Ignition Poker Review (2021) Is Ignition Poker Legit ...

I've been on a 13 year break from poker. Back in the early to mid 2000s, I played quite a bit, almost exclusively live 200NL cash games in casinos and backrooms, but also some online on Ultimate Bet (keep in mind, this was before the UB scandal, and way before Black Friday). I did pretty well for myself, never lost money, but never made enough to consider quitting my day job. Not really sure why I stopped. Just came home from a trip to Vegas in 2007 and... did other things. Never even really gave it much thought until now.
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With covid in full swing (which I take seriously), and living in a colder region of the US, as outdoor activities have begun to wane, I've begun fearing the boredom this winter is going to bring. Somehow, I started thinking about poker again. Then about a month ago, YoutubeTV randomly "recommended" old reruns of WPT (Google can read my thoughts?). I started watching more poker on TV. Then I started half heartedly playing Zynga, not so much for the action, but just to see if I could still calculate the odds like I could back then. It was fun, and I found myself most nights sitting on my couch playing for play money while watching TV. And so now I'm wondering... can online poker be a good pastime for the dead of winter?
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I've read a million posts on here, read the where to play wiki, studied up a bunch on how the game has changed in the past 13 years, etc etc. But in all of that, I've also read a ton of horror stories, including this latest one, and now I'm nervous. Are these horror stories true? I am US based, and comfortable using bitcoin, but are sites like Ignition and ACR really as shady as they sound? Are there any truly above board online poker rooms, or is it all bots and withdrawal runarounds? If I play for money, will I ever see the fruits of my labor, or am I better off sticking with Zynga and 5 all in calls per round?
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I'm never going to quit my day job, but I love the math of the game, and I feel like it could be a good way to spend the dark days of winter. I just don't want to get ripped off. Your input is appreciated!

Hello poker fam,
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Is there anyway to reduce the lag and improve the functionality of Ignition Casino? I love to play the MTTs on Iggy, but their software is SLOW and HORRIBLE. Also, I use other poker rooms like GP, BOL and ACR... all three of those rooms operate flawlessly on my laptop. This issue is particular to Iggy for some reason.
Is there any type of setting I change to reduce the lag on Ignition? Or perhaps something I can download that would help?
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(... and yes, I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the client)

Trigger warnings re suicidal behaviours, violent behaviours, self harm, and probably a bunch of other stuff.
I don't know if 3rd person recounts are okay here, feel free to remove if not (I have it saved) and if there's a subreddit specifically for this kind of thing I'd appreciate some pointers.
This writing process is just part of my catharsis. Maybe other's can relate, I don't know if it would be helpful or not to others, there's a lot of stuff in this story I am deeply ashamed of, but I figure this is a safe space to tell my story, even if I am probably the villain in the piece.
Fade out, into bedroom, morning...
He woke with a sharp breath, eyes wide open as a sudden shock of adrenaline flooded warmly from his abdomen, igniting his senses.
He wasn’t dreaming before he woke, nor did he remember where or when he fell asleep; this would dawn on him soon. For a minute at least, he had no idea where, or even who he was.
Muffled sounds of the television floated into the room from beyond. To his side, a grey wall confronted him, virtually featureless save for a deep, dark gouge that penetrated the plaster, chiselled at least an inch deep into the breeze block beneath by some strong, angular object.
A visceral instinct clutched at the rapidly fading vestiges of oblivion, steeling his slowly awakening mind against the inevitable clarity of day.
His eyes drifted downward, almost by their own will. A trail of colourful debris spread across the grey carpeted floor. He recognised these objects as his own junk: Empty wrappers, an unfinished book (still intact), a scattering of coins, some old shopping receipts, his glasses, some odd socks, and a small handful of odds and ends.
This was stuff that he usually stashed out of sight and mind in the drawers beside his bed.
Drawers that were oddly absent from their familiar place beside his head.
Propping himself up unsteadily on his elbow, he took a more sweeping view of the room. He groaned and sighed as his gaze finally came to rest on the object of destruction.
The heavy wooden bedside table lay near the foot of the bed, its drawers spewed haphazardly across the floor, beneath what must have been a spectacular flight path the previous evening.
Like a series of lead weights, pieces of the puzzle dropped into place, flashes of memories yanking his mind to sobriety.
The drinking.
The casino.
The staircase.
The plastic bag.
The wall.
The screaming.
He quickly packed these images away, but they lay in wait beneath the surface of his awareness, poised to strike at any moment.
