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Busted,

That's why this thread is the WORST going pro stories you have heard. Noone wants to hear those boring old "I ground my way up from .5/1 nl until my bankroll was established before I decided to quit my menial job and go pro, and still had a backup plan if poker doesn't work."

We are looking for horrible decisions compounded by perhaps a shocking ending...this is NVG, after all.

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Ok, so it's not going pro stories you want, you want degenerate gambler stories. Check it out:

This dude is early twenties. Has some crappy tech job, drives around fixing stuff. Just married with 1 year old baby. Lives with wife's mother. Starts playing at local casino, starts coming home at dawn, never sees wife and baby. Isn't paying any bills. Wife takes job as receptionist at well-known software company to pay bills. Dude finagles baby's savings account info from mother-in-law, makes withdrawals from account, denies it's him. Wife starts flirting with engineers at work. Dude starts swiping cash lying around the house. Gets in fights with wife, mother-in-law. Wife starts seeing one engineer on the side. Dude starts showing up late for work. Gets canned. Breaks into baby's piggy bank. Wife has had enough. Wife and baby move in with engineer. Dude still sleeping at mother-in-law's house, stealing what he can. Gets kicked out. Wife gets pregnant with engineer files for divorce and child custody. Wins. All in less than 3 months.

True story. Pre-empting the jokes: no, not me.

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Not sure if your protagonist considered himself going 'pro', but that is an absolute horrible story - well done.

Was the man in your story playing only poker or was he playing other table games? Did the person in this story really consider himself a good player or was he just hooked on gambling? Might not quite fit the perception of someone thinking they are going pro - maybe just someone who developed a bad gambling problem?