BankRollerCoaster Pt. 1

I'm sure if I put this much effort into anything in life that I would find great success. I would have probably got my degree without losing my scholarship in college (Even though I lost it because I had finished a semester with 11 credits instead of 12 after dropping one class and the administration didn't even give me a chance to take a summer class to regain my scholarship GRRR) I could have maybe started my own business. There are endless possibilities that my mind, hell anyone's mind, is capable of accomplishing but it is just amazing that it depends on how much passion you have in something that you are willing to truly excel in what grasps the majority of your attention. For me its something that its a constant struggle. It is something that I have to try to be successful at with a limited amount of funds to do so, never really having a lot of wealth but working my ass off just to get where I am today.

At the beginning of the year I was doing pretty well at poker but over a course of 2010-2011, I was managing my bankroll horribly. It started with me having success on Full Tilt poker back in February and March of 2010. I did my usual $50 deposit and decided to play a cheap satellite to a $535 tournament (Forgot which one) but there were like 64 people that entered and was a huge overlay, but unfortunately only 1 place was paid for the seat.....well that person was me. I grinded out the win and instead of playing the

How I felt when talking to Full Tilt support when trying to cash out.

tournament, I unreg'd and traded the T$ for about $503.25 real money. I decided to play (Out of my bankroll btw) Six handed 1/2 cap NL poker. I liked this because there was a cap to the size of money you can bet per hand. I believe at 1/2 it was $60-80, 2/4 it was $100-140, and 3/6 was $150-200. I can't remember exactly but I would play 1/2 and got my bankroll up to $860 so I decided to play 2/4 cap and worked it up to $1500. I mainly stayed at 2/4 and played around in 3/6 every now and then until about March I wanted to cash out what I worked up to $2600. I was going to keep the original $500 in the FTP account and cash out $2100 when the cashier and support were making it extremely difficult. They wanted more identification so I provided it with my Driver's License. 2 days later they wanted me to provide monthly billing statements which I questioned at first then provided proof of address and blocked out the rest of the information (Which I saw to be private that wasn't their business) and they said it must be the full document. I wasn't going to choose the wire transfer option because the bank was going to reject the transaction and I would have been out of my money completely. Well during this whole process I was slowly beginning to go on tilt, and ended up staying at the current limits I was at and it was affecting my play. Needless to say by May 2010 I lost what I built up on Full Tilt and this made me feel like shit. I vowed I would never play online poker again. I dabbled in and out of different websites but never for a lot of money and by January 2011 I requested Support closed any accounts I had online and that was that. Luckily I got this done before Black Friday of Online Poker occured!!

When I started playing more live poker, I experienced some success Late August - October 2010. I was cashing my home games and local casino tournaments, went down to Lake Charles and Played the Fall Poker Classic in September and cashed in both events that I played but had to go back to work and missed out on the main event which I was feeling completely confident in playing. I then went to IP Biloxi in October for their WSOP circuit and played in a $235 Mega-satellite. It awarded $2000 in tournament chips and $250 in cash for every 10 players that entered the tournament. There were 86 players that entered and top 8 got this prize. I was once again playing superb poker and my fundamentals were dead on as I was able to make the top 8 and was prepared to free roll for the rest of my weekend. Well I decided to play one more tournament (A $340 buy in) and then play just cash games. I lost the tournament i entered halfway through the field then had minimal success at the cash games finishing -$250 and ended up bringing home $1350 after paying for hotel and expenses as well. This is a pretty good weekend but It also made me get greedy and want more. So I got cocky and made another trip the very next weekend and met up with a couple poker buddies that allowed me to crash in their room. I brought $1000 in cash with me and went back to the 1-2 NL cash game. I would buy in for $200 at a time and had the worst run of luck I have ever witnessed. Got 3 outed twice, was in a huge pot in the lead with a set when someone  rivered the flush against me and after 1 more buy in I was busted at 3 a.m.on a Saturday morning. I was playing like a compulsive gambler chasing my money and not like a level headed poker player making calculated risks. I could feel myself getting more and more angry or frustrated but instead of leaving, I stayed and played in hopes that my luck would change. But the fact of the matter is, I didn't want to accept that it wasn't my luck that was bad, it was my mental image. It was my lack of confidence. I was off my game and stayed there dumping my chips until they were all gone. I immediately left without telling the guys bye. I called them about 25 minutes away from home and said sorry but I just had to get out of there. During  my 4 hour journey home I was stuck thinking of the stupid actions that I decided to take in blowing my winnings, but didn't have an answer to avoid it from happening again.

My success of 2010 was short lived as I quickly expended the winnings in hopes to jump up in bigger stakes and get a larger bankroll. I was trying to get ahead of myself and instead of thinking rationally and actually taking my time to build my bankroll, I would risk it at every possible chance and would play out of my bankroll trying to beat the fish at the game. Unfortunately, when I would take a bad beat I would not have enough funds to reload and keep playing, thus leaving the game with a loss and another dent to my funds.
I didn't see the pain of this until my next encounter since I began to flirt with going broke while experimenting with my strategy and seeing my balance after paying bills....