I Dreamed a Dream...

Almost five years ago I discovered poker and fell in love. Like too many loves in our lives things don't always go as we hope. We fall in love but who or what we love doesn't love us back or things just go wrong or we fall out of love. Sometimes we have to know when to say goodbye and when to hang on. I fear the time is coming for me to say goodbye to poker, at least for a good while.

When I first started playing I felt I was better at poker than anything I'd ever tried in my whole life. I studied and worked hard and things were really going well for awhile. Black Friday happened and everything changed. I ran so good on PokerStars and there were so many opportunities to make money. Since Black Friday it's been a constant struggle. A struggle to get paid, a struggle to find decent games to play, a struggle to even beat the games available. 

About a year ago I got my first backer and overall the experience was a great one. I learned a lot from the other players in the stable and it was an experience I'd recommend to anyone serious about their poker game. My backers were the greatest and I couldn't have asked for a better situation. I was with them for ten months but after a couple of bouts of runbad, and maybe some playbad, it just didn't make good financial sense for them to keep backing me. I didn't really lose much money for them at all, everything considered. Probably not even much over $1,000 but they didn't make money from me and that's what they're in business to do. We parted with no hard feelings on either part and I'd go back to them in a heartbeat. 

Since losing my backing, and looking at other offers that I just haven't found appealing, and trying unsuccessfully to play on my own dime for the last 5 weeks or so I've decided it's time to give it a rest. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate giving up on my game but it just seems inevitable right now. 

I wish I had the money, and/or backing to play live, it's so much more fun and live is so much easier than online. There is just so much information available as opposed to online and the fields are generally softer in relation to the buy ins but alas that's just not a financial option right now. 

One of my favorite quotes is "You will eventually run worse than you ever thought possible, the difference in a winner and a loser is that the later thinks they don't deserve it". It's certainly not about deserving it, it's just part of the game. You weather the storm as long as you can and when for whatever reason you can no longer weather that storm you get the hell out of it's way. 

I'm hoping to find a part time job soon, wish me luck - I need it, and spend sometime away from the game. Maybe sooner or later I'll be back, maybe not, who knows at this point. I can't imagine giving up the game completely even if it may actually be the best thing I can do. I hope I can find my love for the game again at some point down the road but for now it's time to say goodbye. 

I'm sure I'll still blog occasionally, hopefully about my adventures back into the work-a-day world but until then adios. 

...and just to be clear this isn't a poor, pitiful running bad me post, I'm serious.