Hello,
I wasn't sure if I should start a topic but.. wtf.. let's do it

So I discovered poker in 2005. Registered to a romanian forum, learned the rules and played freerolls. After 1 month i won my first 14 cents! Wow.. I was the best. In late 2005 or early 2006 I've made my first deposit. 15$ to play a private tournament and I took 1st for a little over 150$. I was playing very rarely.. probably 1 MTT per week or even less. I wasn't playing for the money (because I didn't know you can make money so easy). I was doing for competition. To register with a friend in same freeroll and see who is last man standing..
In early 2008 the forum's admin came with idea to make a SNG Leaderboard - thank you Sever !. The winner will receive a small prize (a poker book usually). That's COMPETITION !
So I checked all the poker websites to find one with the best rakeback deal, I gathered the money from all the websites I was fooling around and made a 250$ deposit on an Ongame skin.
100% bonus. 60 days to release it. Made the math.. 62.5% rakeback. GREAT.
I was pretty sure I will loose all the money but after all I've invested only 15$
Started to play 10 men SNGs with 10$ buy in. I was playing only 1 table at a time. Super nit super solid. Then I realized I don't have enough time to release the bonus so I added 1 more table: 20$ SNG - 5 men.
Release the bonus in 60 days and made a profit too. I think I had around 750$ in my account. A lot of money !
The skin was great, many italian and french bad players. You could "buy" a bonus to release using poker points so that kept me busy. I was playing 10$ and 20$ SNGS - 2 tables at a time.
After 3 months I decided I have to invest some money ! Paid 150$ subscription to a known (at that time) poker training website ( I will not say it;s name) and started to watch SNG and MTT videos. After 2 or 3 months I was crushing SNGS - Thank you Sheets !
I kept playing 2 or 3 tables only, but increased the limit. 10 men 50$ SNG !
In november 2008 I had 8000$ .
Made a withdraw and had a trip to Las Vegas. Live poker was different. The rake was HUGE, the structure way to fast. My nitty style was not so profitable. Anyway it was a great experience.
I kept playing normal speed 50$ SNGs and from time to time 100$ SNG (this was the highest limit). No hud but making A LOT of notes on players. I knew every reg at the tables. Meantime I was crushing the games.

Brag: Results are still available on sharkscope



It went great, but now I feel sorry I wasn't playing more.
I was busy with college and I was having fun overall.
Then the italian and french players got segregated. The SNG games got much tougher. So I decided to switch to cash. Started with 30NL and moved fast at 50nl. Moved to bwin (ongame network) for the private tables and learned a new poker term: BUMHUNTING ! I was looking for the biggest fish and I was playing only against them. Played at 100NL with shots to 200nl and 400nl chasing some big fish. I was having fun, I was playing drunk. It was easy money. Nice times... I don't have the HM stats anymore

Then bwin moved to party network. Here I had my worst downswing and it was also in a very bad time. After I withdraw more than 50% of my bankroll. I had to go down to 50nl and I had to be more serious about poker. I realised I was an average player, but I was making money only because of good table selection and because on ongame the regs were very nitty and straight forward. Started to see more poker videos and analyze my game. However in this period I needed more money and I was withdrawing monthly so i could not go back to 100nl.

Last year gambling law for Romania was making progress and players didn't knew what to expect. Maybe RO will be segregated too? Maybe the taxes will be so high that it will be impossible to make a profit? Poker was risky so I made a big change.

Withdraw all my money, moved with my girlfriend in another town to help her with a toy supermarket. We had a small enthusiast team but with no experience. Since I was "the brain" I started to learn how to do everything. We were working every day 12 hours / day until we snapped. Made a new schedule (still very busy) but at least we have 2 days off and only 2 days/week work 12 hours.

The money are good for Romania: about 670 euro each, but it's a lot of stress, I need to take care for almost anything and I can't quit. I feel I am trapped - looking back at the good days when I was making $1000 in one Saturday and having fun !

On top of that when I made some medical tests (in a VERY stressful period) I found a very high blood pressure 180/12 - and I'm only 34yo. Took 3 days off made more medical tests and the good news is that everything seems fine. Heart is ok, kidneys are ok, thyroid is ok. I just need to be less stressed. Easy to say.. hard to do..
Taking some pills to became more careless Eating healthy, less salt, less sugar and repeat tests after 2 months. Right now I'm around 150/8. Still high..

Now the poker legislation for Romania is ready. Only a few websites got licence: Pokerstars/Fulltilt, Unibet, Betfair, Netbet and Winmasters.

Last year in november made a $1200 deposit on stars to play on 50NL and this is my graph



Mostly poor play. Could not adjust to stars regs - more aggressive than I am used.

I didn't wait to get busted. I stopped when I had around 200$ left and decided to start from 10NL. But I have no motivation to play. I play a little to finish the daily stars mission and then I stop.

I saw the 77 000 rakerace and I think this will motivate me. It's COMPETITION ! I don't have enough time to be in top 100 - I play only 6 tables - but I think I can be in top 700.

Now I wait to see if my betfair account can be retaged.
I would love to deposit 200$ on betfair and maybe stream a little on pokervip's twitch channel By the way I streamed once or twice on PokerVip's channel before leaving hometown. It's fun even if my English is poor.

So this will be a new poker journey or I will get bored and depressed and quit in 2 weeks?
We will see..