2008: The best year of my life

It's finally over and I could not feel better about it being over.

December ended pitifully because I can't catch a break.

This is how the year ended up.

I started in April as I had quit poker in December after a bunch of shit in my life had fallen apart.

In April I started working a job for my dad/brother's business. I don't really make much money and don't really have a lot of responsibility but I could not be more grateful then I am right now to have a job considering our economy. I am not going to lie, they more or less did this for me as an act of charity. They did not need me but I don't really have any relationship with either of them and they were generous enough to help me out and also wanted me in their lives.

I more or less make enough to barely pay my bills and any other money that I spend comes from poker. Fortunately, I am a total Jew when it comes to my money and have become a master at frugality. So, I very rarely use poker money to pay for anything else. At least not at this point in my life.

So after my first week working for my dad/brother I took $300 off my very first check and deposited it into Cake and had a 33% rakeback deal. I started off playing NL20 which is a $20 buyin NL cash game. The rest is all history. This is how I did.

April (Mid April-Mid May) $2400
May (Mid May-End May) $2700
June $2170 (I actually lost money playing poker but made a killing in rakeback)
July $4477 (Second best month ever playing poker)
August $2700
September $1560
October $290
November $1400
December $-370

Total: $17327.00

That number includes live poker and sportsbetting.

I had a horrible year sportsbetting and lost approximately $1000-$1500. I had my worst day ever sportsbetting and I have never been more upset in my life with gambling then I am right now. More on that later.

Look at the last 4 months of my poker playing. Wow, I hope that changes. I only made $2900 during that time and I think I would have rather have not played at all during that interval. The only thing that makes me slightly happy is that I was putting in much lesser volume during that time. In the early months when I was doing really well I was playing absolutely obsessively. I literally had no life. I would come home from work and start playing poker immediately. I would usually play until I went to bed. I swore off women during that time and my social life definitely was hurt as a result. I have no regrets about any of that because I think it needed to be done. My guess would be that I was playing about 60 hours of poker per week from April-Mid September.

The last few months I have skipped a lot of days but have had some of my most legendary benders. I have had several sessions that have gone 18-20 hours in length. Unfortunately, I never had any major wins during any of those benders. Minus the benders my estimation would be that I was playing probably about 20-30 hours per week. My social life for the most part is doing much better and I am casually seeing someone.

As for the sportsbetting story. This is seriously fucking terrible and this is installment #64 in the story of my life and why I will never become wildly successful in my life.

I had intentions of betting huge on the Rose bowl game between USC and Penn State. I initially was going to bet $600 and then decided to up the number to $1000.

In order to bet that much I needed some help.

My friend Kevin degen is a professional gamber and makes most of his money handicapping sports. He was going to lay the bet down for me and we would pay each other cash win or lose.

I saw him last night and decided to up my bet to $1500 and he told me that he would do it for me. I told him to call me the next day when the bet was placed and I wanted to know what my line was and what the payout was.

I get a hold of him 30 minutes before the game and he tells me that he is capped out with his main bookie as he has $16K of his own money on the game. He tries to get a hold of his secondary bookie but could not reach him. I then offered to purchase some of his action and he refused.

Because this is the story of my life I miss out on betting $1500 which would have been a great way to start my year and of course USC kicked the shit out of Penn State and I get fucked out of $1500.

If any of you ever wondered what it is like to be me that more or less exemplifies it. Constant missed opportunities and constantly getting fucked over.

I know that if I wanted the bet I should have just made it myself but making a bet of that magnitude was impossible as I do not have the neccessary funds electronically. I did have the cash in my hands which is why I was willing to place the wager.

This just better not be a sign of a fucked up year to come.