Hi, everyone! I'm Alex. I'm 41 and I've been playing poker since 2008 (good old days)... I've never been disciplined and that's caused me a lot of downswings throughout my poker career. Let me tell you my story (please, if you can learn from this, do it, don't do the same I did).
It all started in 2008. I came from the sports betting world, I used to make some money with sports arbitraging. Then I got into the poker world. I was a fish of course you know limping with J3o UTG and stuff... I started looking for advice or other people in my country who were into poker as well and I found this forum back then (colombiapoker). There, I realized I was a fish, I opened my eyes and saw that I was doing everything completely wrong so I decided to study, take the quizzes on poer strategy, etc, etc... I hadn't decided what to play most, if SnGs or cash, I tried both and I stayed in the SnGs. My results improved a little but I was kind of stuck. I was losing money, depositing constantly, no rakeback deals, you know the story. In 2009 I finally had the money to pay for cardrunners membership and it was like another eye-opening pick in my life. I improved a lot, I was winning, I moved up on levels... then, I started playing the DoNs at Ipoker damn that was like a cash machine back then! I was winning like 80-85% of tournaments per session having 15 - 20 torunaments won in a row (shit you not). After that, I started taking shots at Full tilt 1usd 1R1a donkaments and I nailed it several times, got into the final tables 2 -3 times a week, and so on... I kept it like that until 2011, there I stopped, went through divorce, drinking, depression, another job, etc etc etc and forgot about poker until 2012 when I started playing again (mostly 5usd turbos and DoNs at Boylepoker) this time with rakeback deal and everything. Thins started to go wrong for a couple of months so I decided to take some coaching, I improved, cut some major leaks and took the right path again until a major downwing appeared middle 2013. I went back to sports betting, lost a lot of money (more than 2k usd) and cut everthing gambling related and focused only on my job and my "bachelor" lifestyle.
Ending last year, I received a small bonus on microgaming and started playing again de 5usd regulars and DoNs where I ran well: won some MTTs as well (small prizes but still) and stayed in green all the way until March this year. Then again, stopped, moved to another city and decided I was going to give it try professionally. Got a good rakeback deal (I even thought I could earn rakeback enough that allowed to cover my expenses) and started low with a small bankroll to test the waters, see how my game was, my concepts and so on. Well, that's where things started going apeshit. The only major winning was a third place in a 1usd 888poker MTT, that's it, nothing else... Lost most of my bankroll playing 1eur sngs, gave it a try on the microstakes cash games, guess what? Sucked big time, fishes calling with bottome pair vs 3bet PF, got their two pairs on the river, trips, runner runner flushes, straights, you know the story. I said to myself "well, this is normal at these stakes". Watched some videos here and there, looked at my stats, refined them a little, made my ranges a little tighter PF, etc, etc, etc... guess waht? nada, zero, nothing at all worked. Today lost the rest of my bankroll on ridiculous sets vs TPTK, flushes, you name it.... the thing is, I'm broke, I dont have a job, I only have like 150usd left for the resto of the month, I dont know what to tell to my wife, to my daughter (well, my wife knew I was "working" with poker), my wife doesnt a have a job either... shit man, I lost it. I didn't expect things would go so terribly wrong, I had an edge (I still think I have it) over the fish but they screwed me bad.
So please guys, don't ever, ever, EVER, think you're gonna have ir easier on poker because that's not the truth. Even if you're a good/decent player, be prepared for losses, don't go professionally if you don't have at least three or four months of your expenses covered (especially if you have family), don't go under the water without the proper gear because the fish are going to be piranhas most of the time. Thanks for reading.
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