Rolling again onto his back, he pulled the blankets over his head and tried in vain to retreat to the safety of oblivion. Sweet, peaceful nothingness was all he desired right then and there. If some spirit had entered the room and whisked his soul off into the beyond, he’d have welcomed it without a second thought.
His body shook with tremors, and the dull ache of injuries began to throb gently across his body. “Too much alcohol” he thought. “Too much fucking alcohol.”
As he lay in the dimly lit room more scraps of the previous night assailed him, little more than still images in random order. Everything else was a blackout. He felt the bruises along his arms, his head ached, his fists were swollen. Probably had a serious concussion, hence the memory loss. That and the drinking.
In his fugue state, hours passed, it seemed, before eventually his wife entered the room with a soft click of the door handle.
He held his breath.
“You awake sweetie?” she asked in a soothing, caring voice. Such kindness only served to deepen his self loathing.
He exhaled. “Mmm.”
Wordlessly, she walked over to her side of the bed and lay down, laying her soft arm across his shoulders. He winced slightly from contact with some bruises on his back that he hadn't noticed yet.
He sighed deeply again.
“Oh, lovely...” she whispered, squeezing him gently.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered back, still unsure of the exact thing he was sorry for, but he knew it was pretty bad. “I’m so sorry...”
She squeezed again, the seemingly undeserved love in her touch flooding him with a rough mix of self-hatred and a tiny spark of hope.
“The wall...” he said, groggily.
“And the stairs. And your computer...” she sighed.
He struggled to visualise the relevance of these words. “The computer?”
“You punched the screen. It just shows colourful patterns now.” She giggled, an odd counterpoint that sliced through the sombre atmosphere like breaking glass.
Why does she accept this? He thought. I’m a fucking monster.
“Oh...” he said, wondering idly what the bill of damages would be. “Are you... okay?”
She hesitated. “You didn’t hurt us. Just... broke things. And you were screaming, just screaming. The neighbours must have heard...”
_Like a wild animal. A fucking monster. _
She continued. “You were pretty hard on the girls too, you were yelling at them. They hid in their rooms.”
Like I used to, when dad used to...
“We just got out of the way. They hid their stuff. You were wrecking everything.”
“Again...” he said dejectedly.
She squeezed him with her gentle arms, and kissed the back of his neck.
“You kept hitting the walls, and punching yourself in the head. You were pulling things out of drawers looking for plastic bags. Good thing I hid those last time.”
To suffocate myself with. Like last time. I wonder if there’s any around now.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered again. “I don’t know why...”
“It’s ok...” she said, with another reassuring squeeze.
They lay in silence for a while. He couldn’t understand why he deserved her affection. How could anyone love such a beast, such a monster? Wasn’t she afraid? What if he’d turned on her? He’s a big man, slightly out of shape but still strong enough to throw a 50kg bed into a wall in a fit of rage. All he could think was that he should be locked away immediately for other people’s safety, or humanely put out of his misery as a failed experiment in evolution.
But nonetheless he felt her love recharging him, her soft breathing warm against his shoulder, chest rising and falling behind him, her gentle squeezes soothing, all of which seemed to say that everything would be okay.
While his guilt and shame seemed infinite, her love pierced through his darkness like a javelin of light, fracturing an iron curtain of self-hatred, planting a small seed of hope.
Hope.
Was hope a blessing or a curse? Was there a point to hope when it just rekindled the cycle, kept him moving on thinking life would be okay, right up until the point where he tore it all apart again? Was there any chance of things being different this time around?
Or would he just continue to spiral around the rim like a shit in a blocked toilet, waiting for death’s plunger to set him free unto the depths below?
The feeling made him uncomfortable. Hope seemed like a venomous snake slithering in the grass waiting to strike.
He turned to her and embraced her, briefly. “I love you. I’m sorry.” He said, before slowly rolling to the side of the bed and planting his feet on the plaster-strewn carpet, seeking escape from these unnerving thoughts. But a shock of pain stabbed though his foot. “Ugh! God damn it. I think I broke a toe.”
“The bathroom door...” she said.
“Really?” he sighed, testing his weight on the outside of his foot, and, figuring it would hold, rising unsteadily to his feet. The sudden change in altitude caused his head to spin, and he immediately sat back down on the bed.
Why did I kick the bathroom door? Was she in there? Why can’t I remember anything?
“So, uh...” He said, laying back down. “Why are you still with me?”
“Because I love you.” She said, resting her arm across his chest.
“I’m scared. I don’t know if it will happen again. I thought after the therapy I would be okay, but this feels worse. I don't remember anything. And the kids... I don’t want to do this to them. This is why I moved away, I wanted to give you guys a chance to be normal.”
