The rise, the fall, and the helpful stranger
Frosty, Dec 08 2007
Seeing as this is my first blog post, I'll add a little backstory.
I'm a regular student from the Netherlands, 19, in my second year.
During the summer, with some of my friends, I discovered poker. Together, we donked away lots of money on online sites we got for free, it's lots of fun to pull stupid stuff, especially when alcohol and friends are involved 
We're also watching almost any tv-show about poker that airs here, even though they're always between 0 and 2 am. (Damn tv programming  )
We also started playing some live tourneys together, for pocket change, sng's with 5 euro buy-in or so. Most of my friends aren't very competitive though, but I started reading lots of poker theory online, and liquidpoker.net, since I knew it from teamliquid.net. Needless to say, it's helped me tons, and I keep pwning my friends in those little sng's we do
About 2 months however, I took up the idea to start playing online, seriously this time, not just donking away all the money. With a bit I still had left on CDPoker and TitanPoker (around 10$ combined) I tried out some strats I read on the net, and I gradually got into it. Seeing however as it wasn't a real bankroll to start with, I kinda eliminated the rolls on dubious all-ins.
After that, now confident of my game at microstakes, I signed up for a promotion on PartyPoker. I got 25$ free, and I would get another 50$ if I completed the requirement of 200 partypoints. I quickly saw microstakes here weren't a real challenge either, and that my strategy (basically just being an ubernit, somewhere around 12/11 or so) worked perfectly fine.
However, most people know poker has variance. Most people have proper bankroll management to counter variance. I know the rules, there's just not much you can do when you only have a 30$ roll, which means you have 7 buy=ins for the smallest limit.
The competition here is soft, and money is easily taken from them. Lady Luck, however, is hard, and easily takes money away from me. I so far have lost a streak of around 10 90% favorite situations. As I said, 10 buy-ins is always a problem, but normally you'd just move down a limit. Here, it's not possible. I just tried to combat it by trying not to tilt, and having relatively short sessions.
Sadly, it did not work.
So now, I'm busto, after around 2 weeks of playing.
I just lost my last few dollars, with a very loose guy reraising from the button, me reraising and him pushing. I obviously called with my QQ, and he showed 46o. Lady Luck showed a cruel grin and laid down a full house for him on the flop. I did not improve, and watched his greedy hands hoard my chips. After refreshing the account part of my poker client, I sadly watch to see Balance: $0 USD In play: $0USD Partypoints: 122. I did not even get to complete my full bonus promotion.
Normally, I have the perseverance of ... well, something that's really persevering, but I think I have to throw in the towel this time. I have no money left, and in real life I'm a student without a job, and poor.
The only option is to get staked, for which I would pay liberally at the end of the month, but no one here knows me enough to prove I'm not a scammer, which is understandable, of course.
So this has been my short, but enjoyable journey. I loved reading the liquidpoker forums, as they are full of interesting and hilarious topics. I love the game, and all its intricacies, but I will have to resort to playing it live with my friends, who are sadly enough not as interested in the game as I am.
So long, and thanks for all the fishes. And donks.
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