The kid walks into the poker room with a confident swagger and steps up to the front. "Hey Charlie. Can you put me on the list for the 10-20?" "Third up," Replied Charlie. The kid walks around the poker room and makes his daily round saying hi to regulars- conversing over the most recent bad beats and super suckouts. He's been riding on cloud nine. He's been on a terror. For the last few weeks, the kid had been making a killing at the 4-8 limit holdem. With just only $200, he was able to turn it around to $1500 dollars. A feat remarkable for any low limit grinder. Charlie announces that there is a seat open for the 10-20. The kid sits down full of arrogance with that feeling of "I'm the shit" oozing from his pores. Then it happens. He gets outplayed. Outraised. Sandwiched. Trapped. Suckered in. Sucked out. Drawn out. In less than 12 hours play, His bankroll is now back to $0.00. He went broke. That kid was me. From the beginning of my poker journey, approx late Sept 2003, I went broke so many times pushing my luck and inevitably deteriorating into a poker amoeba- one celled organism of non pokersense. I would build it up playing 4-8 and jeopardize my whole roll just to play one session of 10-20, 12-24, or 15-30. More times than less, the results were the same back to zero. Had to learn it the hard way- money management. Even though I thirst for the bigger game I had to be reasonable and not risk all my bankroll on one session. I had to force myself to use discipline and build it up so that I can have enough to handle some swings in a bigger. Six weeks ago I decided to do just that. I started with a bankroll of $1000 on 5/10/05 playing two tables of 5-10 limit. 2 weeks later, I was at 3k and jumped to three tables, 2 5-10 and 1 10-20. By my fourth week I had brought it up to $4200. The last two weeks I was playing 2-3 tables, varying my limits from 10-20, 15-30, and 20-40. I usually played one big game of either 15-30 or 20-40 and playing 10-20 or 5-10 in others. Never two games of 15-30 or 20-40 due to fear of a serious bad session. Never played too many hours and didn't play if I hit a rough patch in the session. Yesterday 6/21 I calculated my winnings at approx $9000. My bankroll had matured to $6000.00 and I had withdrawn $3000 in winnings for misc. Nonetheless, I was shits and giggles. Well it happened again. I pushed the envelope and wanted to build my bankroll quickly instead of grinding it out slowly. Thus I jumped into two 20-40 games and one 15-30. Quickly, I got snapped in two big pots costing me $750 in equity. The next two hours were worse as I got snapped, made bad plays while super steaming for 45 minutes. Three hours later I had become 3k poorer. One last fight to hedge losses, I became desperate and jumped into one 30-60 game. One big pot! One big pot! One big pot! Thats all I kept saying. And it happened. I hit two big pots making my $loss for the day 1900. Devastating blow to my roll and progress in achieving good discipline. In retrospect, I should have taken the 3k hit by sleeping it off instead of risking the last of it in a bigger game. The poker gods must have put pity on me. Still trying to learn that same lesson that keeps plaguing me. Poker is an Aggressive Tortoise's game. Long slow progression upwards with huge tough strides. Need to stop being a Hare. Sucks getting caught speeding. However, I believe this is everyone gamblers rite of passage, "getting broke". You have to feel the hurt, learn from it, to appreciate the wins and gains. The path to happiness is usually pathed with sorrow. Back to be being sad by winning money.

Source: Solving the Poker Puzzle