90% of Players? Whats your best Story?
I once made second and sixth in a 530$ multi-entry 10-game for $15k, but then lost my Share and more to blue carpet on full tilt at mostly 10/20 Mixed...
teddybloatthere can be only one
won a freeroll into sunday millions
binked sunday millions
played high stakes hunsg's
went back to years of freerolls
The story I'm about to tell involves neither MTTs nor a particularly huge score, but forgive me, as I think it's worth telling. Back in the spring of either 2007 or 2008 (forget which), I had run up my PokerStars bankroll from my typical $100 Western Union/Moneygram deposit to around maybe $1500 or so. Naturally, I started multi-tabling the very addictive $225 turbo SNGs when I got to that oh-so-high bankroll threshold. These were the days when Bryn Kenney was still in Long Island playing these things, and Jorj95 was making Supernova Elite by February by putting in tremendous volume at them. The glory days, in other words. I'd also mix in some $60 45-man turbos versus the likes of QuasiFiction (great, memorable name) and TheLipoFund (same), among other pre-Black Friday legends. Then for an occasional change of pace I'd take on DDBeast and stevie444 (I am not entirely sure I remember the number sequence correctly there, but he was a reg) in the WSOP step SNGs.
So after maybe a week or so of this, I woke up one morning to a balance of $0.00. Calamitous. Might I have to actually spend the day at the bookstore or otherwise outside the seductive world of PokerStars? The thought was intolerable. I was saved from having to live that reality by the realization that I had one step 4 WSOP ticket left to redeem (step 4 tickets were worth around $215 if I recall correctly). So I entered one, played my usual strategy of just barely outlasting 3rd and 4th places, and moved onto Step 5. Rinse and repeat there, so I'm onto the final step for the first time. Outright win this one, and a seat in the Main Event would be mine. My buddy and I were instant messaging as I waited for the table to fill, and so I initially missed the name of the ninth and final entrant: FossilMan, AKA former WSOP ME champ Greg Raymer. To age 21/22 me, this was a huge deal, and I was pretty much shaking behind the computer monitor.
So of course it comes down to Raymer and myself heads up. Raymer had a 2:1 chip lead, but that reversed very quickly after I flopped a set of 4s and allowed him to bluff three streets. Not long after, he got it in with 98ss v my 22, I faded 9s and 8s and straights and flushes, and victory was mine. It felt surreal. The girlfriend of my good friend whom I'd been Instant messaging before the SNG immediately called me up and started talking Vegas travel plans. I did a victory lap around my block. Such a high
Fast forward three nights...I'm bored, fire up the PokerStars account, and what do I find but $10,000 in my account. It hadn't been there before, and my assumption was that PStars bought me directly into the tournament, or something. Well, even though I wanted to play the WSOP, there'd be no harm in playing a bit, right?
The money was gone in 4 hours. Took me till the summer of 2022 to make it to Las Vegas.
Be careful, kids.
Looks like my graph. Minus the giant spike, of course.
