One thing that I forgot to mention about that great year was that although I was crushing, I still had serious tilt problems. I just couldn't deal with losing. I'd lose a clip, and then another, and before I knew I would be down 10k. But I was convinced I could make it back, so I would just keep playing, and then it was like oh, what happend, your down 20k now? But somehow, I was prepared for this. I think it was because I became such a huge slacker in high school, I became great at doing exactly enough to get by. I would constantly push off work until the last minute, and then find myself in a deep hole, and dig my way out. The same can be said for poker, on bodog atleast.
I can't remember how many nights I had were I was high, playing and running bad, and lost around 20k. The reason I can't is probably because every single time that happend, there would come a point in my night where I would basically just snap out of it after losing a certain amount. It would be like my brain was finally telling me, ok Will, it's time to focus now. It's time to get out of this hole. And i would climb, inch by inch(although 2k at a time is a pretty big inch), until I was out of the hole. So if I was down 20 at 2am, by 5:30am I was a up a couple K. I can't tell you how good this made me feel. It really did make me feel invincible. No one could touch me. I could easily lose a brand new car and then make it back, because you know why? I was that good.
Well, the truth is, I wasn't. It wasn't me who was that good, it was simply the games that I was playing in.

As good of a year as 06 was for me, poker wise, in terms of life wise, it was kind of, well, bleh. I just didn't really do anything. I smoked a ton of weed and played a lot of poker. And when 07 rolled around, I felt like I needed a change. But I didn't really know what, or how to make this change.
Around this time I was talking to one of the guys who I played with on bodog, and he presented me with an idea. He proposed to me that he would use my account to play on, and give me a percentage of whatever he made. Now clearly, this would not seem like a smart thing to do. But at the time, it seemed like the perfect answer for me. I knew I needed a break from poker, but I wanted to keep making money at the same time. I was extremely greedy. So without really knowing anything about this guy, other than he was decent, I let him use my account.
The first month was surreal. The guy absolutely crushed. My friends would constantly call me up saying nice stacks dude and I would have no idea what they were talking about. Then I'd log on to bodog and see "myself" sitting at 3tables(the max at the time on bodog), with like 50k+ in play. I was stunned, but it was great. I was making money, without doing shit. He would end up making about 100k that month all in all. Life was good. I was steadily cashing out my roll while my account was going up, up and up. But it wouldn't last.
The next month would be a complete dissaster. Before the month was over, the guy had lost all of his profits from the prevoius month and then some. Now he was digging into my own profits, and I had no idea what to do. I honestly believed in him for some godawful reason so I let him keep going, thinking deep down that maybe he could turn it around. But he didn't.
Before I knew it, i had about 15k in my bodog account. During the "glory days" in 06, I never kept less than 100k in there. It was a comfort thing, I felt like I couldn't be touched, and frankly on that site, I couldn't. Well all of a sudden, my comfort was gone. I didn't know what to do. I was completely shell shocked. It was time to start to digging. The problem was that this hole would prove to be too deep, and even I couldn't get myself out of it. Sometime early in 07, I bustoed my bodog account. This was really when things started to fall apart.
I had always played on bodog. It was my bread and butter. Now that it was gone, wtf was I supposed to do? I decided that it was time to try out different sites. After all, it was still the same game right? I was still gonna be playing No limit holdem, right? That game was my bread and butter! ooopssss!.
To make a long story short(cuz its kinda painful to talk about), I lost roughly 100k on the tables in 07. Most of that was on pokerstars and fulltilt, and most of it was a limits lower than 5-10nl. I know, sick brag right? I thought was the shit at the poker. After all, I made a quarter mil in a year, who was to say I wasn't? Well, pretty much just about anyone that played mid stakes on stars or fulltilt during that period.
