From Debt to Threat, Getting Staked and Getting Stacks

“It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?” – Jim Carrey

July 6, 2014

Alarm goes off at 6am. “**** it I quit.” I shut off the alarm and go back to sleep until noon. I was living in my uncle’s basement with no money, 14k in college/credit card debt, no real plan, and now no job...again.

When I wake up I go to the bank, ask about loan options, and somehow they decide to give me a $7000 personal line of credit.”FREE MONEY!” (21k in debt now).

After the bank I see that I have a new Tinder match. Hot blonde, blue eyes, big boobs…”Sweet!!” So I message her and we make plans to meet at her house later that night.

Quit my job, got a bunch of money, met a girl.

“BEST DAY EVER!!!”

I ended up spending every single day with her for the rest of the summer using $5000 of the loan before she left back for college.

With the remaining $2000 I bought a laptop and deposited $200 on Full Flush poker...lost it. Deposited another $200… lost it. Deposited my last $300 and ran it up to $17,000 over the next 5 months!

A fresh start to my poker career!!!

I had 10 winning months in a row including 3 10k+ months from October 2014 to July 2015. I had stopped playing online and was playing live 2/5 mostly at Harrah’s Cherokee in Cherokee, NC. I was spending money like it was going out of style. Steaks, clothes, shoes, travel, etc.. I had paid off over 10k in debt. Life was good. I went to Vegas for 2 months for the WSOP. Crushed most of the time. Drank too much, spent too much at strip clubs, gambled in the pit for the first time ever, spent 4k on tournaments that I had no business playing in. Tilt began. I would lose a session at 2/5 and then go play 5/10 or worse… PLO. Ended Vegas on a very sour note. Continued to play bad in September… broke even. Turned it around in October but I still had less money than when I had first arrived in Vegas in June. The interest was mounting on my debt and for the first time ever I was realizing what variance, stress, and tilt could do to a bankroll. As the pressure mounted I began to tilt worse and worse. One bad beat and I would blow $2000 like I was a millionaire. I began to say screw it and play games I had not studied and was not rolled for. One night in November with a $15,000 bankroll I blew $8000 playing ⅖ PLO. Then I had some car trouble.

December 2015

BUSTO!!!

Over the last year I had become the kid who was a great poker player, feared by many. Over the last two months I had become the maniac who couldn’t stop bluffing, who couldn’t stop calling, who couldn’t stop playing every hand, who couldn’t stop tilting. I have a great love for the game of poker and I have studied it a ton over the last 4 years. I have a friend who is willing to stake me 50/50, so I guess I’m not completely busto.

My main reason for starting this PGC is to fix my massive massive tilt problem that I have acquired as of late. It also feels good to talk about my debt problems. I have been too embarrassed to talk to my friends and family about it.

I have bought The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2 by Jared Tendler and I will be reading one chapter a day and putting into action the things that I learn from him. I will read each book 15 times if that is what it takes for me to be the best.

Goals:
Fix tilt problem
Read MGOP everyday
Write down at least one hand history and the way I felt every session
Comment on someone else’s hand history every day
Fix discipline/patience
Take longer time with crucial decisions at table
Meditate
Yoga
Pay off $500/month of debt
Take at least 1 day off from poker every 4 days

More to come