The story of a poker player

[KemKings]

"I've often seen these people, these sqaures, at the table. Short stacked and long odds against them, all their outs gone, one last card in the deck that can help them. I used to wonder how they could let themselves get into such bad shape, and how the hell they thought they could turn it all around."
-Rounders

This is how I feel right now. Today I just busted out on Party Poker and Ultimate Bet. On top of that my home game has been disbanded, one of best poker friends moved away, and I've gone bust at the casino. Now my bankroll is at a standstill at zero. Recently, poker has been a grind for me. But when it all started for me, things were different...
First Taste
I started playing poker when I was 10. My best friend tought me how to play five card draw and it caught on me like white on rice. I loved the game. We played nearly everyday. Usually by the end of the month we were both even. After we noticed this trend in our play we decided to expand. At school we would invite other kids to play with us and usually they left with nothing more than milk money. We made our own little bankrolls off those pint sized fish. We even developed our own system of chip placement and dealing. After 5 years of steady poker playing with my best bud he moved away and I stopped playing poker for the time being. Instead I got into selling my old baseball cards and memorabilia on eBay. I always found a way to make money without actually doing any real work. Eventually I ran out of things to sell and the money stopped coming in. A few months later one of my good friends brought over the movie Rounders to show me, he was also into poker. I was mezmorized by the film. I must have watched it 5 times that day. Texas Hold Em had become everyones game of choice. I loved it and we never really played anything besides hold em in our games. With my rekinddled passion for poker I decided to get back into the game. The friend who introduced me to Rounders helped me start up a home game and things picked up from there.

Home Games
Senior year at my highschool I became great friends with a guy named Kyle. He loved poker just as much as I did. He even had his own set of chips with his name embroidered on each one. I discovered he had his own weekly home game with about 10 other players. I jumped at the oppurtunity to play with them. All they played was Texas Hold em, which was right up my alley. Everything they used was professional, the table, the chips, the cards, and the players themselves acted professional. The high stakes action of Kyle's homegames broke my bankroll a few times, but I learned to adjust to the higher stakes and would find myself up $200 in one sitting. Kyle continued his homegames well into summer after school had ended and I had become good friends with many of the other players. So when it was time for college I was devasted that the game was breaking up. Therefore there was anouther lull in my poker career.

Rounder
In college I became quite the poker player. I cleaned up most home or dorm games. When people asked me what I did in my spare time poker was the first thing that popped into my head. I found myself thinking about poker at all times of the day. When my parents asked me what I wanted to do with my life I couldnt give them a straight answer. I started thinking about becoming a pro. Then one day one of my dorm buds introduced me to online poker at Ultimate Bet. The quick action and convience hooked me instantly to online poker. Little did I know it would be the darkest chapter in my poker career.

Online Poker - Present Day
I opened an account with Ultimate Bet and made small deposits at first. Aftet busting out 3 or 4 times I learned that I needed a bigger bankroll to sustain the No Limit tables that I was playing at. So I deposited enough to sustain a good number of bad beats and bust outs at tables. At first I played extremely well, within a week I had nearly tripled me bankroll. I decided to move up in limits and the no limit tables. This is when the storm of bad beats started to formulate. I would loose hands like KK vs. AK and hands were I would have the straight on the turn but the river would pair the board giving the other player a full house. At first I complained about these bad beats but then I realized I was playing alot more hands per hour than I had been in my home games and that the bad beats came just as frequently as they would at home. Then I started seeing flops like AAA, QQQ, and alike. I also witnessed awful sucks outs and quite a few quads. This led me to question the legitamacy of online poker. I went to a bunch of forums and found alot of players complaining about online poker being rigged, but I didnt really believe any of them. If the site gets a percentage of pot (rake) for each hand and there of thousands of hands going on at any given time, then there would be no extra incentive to rig the game for specific players. I ruled out that online poker was rigged and continued to play. Then one dark afternoon I completely busted out of Ultimate Bet after my bankroll had been dwindling on extinction. One specific hand stuck in my mind that I lost a good portion of my bankroll on. I had [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K, I raised $3 preflop and I got 3 callers. The flop came [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]K. I bet out $5 and got two callers. The turn came [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]K. With a great kicker and three of a kind I bet anouther $5, one player folded, and the BB re-raised me all-in, I called. River was a blank. Turns out big blind had [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]8 and took down the pot with a full house. I looked back at the hand history and saw he called my preflop raise. This isnt really a bad beat, but rather bad play on his part. At that point however I was so sick of being sucked out on I was enragged. I had lost about 10 hands where I was a 90% favorite on the turn and then the other player caught his one card in the deck to help him. After busting out on UB a friend told me about Party Poker and he said the site was full of fish. I downloaded the software and watched a few tables that were almost all fish. So I decided to switch to Party Poker. I made a fairly large intial deposit and play great at the no limit tables. I nealry quadrupled my bankroll within the first week. But this situation couldnt last, the fish had to start catching sometime... and they did. I started going on tilt and was continually sucked out on. Then the competition started getting better. It was as if all the fish had been caught. When my friend was playing I witnessed his AA get cracked by a 67 offsuit who called his allin with a pair of sixes on the board and he caught a 6 on the turn to win it. With my bankroll deminished I started having doubts about online poker and after a few more bad beats that I endured on huge pots my bankroll was down to its last $100. I sat at a NL100 table determined to work my way bank up (even though it would take alot of working). I played tight for the first hour, then I got [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]6 in MP and limped along with 6 other people seeing the flop. The flop comes [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q. EP bets $3 and I re-raise him to make it $12, everyone folds but EP who re-raises me to $18. At this point I am sick of suck outs and I re-raise him all-in, he calls! Turn is a blank and the river is [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q. I think yes-a full house- I've surely won. But alas, the chips are pushed over to EP and I see that his hole cards are a [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6. I was disgusted. I later calculated the odds of the hand and I was a 90% favorite on the flop. So at this point I had busted out of Ultimate Bet and Party Poker. I took a few weeks break and then redeposited on Party Poker today. Within the first hour I had lost half my bankroll on stupid hands and two hours in I busted out again.

Looking Forward
At present time my online bankroll is at 0, my home game bankroll is at 0, and my casino bankroll is at 0. I cant helped but feel short changed. I consider myself to be pretty good at poker and everyday I read about people cashing out thousands from online sites. Where did I go wrong? The storm of bad beats never really cleared, but that is no reason I should completely bust out. At this point I feel like Matt Damon's character in Rounders after he busts out and takes the job as a truck driver. I am torn between giving up poker all together or trying to build a new bankroll. Everytime I get online I feel an urge to play on Party Poker or Ultimate Bet, I cant tell wheather this is an addiction or my thrist for victory and money. Maybe I am playing the game of poker for the completely wrong reasons, because when I first started playing it was all about fun. I just dont know what to think about the game anymore...