My poker story, if anyone cares haha

I posted this on reddit, too. I think I am lonely, and at this moment, bored. Just want to tell my story. Maybe I will receive some solidarity. I probably will receive some hate or criticism. It's all good. I do hope it is interesting to people.

I started my journey in competitive games with age of empires, and then starcraft - which I loved and became very good at. I went to college after high school, but I played starcraft instead of going to classes. I was in a starcraft clan (team), and the leader had gotten into poker, and told me I would be good at it and should play. He gave me some money to play with on pokerstars back in 2003. I got into it deep, right away.

About a year later I was kicked out of college. Like I said, I didn't go to classes. This meant I needed income fast, and I didn't want to work a real job. So, I took the ~$100 I had and started playing for a living. Not kidding. Within 2 weeks I final tabled several tournaments and had ran it up to about 5k. So basically, my career started with a ton of luck.

The next couple years were slow grinding, a ton of playing, no studying outside of discussions with other players like Elky, Tom Dwan, Bryn Kenney, other names you might recognize. I decided I wanted to be one of the best in the world. I started playing fixed limit, and eventually I got up to where I was a 100/200 fl regular on stars, and sometimes played higher. I had my best year, which was about ~200k profit. This was around 2005 I think.

This led to me going wild with money, I never had respect for money when I was a kid, which is both useful and devastatingly bad. I ended up going broke so many times, borrowing money so many times. But I did always bounce back. I was never bothered, I felt like it would always just be easy to work up again.

By the time Black Friday hit, I was already pretty much done I think. I lost passion for the game, I was depressed, and it felt impossible to win. I expect it was a mixture of bad luck and bad play. I do think I was justified in being depressed about it though - anyone who has been on a really long downswing knows how awful it can be.

After Black Friday I joined the air force. I then left the air force to marry a woman and go back to college. I got a degree in Computer Science. We had a child. We moved to Pennsylvania at the end of 2020. I discovered I could play online poker there.. pokerstars PA. I started playing basically immediately, and within 4-5 months I transitioned into doing it full time again.

The first year I averaged about $125/hr. I started at 100nl, by the end of the year I was playing 500nl-2knl and occasionally sitting 5k if I saw fish. The second year also went well, but I played a bit less. My daughter was over 1 year old and we had a house with a lot of property, so there was a lot I did outside of poker.

Year 3 I took a break and didn't play much. I cashed out my bankroll for family expenses, we had a lot more money coming in the future so it would be replenished no problem. (My wife received a yearly annuity of 50k). When I did play, I didn't win much. It felt like the games had gotten a lot tougher.

Year 4(this year!) I went through a divorce. It turns out, my now ex-wife is completely crazy. And a narcissist. And a liar. She broke me financially. I had no time to play. And no bankroll. She never paid back what I cashed out, even though she promised to at the start of the divorce. I couldn't even afford attorneys. I had to fight her in court multiple times over crazy stuff. I had to represent myself pro-se, against her and her sociopath lawyer. Ironically, she is also an attorney. I successfully secured 50/50 custody first, which meant life was even harder because half of my time went to my daughter and I couldn't afford a babysitter. I later had to file an injunction and sue for the right to sell our house - she wanted to give it to the bank (let it foreclose) so that I wouldn't make any profit from it. Months prior, she had convinced me that she should be the one to sell it. And I am stuck dealing with this person for the next 2 decades...

Anyways, I won the injunction, and weeventually settled - though they didn't give me much time to sell the house. I successfully sold it anyways, FSBO, did all the work myself. She received half the profit from that, even though she did absolutely nothing but be annoying. Life isn't fair.

In the meantime I tried to make a comeback in poker. It didn't happen. I couldn't win, only lose. I started to feel like Pokerstars PA was rigged actually. Maybe a silly feeling, poker is largely based on luck. But... I have been doing this for half my life. What I was experiencing was so unfair and hard to explain to anyone. I was miserable and isolated and I didn't know what to do.

After selling the house I had a little bit of money to work with (~10,000 I could use for poker). I took it very seriously. Throughout 2024 I studied hard, really focused in my games. Did so after I sold my house, too. My luck just seems... really horribly attrociously bad. Can't win, only lose. It's actually crazy. I looked through my pt4 stats, I literally was dealt AA,KK,AK way less than I should be. My AA was cracked so often. I flopped sets way less than I should. All the bad things you could imagine - all of those bad things happened to me. Winning felt (and feels) impossible. It's still happening by the way. I am quitting now. I don't want to do this anymore. Sometimes I think it's supernatural in nature - and that the universe is trying to force me to take a different path with my life. If that's the case, I have faith that it is for the best.

It was really really difficult finding a place to live without having an employer. It's also really really difficult finding employment, even with the CS degree. I am 40 with very little work experience. I am basically broke. I have bills that are stacking up, and I can't do anything about them. I am hoping someone hires me, and quickly. I am looking for a job as a substitute teacher, which I will probably get soon, but I really would prefer something better. I don't care though, money is money, I just need stable income so I can continue to be a good parent for my daughter. She is the best thing in my life.

I don't know what to think about my life and poker. It's been interesting. I didn't have to work for the man. I was able to do whatever I wanted, very often. There were times when it was very fun. There were times when it was really emotionally difficult. Most people don't understand what it is like at all, that much is clear.

If I am being honest, Pokerstars PA does feel rigged to me. It's like they hit a switch on my account after I took a break. From crusher to can't beat any stakes. But I don't trust any of the online sites anymore anyways. The world is very corrupt right now.

I will never know if it actually is rigged in some way, and it doesn't actually matter because I am done. But if it was rigged, I will just consider that another form of bad luck haha

Anyways I think I am going to end this story now. Thanks for reading.