Post #1k. Busto to Robusto and back again. My degenerate story.

[shag]

I’m bored at work right now and my recent post in the bankroll thread made me feel like writing this in detail. Definitely tl;dr so cliff notes: I love gambling. Realized poker was a beatable form so quit everything else and played poker. Won and lost a [censored] of money. Then won consistently and lost it all in two days. This may be nothing by BBV standards.

My earliest memory of gambling was when I was 7 and my dad took us all to Vegas for some family vacation. For my family that meant give the kids money let them do whatever while the adults have fun in Sin City. My step brother was like 17 so he was in charge of me and my sister and we would go around and hit up rides or whatever while my dad gambled it up. We had VIP [censored] at the MGM so we cut all the lines and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

After 2 days I ask my dad how in the hell this place stays in business. Dad: WTF are you talking about? Me: everyone’s winning money! Dad: Let me explain something to you. He goes on to explain why the house always wins etc. and I was pretty smart for my age so I understood it all. However I still insisted there was one slot machine that was always paying out. It was the closest slot machine to the elevator bank in (at the time) the largest hotel/casino in the world. Its actually still there. My dad decides to teach me a lesson.

He tells me that if I give him some money he’ll gamble it for me on any slot in exchange for 10% of any profits. Of course I jump on that one give him 50 bucks and show him the machine. I have to walk in circles so I don’t get kicked out by security and watch him as he gambles my money. Last spin: DING DING DING! SHIP IT! 300 BUCKS BABY! Of course my step brother immediately wants in as well… 3rd spin for him DING DING DING! 500! Well the next morning my sister who was sleeping at the time wanted in as well…

She hits the 1.2k progressive. No joke. At this point I am convinced I want to be a professional gambler. At various points during the next few years my dad agrees to deal me blackjack anytime I want him being the house. I play perfect basic strategy and run hot and win like 400 bucks over a few months playing a max bet of $2. Ok my dad doesn’t’ want to deal anymore cause I love it too much and ask him like every time I see him. Ok lets play poker. We play like 4 or 5 times and my dad ends up losing another 500 bucks to me playing HU 7card stud (I was a total luckbox and I had NO CLUE what I was doing)

Fast forward like 11 years. I’m 18 and go to Vegas and gamble with a fake and turn 50 bucks into 3k luckboxing red on the roulette table. I’m about to drive home to LA and decide what the [censored] let it all ride for one last red bet and go home with 6k. I lose and have to call my mom for gas money home. I see the WPT on the Travel Channel and get hooked. Make some $100 deposits on William Hill and Pokerroom and Luckbox my way to 2k a couple times but of course I always lose cause I suck at poker and always sit in the biggest game always having all my money on the table. Buy ‘Play Poker Like the Pros’ by Phil Hellmuth. Think I’m going to play poker like the pros and live like a baller the rest of my life. Lose a crapload playing online. Discover live card rooms in LA but think Hollywood Park is the only one. Lose more money playing poker.

Discover 2+2. Still lose. Move to NY and play at the clubs there (back when they were everywhere). Start to figure some stuff out but still lose overall but start to have some winning sessions and play at least some hands well and put people on hands successfully. Move back to LA read a [censored] on 2+2 and pick up some real poker books. End up playing like around 1000 sng’s, beat them and cash out 3k. Discover the Bicycle Club on my 21st B-Day and play some 3-500NL. Learn how to play deepstack poker and stack donkeys instead of trying to play super TAG and not doing it well. (this is the only midstakes live game in LA where you can buy in for 100bb. People are constantly stacking off so it is not uncommon for 3-4+ people having 200-300BB+) Play around with a 10k bankroll for a few months and start to win consistently. After like 3 months I lose it all playing the uncapped 5/10 game and have to quit poker for a while. I play when I can but usually only have one 3-5 buy in and end up going bust most of the time.

I continue to learn and improve and eventually get like a 5k roll together but still decide to take shots in the 5/10 uncapped even though I know I shouldn’t Luckily this time I run really well and have 27 winning sessions in a row and all of a sudden I have like 50k in my safety deposit box. During this time I really learned more about the game and the people surrounding the game. I played fairly LAG but solid postflop and people kept paying off my HUGE overbets when I had the nuts. I would bet like 4k into 700 pots on the river and people were calling me with 1 pair hands. I knew things would change and I was running hot cause I didn’t have one cooler hand playing 10 hours a day 6 days a week. One night I lose 5k in one hand with QQQ losing to AAA on a no straight no flush board. I lose 11k more with two second nut flushes. The next night I try to bluff one of the worst players I have ever had the pleasure of playing with for 1000bb. I just lost 26k in two days which was almost 10x as much money as I had ever had at once previously. It didn’t bother me much and I wasn’t taking poker all that seriously and the money pretty much just appeared to me and seemed fake. It didn’t help that I would always have big chips in my box rather than cash so it just didn’t feel like real money. I get my head together and despite having an additional 8k downswing I get my money back up to 50k in about 2 months.

After this I take things a little more seriously but I still question whether I am actually a winning player or if I’m just freaking lucky. I still don’t know. But I keep 50k in my bankroll and spend everything I make above that. I took a chick to Hawaii and stayed in a sick resort. I took frequent trips to vegas staying at the V in sick rooms eating sick meals and usually won enough to still show a profit after paying for everything. Life was great. Then some [censored] stuff happened in my life and I tilted off 20k one night. I lost 15 more the next. Then my life problems got even worse the next night and rather than playing 5/10 no cap with the 17k or so I had left dropping down to 3-500 if I get down to 10k I decided to risk it all in one game. One 10k buy in followed by a 7k buy in at 10/20. After playing well but losing like 3 or 4k I tilted off the rest and had literally no money.

That’s it I guess. Ha. Now I play now and then but I really have very little extra money to devote to poker. I’ll be back and hopefully will follow better BR management afterwards.

[Abones]

pretty cool stuff

[ICE TREY]

lol life tiltaments

[JOHNNY TACO]

tl;dr

[Godson]

[ QUOTE ]
tl;dr

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[TheFaucet]

stop losing

[Teh1337zor]

your dads a balla

[mbillie1]

dude my busto thread was better

[Lurker.]

good read.

[mediumpimpin]

Me and you have a lot in common