“But then you’d be alone over there, and I’d worry.”
“But it wouldn’t be your problem.”
“I’d still care.”
“You wouldn’t have to.” He said, matter of factly. But the way she said it, he knew she was sincere.
“You’ll get help. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get through this.”
I don’t want to always be figuring it out. I don’t want to have to “get through this” and I don’t want to fuck up other people with my shit. I don't want to be that stereotype abusive husband guilting his wife into staying through suicidal threats. They deserve so much better than me, can’t she see she’d be happier without me, he thought.
“But I don’t think I can handle too much more of what happened last night.” She concluded. “It was scary.”
He remained in bed for a few more hours, before cautiously emerging from the bedroom. The TV was still on downstairs, and he saw his wife sat on the couch. The kids were still at school.
As he descended, he took mental note of the damages. The stair rail was badly damaged, bent and twisted. Scuff marks at head and fist height marked the wall at each painful step. Downstairs came into view, and he saw the Ikea chair, frame snapped in half, and his computer monitor, vivid lines and swirls of colour radiating from a fist-sized oval of shattered glass in the centre. His laptop though was curiously still working, save for a slightly bent case that he twisted back into shape.
He noticed the poker chips on the hallstand. $1300 worth. He checked his bank account, he’d "only" spent $400 at the casino, so at least he hadn't lost the rent money for the week. “Big deal.” He thought. “What does it matter now?”
In total, he figured about a thousand dollars to replace everything he’d destroyed, taking care of his “winnings”, plus some paint and plaster to fix up the walls. The stair rails though, they might need some professional work, he decided to take a look at those last.
Wordlessly, he went to the laundry. As he passed through the kitchen, he got a vivid flashback of laying there on the tiles, repeatedly smashing the back of his head at full force into the ground while his wife, or was it his daughter, begged him to stop. He shook away the thought quickly, and fetched the plaster.
We have plaster on hand. He thought wryly. This happens too often.
Going through the motions, he filled the holes and gouges in the bedroom, the bathroom door, down the stairwell, and the living room walls. Next, he fetched an allen key and dismantled the Ikea chair, stowing the pieces in the shed out the back, to be surreptitiously deposited in the garbage over the coming weeks. The monitor, too, he dropped in the large green bin outside for the next week’s collection.
After placing the bedside table back in its rightful place and a quick run around with the vacuum cleaner, only a keen eye would spot any signs of trouble the night before.
He sat beside his wife on the couch and snuggled his head into her lap. She gently stroked his hair as the TV droned on in the background.
One by one, the kids came home from school. He asked them to come over for a hug, and apologised and explained that they did nothing wrong, that he was sick in the brain and needed help. He told them he loved them dearly. They hugged him back and said they loved him too. His eldest asked if he needed an icepack for his hand.
Perhaps a dark joke about the night before was made, nervous laughter broke the tension. They ate dinner and watched TV together, all on the one couch since the Ikea chair was gone. His kids snuggled in while they sat watching a movie on Netflix, and those earlier dark thoughts of ending it all seemed to fade away.
His shame remained, as did his guilt. But each step he took to piece things back together made the shame easier to bear. He managed to repair the stair rail with some tools and elbow grease. He replaced the broken monitor. The chair could wait, it was time to get something nicer anyway. Something too heavy to lift, preferably, his wife joked at him. He saw the humour, but he didn’t laugh.
He had a beast inside of him, always reminding him of its presence, and the man and father he tried to be every day felt like a fraud. But to their minds the beast was the interloper, it was the fraud that clawed its way out from time to time, and the real man and father was the guy who spent every day fighting to hold it in. They didn’t see the daily struggle, just the man who was husband and father.
He wanted to stop fighting the beast and just be himself, no more beast, so the next day he called a psychologist and spoke with them about what happened, his fears, his history. They didn’t judge him, they said they could help, and invited him in for his first session. Screw the cost, his shit needed to be dealt with properly, by a trained professional.
Then, he emailed work, who he’d ghosted for a whole day. This was the first time he felt that couldn't make some dumb excuse and get away with it. No more "I dropped my phone in the toilet" or "I forgot about it, gosh darn I'm so busy!" So, for the first time he opened up and explained (sans the gory details) what had happened, that he had mental health issues and had had a breakdown and needed some space to recover. He dreaded the response, surely he’d be out of a job. But instead, they replied saying they would support him in any way they could, that they loved working with him, and he could take as much time as he needed to get back on track.
The world that had looked so dark and terminal 48 hours prior suddenly again seemed normal, manageable. These weren’t life-ending events. They were serious, but they could be dealt with. Life would go on, there was literally no purpose to dying over this. Maybe some real therapy would help this time, and maybe the whole family should join in at some point.
