Wow, How it ALL Started...

I remember it like it was yesterday...I swear. I was in Spanish 2 in high skool with a complete bonehead teacher. The class however, was very funny and friendly, with a really pleasant chemistry that is rare. Anyway, I was 15 1/2 years old, a sophomore, fairly naiive, JUST getting started int live poker after the Moneymaker Revolution from the 2003 WSOP was in full swing. This was with friends, barely after learning the rules and what was considered a good hand. We would play $5 buyin, $.05 and $.10 blinds (at least decent structure), and the big game was $10 $.25/.50 cent (LMAO 20bb!). Neway, I was fairly uncomfortable playing for more than $5 at a time. I hated to bluff, and after I read Championship No Limit and Pot Limit Hold'Em, I thought i'd have a real edge on the competition (my three friends). Turns out not really, and I was getting VERY frustrated with poker. I wuz a fairly big nit and just not aggro enough. I would NEVER cbet. I would play quite a few pots in position, and had a good idea of TAG opening ranges, but it was shorthanded, and I was playing like it was a full ring table...Neway, I would NEVER cbet. I would check my hands all the way down to the river after raising preflop, then making about a PSB or even an overbet, whether I had a big hand or air. My friends were all calling stations, so by the river I had to have it a decent amount of the time. Jeez, It's ridiculous to think how much I've learned from playing on the internet. Neway, back to what I was saying about the spanish class. One day, a friend and I were chatting about poker, and the kid behind me who has been quiet almost all year, said "I play online on PokerStars." We inquired what limits, and he said 5/10. We were like "Oh we've played 5/10 cent before." He sheepishly grins and says, "No, $5/$10 dollars." I was speechless! Back then on Pstars, 5/10 and 10/20 were the biggest games online, and VERY tough with people like H@LL just cleaning up. To think, he was barely older than me and winning there! So, to make a long story short,got $10 on pstars, lost it, but was hooked on success. Over that year, a friend and I constantly dreamed about getting a decent roll by playing .01/.02 online and some SNGs, up to 45man. We THOUGHT we had it down quite a few times, but really just didn't. There are so many key factors of playng that weren't addressed in T.J.'s book, and to think about it, his book really only applied to being a complete weak-tight nit back in the old days in a tournament with a slow structure. The complete opposite is today- many players on the internet are now young, brash, intelligent, and have many tools at their disposal and are very willing to improve by getting themself engulfed in the online poker community (2+2, p5's, etc). Anyway, slowly I actually started to win, played a bit of .05/.10. I ended up winning a total of $140 after about 4 or 5 months of winning and thinking tons about poker, even at those bitch limits, and I was very happy. I decided to move over to PartyPoker with my friend. I actually borrowed $500, took it to the .10/.25 games (HUGE to me at the time), and never looked back. Grinded, had good tilt control, and worked up to $4k roll and playing $1/$2 nl at 4tables at a time. However, I just couldn't beat the game. I would get fancy play syndrome, and hubris got ahold of me. My ago wuz pretty sick, and it was ridic to think about how much I thought I could outplay people; I just don't know what I was thinking. About after a month of playing fairly bad but also runnin pretty poorly and getting frustrated, I lost all of my hard work $4k on Partypoker that was earned in around 9 months, in 1 month. I was devastated. I felt like shit- my grades sorta dropped, my self esteem was low, and I was embarrased to think how a high-school kid could lose fuckin $4k which was a fuckload of $ to my friends. It was more of a public humilitation, considering poker was considered my biggest talent, and here I did just fucking it all up. Yea...but a light from the end of the tunnel came! I got coached by my friend after turning 18, played on Full Tilt and made an account, and learned how to play LAG. I have tuned it a bit from what he tought me, but he tought me very well. I learned when to bet and when not to in many different situations. Honestly after one lesson, I just saw so fckin clearly. It cost me $40/hour ($120), but I earned $600 that session plus around 40 in RB so I was set. Neway, I grinded that into $20k roll in 2 FCKIN WEEKS! I ran hot as fuck and never had the opportunity to tilt because I didn't hav ea losing day in two weeks. Neway, cashed out a lot just because it's gratifying, had a $12k roll, and then started to run sorta bad. I played $5/$10 HU plo with a $12k roll=BIG MISTAKE! I lost 4 buyins that one night in that game, which was RELE sick after booking a decent win earlier that day at $2/$4 nl (about $1k). This guy just ran like fucking G-d against me, and I got my money in good EVERY SINGLE TIME. Problem is, PLO, especialy HU, is the most unreal swingy game imaginable, and not for the weak at heart. Yea, so I had $9k now, and slowly lingered around that. I cashed that out and was happy with $6k. My prayers had come true- I finally earned back that $4k I lost on PartyPoker and could sleep at night knowing I made a good profit doing something I love and it gave me tons of confidence. However, for the next few months (up until now), I really have run mediocre, playing pretty well, but my roll management has been ridiculously bad. I now know that I'm not quite old enough or mature enough (even though 18 is legally okay to play online) to handle the swings of internet poker and be disciplined. That is why I want to play once in a while when I feel like it, because when I really want to play, I think I play truly great and rarely make ANY mistakes in a session, and can book a good win as long as I don't run like total shit. I've come a long way in 2 1/2 years, and boy, what a ride. MANY changes of fortune, but I have learned that hard work, dedication, and studying of the game pays off. I wouldn't change anything about those past few years, because I have made many parallels between life and poker, and poker has also helped me analyze a few other fields. Besides, I'm planning on studying finance in college, and so when I do, I feel i'll have a slight edge with all this poker knowledge on different aspects, especially dealing with risk and reward/ROI stuff. At least all this work is for something. I definitely just wanted to get that out reflecting; I rele like blogs for that reason because you can rele see all the ups and downs plainly, but most importantly, see the big picture of how far one has come through all the triumphs and struggles.