Never Give Up; 20$ to 10'000$ (Again)

Hello everyone,

This is me and my story...

I am 25 years old, and back in 2024, I became a mid-stakes pro playing online at NL200. I worked incredibly hard for years, got coached by high-stakes pros, and reached around $80,000 in poker profit. But right at the peak of my career, everything fell apart.

I promised I would be completely honest with you guys, and I will be, even if it touches me emotionally:

I was finally taking my shot at NL500 on GGPoker, and I was at my peak of happiness... I was quickly up over $12,000 in my first shot. Poker became the only happiness in my life, my safe space after losing the people I loved, going through breakups, and living completely alone since the Covid years...

I was grinding 12 hours a day to change my life as fast as possible. I was dreaming of traveling all over the world, to make experiences live... But at that time, I didn't realize that I was touching a deep burnout. It was only after a 15 buy-in downswing, and when my private life was heavily stressing me out, that the combination broke my mental health drastically.

I lost all control. I ignored my stop losses, stopped playing real poker, and started gambling.
Driven by a crazy urge, I sat at €10,000 high-stakes tables just to play against the player I loved the most, "MMAsherdog" Beumers. We clashed. I 3-bet the BB big and he called with pocket Aces. I ended up losing my entire stack in a crazy bluff with 5-4 high vs one of the best poker player in the world at that period. I thought my huge polarized play would look incredibly strong as an unknown (me), but he made an insane exploitative play Slowplaying AA calling the 3 bet pre flop, somehow knowing I was overbluffing lol.
He won a pot of over $18,000...

After losing that pot, I just snapped. I completely lost my mind and burned four years of hard earned profits in just a few days.
From that moment i lost my self completly , spent days crying without sleep.
I came back after few weeks thanks to some poker coaching, but I wasted it all again. Between 2024 and 2025, counting expenses and pure gambling, I lost over $100,000.

A year ago, I made the hardest but best choice of my life. I started psychotherapy to heal from it and my past.
And today, after a long break, I am here trying again. But this time, I want to have absolute discipline; I want to play as if it is my last chance...

I am going to climb all the stakes, starting from the absolute bottom at NL2, to reach the high stakes in the coming years. Becoming a high-stakes pro is my ultimate dream, and I will fight with everything I have to reach this goal. In the meantime, I'm working a lot on my personal life: doing sports daily, maintaining a better sleep routine, listening to my body more, and taking breaks regularly.

You guys have no idea how much this means to me. I want my financial freedom back. I want to travel the world again like I used to.
I fought so hard to make poker my main job, for be forever free financially .

I will stream daily on my Twitch;
I would really appreciate it if some of you guys came into the chat to support me during this long journey! <3
My Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/xmarcojr10 - "xmarcojr10"

It will be infinitely hard to start with $20 at NL2 to reach NL200 again... but as always, I'll try to enjoy the process, not just the destination.
I expect that by the end of the year, even with a bad run, I should be playing between NL100 and NL200... so I am setting myself up to be there at least by the end of this year.

I wish the best to all of you guys. I want to be inspirational for people who fight daily with their own addictions...
Nothing is impossible. I'm fighting against the odds, but I will never, NEVER GIVE UP.
As i stopped for 1 year from today of smoking and drinking alcool, I'LL STOP DEFINITLY TO BE A GUMBLER.

BANKROLL CHALLANGE :
21/05/2026
STARTING POINT 20$
PS: i'll try to post my results atleast once a month