Without his wife and kids, he feared what he might have done next. Maybe the shred of hope was a lie, but it was all he had to go by, and it had to be enough to see him through to the next day.
On a direct note - I am blessed to have a wife and kids that have put up with so much and yet still support me, and I know that I have a lot of work not just to fix myself but to support my family who have witnessed me doing some truly horrible things, especially my children who should not have to grow up knowing people are capable of such levels of unbridled fury. I have arranged professional therapy with a psychologist, and hope to work towards healing myself and my family. If she decides this is too much for her and wants to leave, then I will not stop her, at the same time I will not push her to do so. I have also suggested to her that she should consider counselling with the kids if she feels she needs it. I don't know how she deals with it, honestly. I am not proud and don't glorify what I did, but I can take steps to do something about it so I hope to never have to repeat this story again.

Hey. A friend of mine told me about this subreddit, and that it’s a good place to talk about players and GMs doing horrible things. I’ve been GMing for half a decade now, and I mostly run D&D, Pathfinder, and World of Darkness. Let me tell you about the first game I ever ran, and how one guy came very close to making me swear off tabletop gaming for good.
It’s a long story and I've never posted a thread on Reddit before, so I apologize in advance if this seems like a wall of text. It took me a long time before I realized how much abuse I suffered running this game, and I’m hoping this will give me a little closure.
Fair Warning: This story covers sexual violence, torture, and bullying.
It all began when I was first getting into RPGs, regularly visiting the Board Game club at my university and joining in a few games of 3.5 and Pathfinder. I was young and very excited to get into tabletop gaming; I loved acting and role-playing, and the fantasy genre ignited my wild, impressionable imagination in ways nothing else could. I was playing a few games here and there at the time, and while I was having fun I was also doing a little research into the Adventure Path campaigns that Paizo was pushing out. It wasn’t enough for me to be a player... I wanted to be a GM.
I eventually chose the one that had Drow in it, because I thought the Drow were cool and the story had some really fun moments in it (A boss fight with meteors raining down around you? Hell yeah!). One day I heard that someone at the club was finishing up their Living Greyhawk game, and an empty slot for a fortnightly game was made available. Eagerly I shot up my hand and took the slot, setting up a start date for anyone who was interested in playing. A few of the club’s members cited interest and agreed to join up. But one of them (and the term has never been more appropriate) was That Guy.
For the sake of keeping anonymity intact, I will call this guy Bruce. Bruce had been a member of the club for some time now, and was one of the most extroverted members there. He was quick to start a conversation with you, and was very good at getting shy people out of their shells. He was also the first person I met who knew about Vampire: The Masquerade beyond Bloodlines, and he dazzled me with his story about how his character survived Gehenna. So naturally, being young and naïve, I was quickly impressed. But behind that charismatic illusion was a darker side to him that didn’t take long to reveal itself.
It started with everyone presenting their characters. Bruce had made a Tiefling, and asked if he could have his alignment set to Lawful Evil. Preferring the party’s alignment to lean towards good, I expressed my hesitation. Bruce frowned and said I was being unfair, complaining that he really wanted to play an evil character after such a long time. Turning to a friend (who I’ll call Todd) for support, Bruce asked him how many years it had been since he was ever allowed to play an evil character. I can’t recall the exact number he got, but I recall feeling guilty enough to cave in. He thanked me, and handed his character sheet over to be examined.
The game began simply enough: I described the glitz and glamour of a casino, and pointed out the various games of chance that were available (the book actually had rules for how to play them, which I thought were really cool). Todd eagerly went to the poker table, and the rest of the party spread out to explore and indulge themselves. Bruce’s character was last to arrive, and began looking around for any pockets to pick. He succeeded on a perception check, and I pointed up to the catwalk above the game floor, along with the guards patrolling above in search of cheats and thieves. I then asked for his next move.
“I leave and never come back.”
I froze in place, blinking before I asked a simple “what”. He calmly repeated himself, then pulled up his laptop and headphones and zoned out of the session. Naïve as I was, I was terrified that I did something wrong. Why else would he lose interest in playing the game, other than I was being a bad GM? I ended up recovering from the shock and moved on by starting the first encounter, but the guilt never left my mind.
