obv doing it wrong 
Hello fellow poker players,
I’m a 33 years old Belgian dude living in Cambodia. I started playing poker back in 2007 in Belgium. My first few deposits I quickly lost but I deeply fell in love with the game. I started reading every book I could find. The Sit 'n Go book by Moshman was my bible for years. I started playing the lowest stakes SNG’s and moved up slowly but surely to the $60 level.
When Rush poker came around I was immediately hooked. I started playing 25NL 6max Rush and by the time Full Tilt closed in 2011 I was playing 100NL 6max Rush regularly (and taking shots at 200NL). I had joined DeucesCracked, discovered 2+2 and kept reading every poker book I could find.
I don't have exact stats about that period anymore. But between 2007-2011 I turned my initial deposits of about $200 into $15K playing SNG's and Rush poker. It had a day job back then and didn't really care about the money. I just wanted to run the number in my Full Tilt cashier up as high as possible. Anyway, I had good months and bad months. But my PokerTracker graph looked the opposit of what it does today.
When Black Friday hit the US, I withdrew most of my money from Full Tilt. When they closed down worlwide I deposited some money on Stars and started playing 100NL 6max. I was under-bankrolled and over-confident. I quickly lost $1K. That was that. With Full Tilt gone and PokerStars obviously rigged (just kidding! ♦) I wandered away from poker.
In 2012 I took a sabbatical from my day job to go travel the world.
By the end of 2012 I found myself in Cambodia without any desire to leave. That’s when online poker entered my life again. This time I looked at it as a means to make money. So 2013 became my first year as a ‘professional poker player’. It was a joke. I seriously lacked self-discipline. I lived in a beachtown. I partied hard and played poker very little. Between hangovers and parties I burned money at the 50NL 6max tables on PokerStars. That’s the first 100k hands in the graph above.
My liferoll dwindled. By the time I was almost broke and ready to go back to Belgium I suddenly inherited a nice sum of money (yeah, life’s pretty absurd at times). The inheritance gave me an opportunity to chance things. I also had a serious girlfriend by now. Together we left the beach town and bought a small piece of land in the countryside. We build a nice, little house on that land. We got some pigs and chickens and started growing some vegetables. My girlfriend got pregnant. 9 months later a beaufiul baby boy was born.
In the mean time I was very dedicated to poker again. This time taking it more seriously than ever before. I took a Cardrunners subscription, actively watched tons of videos, took notes, read forms, played around with Equilab, listened to poker podcasts, etc. Being far away from the temptations of the city and being responsible for my pregnant girlfriend (now girlfriend and son) made me put all my effort, energy and time in poker.
At first it was smooth sailing. I deposited $800 at 888poker and withdrew $1600 about a month later by playing regular 6max games (50NL and 100NL). Then I started playing 50NL Zoom on Stars. There I turned $500 into $1500 into $0. Frustrated I left Stars again. Then I moved to iPoker to play 20NL Speed poker. This time I turned $500 into $800 into $80….
That’s were I'm today.
The graph above shows all the hands I played during my time in Cambodia (2013 - today)
I keep striving to improve. I review my sessions, post hand in forums, try to figure things out in Equilab, read and think and write about poker. But my graph keeps going the wrong way…
I got a few more months of living expenses in the bank but I desperatly need to find a way to turn things around.
The good news: 
We own our own house and live on the Cambodian countryside. I’ve got an awesome girlfriend and a beautiful 5 week old son. Life is awesome. Life is also cheap in these parts. We don’t need much for expenses. Electricity isn’t always super reliable but our internet connection is decent. I have plenty of time to play and study poker. Achieving a winrate of 2BB/100 at 50NL Zoom/Speed would already go a long way in covering our expenses.
The bad news:
I’m obviously not winning. 
My poker journey has been a solo trip thus far. This is the first time I sat down and told my story. Any questions, comments or advice are greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading.
English isn’t my first language.
I aplogise for lousy grammar and/or spelling.
