So I was in a state of panic and I didnt sleep that night. The next day I was in class and was bored and pulled up 2 full ring 1/2 nl tables. I bought in for $100 in each. In that class period I made $200. I wish I could remember the hands. If I would have lost $200 I might have not stuck with those games but lucky for me I did win. I also need to mention that I only played NL cash games once before. It was about a year prior and I got all-in AA to AA and lost. I decided I hated them after that hand, lol. I dont know exactly how but over the next 2 weeks I got up to 2k and eventually to 5k by a month. I was back and rolling. I was making about 1600 in rakeback and cleaning up for about 8bb per 100 hands for a couple months when I hit a big score. I had about 9k in my account and I played the $109 on UB. I won it for about $6500. After that I played all the big mtt's on UB along with still grinding the cash games. I prob had about 10 1k-3k scores in a 3 month period.

It is now December 2006 and I am rolling with about 18k in my account and living a pretty fast lifestyle. I ate at fancy restaurants, paid for my gf to accompany me on all of my junior bowlign trips, and didnt see any sign of slowing. I won another $109 on UB for $8750. I went to vegas from the 25-30th for a junior event and one night I stayed up all night in my hotel room because I went on a sick rush in PLO. Previously I have played it a few times but never any memorable success. I think I actually decided to play because I just watched a omaha vid. I opened up 2 1/2 tables anyways. Dropped a buy-in instantly and almost quit. Somehow I got it all in with AAxx against KKxx and doubled up so I kept playing. What happened over the next 5 hours I will never forget. I made $200 on one table but on the other table I ran my $200 buy-in up to $2400. I dont have any memorable hands but I remember creeping out of bed at 7am about to leave the room and my gf caught me and got all mad. She was questioning why I was leaving and I was like, "I'm pumped up 2 g's im getting a fatburger". I wish I could say I ran it up to 40k and lost it to sbrugby in a bad beat but I pretty much donated it back over the next few days as I had no clue how to play really.

I wish I could call this a success story but its really not. Its almost typical. I am from a house with no extra money really. I have a loving family and wouldnt replace them for anything but putting this much money into a kids hand who a year before made minimum wage just isn't a good idea.

Last month I visited home and went thru all my old papers I used to track my money on. I had peaked at 36k in early January 2007. By march I had 8k. I went on the worst downswing of my life. I couldnt hit a tournament and was losing at least 1500 every sunday in mtt's. The part that hurt the most is the shot.

I think every poker player success/failure story involves the taking of shot. We have all seen rounders. My shot did in fact occur in cash games too. I have never told anybody really the details as it is embarassing. I have actually never even told anybody how much i was rolled up to. I mean I had a ton of money. I knew in the fall I would soon be attending school in Missouri and would need to have money saved for expenses but I was never happy with making as much as I did and this has a lot to do with CR pro Ian Johns.

Ian J is from the same area as me. He is as you all know a LHE specialist. If you ask him he will tell you that he started to play poker seriously because of my dad. Seeing my dad make all this money playing cards online inspired him. In fact when we would be at junior events together him, my dad, and I would talk about poker in between frames. Ian quickly became good as he studies real hard and never withdrew money in the beginning. He started out as an mtt pro. He reached as high as 24 I think on the old pocketfives rankings. With his mtt winnings he was able to move up stakes in his LHE cash games. He eventually chopped the sunday million from his Bellagio hotel room and later that year won a wsop bracelet. He was also the best junior bowler in our area and I considered myself to be 2nd. He is 2 years older then me and went adult at 19 where as I am still a junior at 21. The difference is I win scholarship money and adults win cash.

Just like in bowling I always wanted to beat him. Don't get me wrong I love the guy. He is a good friend still but him and I were rivals and I wanted his lifestyle. I think I have set the settign enough for the shot. In 4 weeks I lost 20k on UB. In fact it was all my money I had on their site. I had to withdrawal all my money from other sites to get it some back on there. It was lost from 5/10 to 25/50. I dont think I slept very much those months and my gf never knew why I was so on edge in that time period. It was a bad time of my life. I never told anybody because so many people would have loved to keep on grinding and making as much as I did but I...blew it. It took me a long time to get over it. I talked to my school counselor and he put it into perspective. Teh money is gone and I wont get it back. only way is to get back on the saddle. My parents didnt know but I dropped out of school then too. Nothing was goign right. I had to loan out a few g's to people who needed it and pay for my summer expenses in advance and once again I was down to nearly nothing.

to be cont'd