[PShabi]

Oh boy....DISAPPOINTED is not strong enough. I started playing midway through '03 and profited around $3k. In '04, I tripled that. In '05, I had my best year profitting around $13k. I moved out here at the end of '06 and my career outside of poker became abundantly more important to me. I still squeaked out $6k. In '07, I played very little. I wasn't motivated at all and my abilitiy compared to the ability of my opponents wasn't as good as it used to be. The games got much tougher. Still, I was able to profit a little bit. I made around $3500 (w/o digging up my tax records).

Fast forward to '08 and my poker career is basically dead. I barely play. I go 2-3 weeks w/o sitting down for a session. When I do, I seemingly log a losing session everytime. the games are so much tougher than they used to be. I do absolutely nothing to improve my game. I have no motivation to play. I just looked at my records, honestly, for the first time as a whole for '08. You guys ready for my staggering numbers?????

-$345.

Yep. I lost $345 this year. What a fucking joke. I figured I was right around break even. What used to be a passion, is damn near nothing to me. Now, if I was still able to make money like I used to, maybe I'd be more motivated to play. Who knows? The fact is I don't care about poker. A 3 month downswing for me today would've been two weeks worth of hands a few years ago. When you aren't playing many hands and you are losing when you do play, it's a bitch.

I look back at my "career" and realize that it was a substantial amount of money for a "hobby." I'm happy with that. I wish I could still do what I used to, but I'm afraid poker has passed me by. In my passion to play and learn, but also my ability compared to those I compete with.

Recently, I cashed out to pay for Christmas. My FTP account has $380 in it right now. I'll fuck around with that, probably playing $1/2 LHE (lol, oh fuck) and see if I can flip it into something substantial. If not, I'll still be around for the community and friendship but other than that, bye bye poker.