad links for like $5 a week, and it was deposited into a paypal account. I went and checked it out and there was like $27. I asked my friend if I could trade him paypal for stars and he transferred me the money minus service charges: about $23.

I decided I wouldnt spend the $23 all in one place. I was going to stick to the $3 turbos and micro MTTs hoping for a break. I was running hot in the $3 turbos, 40% ROI over like 160 of them. The tournaments were a break even effort. I had worked my bankroll up to about $200. Kids at school started buying like $5 from me for $10. I made some nice profits selling $$$ to underage kids with the urge to gamboool. I decided I would try a $3 rebuy since they looked like fun and I had enough to rebuy multiple times. I went deep in my first one profitting about $30. I did another one the next day and won for like $5600.

I had close to $6000. I had never had anywhere close to this amount of $$$ in my life. I made a stupid decision and decided to play 10/20 NL. I was running good at first, having a lot of fun. Thats until I moved to a table with a guy by the name of H@llingol. I bought in for max and he stacked me with 37 vs my QQ in the first 5 minutes. I thought to myself "wow this guy is one of those donkeys people rave about" I rebought again and he stacked me again with some gay luck. I told myself it was time to go big or go home, I took my last 1500~ and played super aggro trying to stack H@ll a few times, he caught a flush vs my overpair and I was busto. I had lost $6000~ in about an hour. Yet I wasn't depressed, or sad, or even angry. The experience was invigorating, the pain I felt in my stomach was refreshing. I loved it. but how was this possible? who the [censored] likes losing? whats wrong with me? I slowly started to realize that it wasnt poker I liked, it was gambling. and that was going to be a major obstacle.

During the summer a friend of mine who is a year younger got a fake ID which enabled him to get a credit card. he deposited $30 and staked me in a $4.40 180 man sng. I got first place which gave me a bankroll of about $100. I sat down at a 2/4 table and lost it in maybe 10 minutes. Yet I was having a blast. The money wasn't real to me, it had no value. I was still 17 so its not like I could touch it. I might as well have a good time and learn a life lesson right?

Paypal slowly started to refill and I got another 20~ from my friend. This was a turning point in my short poker career. My friend from school told me about this thing called "ratholing". Sounded genius to me, I sat down at a .50/1 and doubled up pretty fast. I played 1/2 and tripled up in under 30 minutes. I played 3/6 and won easily. I got to 5/10 and grinded it out for 2 hours and got to the point where I could buyin at a 10/20 table. And lucky for me I found a table where H@ll was sitting down by himself. So for the 4th time I went HU with H@ll for my roll. He won again, but I walked away feeling good, because he had gotten "lucky" again. And luck is bound to run out after awhile

Over the next 2 months I tried a few ratholes and made it to 2/4 a few times, but never up to 10/20 again. Yet I'd continually end up broke. I couldn't keep a bankroll for more than a day. A few times I would go to bed up like $100 and I couldnt sleep because I had this impulse to sign back onto pokerstars and either go busto or robusto. I always ended up busto.

School started again in August and the poker craze had multiplie exponentially. We were having a game once a week for atleast $15 sometimes $25. I would still walk away ahead, but it wasnt as easy as before. I had gotten better, but it was harder to beat my home game. I would continually lay down big hands when I was ahead, because it was hard for me to differentiate between 10/20 and a $20 home game tournament. People also had the urge to gamboool with me on other things besides poker. For about a week I would flip coins for $$$. I lost $140 on a single coinflip, I was sick to my stomach but I had never felt more alive. Luckily, I won some coinflips and ended up like +$30 after that whole venture. Sports betting was the next thing for me, I lost about $400 among friends. I decided to quit gambling altogether. But, as I'm sure a majority of you know, it's impossible to walk away.

A friend of mine is a freeroll hunter and he gave me the password to play in a Dutch freeroll with a $5000 prizepool, and bounties on various pros. I busted some guy for $25 on the bubble and made the FT. I made a few resteals and was in good position to win the thing. I went to an online translator to say something, and instead of choosing Dutch, I chose Deutcsh. So when we were 4 handed they quickly found out I wasnt dutch. So they all teamplayed against me, it was quite hilarious, but it probably cost me $400. I ended up with $235 after the $25 bounty. I obviously did the sunday mil again and went deep again losing with QQvAK. I took my last $20 and did one of those 180 man sngs and bubbled with AK. I was busto but I felt like I had played good poker.

I got more paypal and ratholed some more. But this time instead of being a total idiot, I decided to stick to $25NL with a BR of $100. I quickly ran it up to $200. I was desperate for $$$ at the time so I sent it to a friend and he withdrew it for me.

A few people staked me here and there in various micro donkaments and I turned them a small profit. It was november and I had a bankroll of about $40. I stuck to $2/$3 tournaments but never went deep. I went busto in early december. The same day one of my friends was running hot and had about a $300 bankroll. He told me I could play some MTTs on his account. I did that and was down like $6 after a few hours. I didnt want to lose him $$ so I sat down at a 2/4 table. First hand I flopped a set and stacked someone. I decided to keep playing, to make a long story short I lost all of his $$$. I couldve easily [censored] him over seeing as how he's only an online friend, and I've never met him before. But I decided to send him the $$$ via money order. I abstained from social activity for the next few weeks and used my birthday money. He was paid in full before christmas.

Two days ago my grandparents took me on a gambling cruise for my 18th birthday. I had about $300 from christmas and a cash game the day before. I expected there to be poker on the boat, but much to my dismay there was no poker at all. I didnt want to sit around for 5 hours doing nothing so I decided to play some of the rigged games. In 30 minutes I was stuck 240 because of some [censored] called Let it Ride and nickel/quarter slots. I felt TERRIBLE. I had $60ish left and went to a blackjack table expecting to go busto. I caught a good run of cards and won $200. I was down $40. I sat down with $40 at a blackjack table. Bet it all. Got 20, dealer hits a miracle 21. I walk away down 80 for the day.

Now here is my dilemma. I want to play poker, and I don't want to play like before. I'm no longer expecting to double my $$$ each time I sit down. I realize that it doesn't work like that. I know BR management is key in being a good poker player. Since I'm 18 the money now has value to me since it will be coming out of my own pocket and I'll need as much as I can get in college. I plan on depositing $75. So as far as BR management goes what would be my best bet assuming I'm not going to be 4-tabling? I've read a plethora of posts on this site, but playing .01/.02 just turns me off to poker after playing 10/20. And how do I cushion the effect of my apparent gambling problem?

Beat: Ive lost close to 8k on pokerstars and didnt care
Brag: I turned .40 into 6000~
Variance: I managed to win money in the first place

Sorry for the lack of graphs. Honestly, I still don't have poker tracker, would someone mind linking me to it?