It was a tough lesson, that I just refused to learn. I would put a couple thousand on a site, build it up, and then watch it crumble. My sessions went from promising building blocks to destructive tilt induced self collapses. I thought I was the shit, but I wasn't. I was barely even a piece of shit at the point. A piece of shit was putting it kindly. I needed a change, and a drastic one, quickly. The problem was I thought I needed to change something about my game. This was far from the truth. I needed to stop playing.
But I didn't. Instead, I decided I would try out the "live" scene. I began playing regularly at an underground club called straddle, in NYC. I played the 2-5 game there and it was great. Or so I thought. Well the game was good, but I still sucked, and was still reeling from all the online tilt. So I became a pretty big loser in the game, which I am def. not proud of. All in all I probably lost 20k in that 2-5 game. Sick brag right?
This lead me to the absolute worst financial times of my life. After I had exhausted every last cent of the money that I was going to play 2-5 with, I was ltierally broke. Yeah, I still had put away a lot of my winnings with a stock broker, but I couldn't touch those. I would call my mom up every week and ask her for some money, for living expenses. As soon as this money was in my bank account, I would take it to straddle, and sit in the 2-5, or 1-2 game depending on how much it was, thinking I could turn it all around.
Well I didn't, and things got proggresively worse. At one point, every single day I would gather up change and go to mcdonalds and buy an item or 2 off the dollar menu. It was really bad. I was a huge degen, and now I was really living like one.
Somehow, I convinced one of my Asian friends I had met at straddle to loan me 500 bucks or something. Together, we went to the club, which had recently moved from a shitty location, to a really nice one, and was doing amazing. The place was packed every single night, 100+ people. That night we went was no different. I sat at a 2-5 table with 250, planning on reloading if I lost it.
I was doing ok, maybe up a little bit, when this suave little asshole sat down at the table. You could just tell he was full of himself. Anyway, not too longer after, I ended up getting it with qq on a j108 rainbow flop against his k10, and he made runner runner straight. I bought back in, steaming. I spent the next 20 or so minutes basically just staring at him, hating him, but hating myself even more but taking that hate out on him, with my eyes.
At the point I heard a little bit of commotion behind me, and figuring it was just a silly argument I turned around. I was wrong. I looked back and saw something I never want to see again, a huge spanish dude with a mask on, and a big rifle. He was followed by I think 4other dudes, all with masks and guns. Suddenly it was madness. They were screaming,"everyone get on the floor." I've been priveleged in my life to have never been in a situation in my life like that before, so you can imagine how I was feeling. I was scared for my life.
It was truly a terrifying experiences. The "leader", would call the different goons by numbers. "Yo number 2, get over here!" It was like some sick james bond shit. I tried to stay calm from my position on the floor, but I wasn't the only one freaking out. It was chaos in there. And these guys didn't seem to want to leave. They really wanted every last penny in the place.
About 7 or 8 minutes into the robbery, I heard a piercing gunshot go off. It was really fucking loud, I thought I might be def. But I wasn't, I was just really scared, as was everyone else. Luckily, this seemed to be all the motivation these guys needed to finally get the hell out of dodge, so quickly, they left. Phew. I had lived to tell about my first big robbery! yay!
After the goons left, everyone sort of got up and made sure they were alright, and everything was n the right place. Meanwhile, There was this guy lying on the ground on his stomach, face down, sort of with his head in his arm. I watched as different people went up to him, tried to shake him a little, but ultamitley just left him lying, probably figuring he was traumitized or something.
At this point some people were really angry. They were pissed about being robbed. One of the dealers who was near my goes "there was a shot fired right? wheres the bullet?" and then he started pacing around saying, "fuck it, I knew it, we got robbed with fucking blanks! I can't believe shit!"
No more than a minute after his tirade, someone decided to turn the man who lying face down over, and sure enough, there was the "mystery" bullet. It was right in his stomach, and he was bleeding badly. I was standing right there, and I got a look at his face. I'll never forget that. You could see the life being sucked out of him, slowly but surely. That's when I left the club.

to be continued...