I was eventually able to convince him to get back into the game by pointing out the fighting inside the Casino. The encounter was eventually over, and the casino’s owner came downstairs to thank the party for stopping the robbers from looting his business. When he offered to hire them as employees, everyone agreed when they heard they’d get a rent-free roof over their heads. Bruce also agreed... then presented a sheet of paper for the owner to sign. It was a contract, legally binding the owner to make Bruce the co-owner of the Casino. He weaved a long, convincing story about how he had a number of ideas to renovate the Casino and add dancers and an inn to the building, increasing its revenue. Not wanting to upset him any further, I had the character agree to the terms.
After the session, Bruce took me aside after I asked him if I did anything wrong. Still calm and friendly, he explained that he wanted me to get the most out of these sessions as I could, learning and adapting to changes, and growing as a GM. What he did then was a “test” to see if I could be a good GM, and promised me that he would continue giving me a difficult time to help me improve. Impressionable as I was back then, and desperate not to upset any of my players, I accepted his reasoning. He grinned, patted me on the shoulder, and told me he looked forward to next time.
After a couple of sessions, it became clear he was the new owner of the Casino; having muscled the original owner out of the position, and eventually killing him when the book had him betray the party. Shortly after, the party finally encountered their first Drow. Bruce brought up the fact that his character grew up hearing horror stories about the Drow, and frantically chased after her. The fight was pretty cool, and the Drow was pretty close to killing off one of the other characters. Bruce had the final blow, but instead asked if he could switch to his sap and deliver some non-con damage. Not knowing what I was in for, I allowed it.
With the Drow unconscious, he threw her over his shoulder and carried her back to the Casino. Heading into the owner’s bedroom, he ordered the rest of the party to stay outside before locking the door behind him. Tying her down to the bed, he woke her up and told her he was going to make her his sex slave. As the Drow I objected, and suddenly he pushed his hand into her mouth, grabbed her tongue, and cut it off with a knife. He smiled, telling me he was going to break her before he put her to work. He then described how he began to cut her, just enough to make her feel the pain, before tearing her clothes off and spreading her legs.
“And I spend the entire night with her.” He finished, sitting back in satisfaction.
I still ask myself how I, barely through my early twenties, starting this game with the purist of intentions, was able to cope with that. Or why I didn’t stop the game then and there, and asked Bruce not to bring that shit into it. If someone tried to pull this on me now, I would have told them to leave my table and apologize to anyone they would have offended. But back then, I didn’t have any friends outside of High School, and I so desperately wanted to be considered a good GM in front of my peers. And, of course, I was reluctantly believing his bullshit about how giving me a hard time would somehow make me a better GM. But even then, I realized what kind of person I had brought into my game. What I didn’t realize was how much power he had over me.
Next session, he came in with plans to add a brothel to the casino, using the earnings to buy out the building next to it. He had Todd heal the Drow every day to full HP before he started raping and torturing her again. By this time, we were between books and I was prepping for the second part of the campaign. I tried setting up some side-quests to keep the party active, but Bruce refused to tag along. Instead, he presented me with a list of mercenaries his character had hired to replace him should this ever happen. All so he could have his character focus on building his business, hire his prostitutes, design their outfits, and of course continue raping and torturing the Drow (or as he referred to her: his “Star Attraction”).
During one session, however, Bruce was absent. Almost immediately, the mood shifted and I was starting to have fun again. The game was going how I hoped it would from the very beginning. One of the players, a newcomer, was rather curious what Bruce was hiding in his bedroom. Succeeding on a lockpick check, he got inside and saw the Drow. Seeing how much pain she was in, he mercifully slit her throat and closed the door. A moment of relief swept over me, hoping this might discourage Bruce from doing anything like this again.
It ended up making things worse. Much, much worse.
When Bruce heard the news, he was outraged. Declaring PvP, he blindsided the other player’s character with a sneak attack before mutilating the corpse in revenge (he didn’t give the other player a chance to react). Turning his attention towards me, he accused me of going behind his back to undermine him, before demanding that I retcon the whole thing. I apologized and did what he asked, continuing the game as he went silent. But after twenty minutes, he got up from his chair and left the room. I got a text from him a few hours later, declaring that he was leaving the game and I had failed his test.
Ignorant of his manipulative tactics, I panicked a little. It was at this point, I was already becoming a little paranoid over him. I was convinced Bruce was going to go on /tg/ and warn everyone in our area to steer clear of me. When we met up at the club, I did my best to get back on his good side. I distinctly remember letting him berate me freely as we stood in the parking lot, comparing me to the worst GMs he had ever been with (whose crimes I later found out were just kicking him out for being inactive in every session). After letting him dress me down for a few more minutes, he finally agreed to come back into my game. But on one condition:
“Let me be a half-demon.”
Beaten down and riddled with false guilt, I agreed to the terms. Next session Bruce returned to our table, bragging about his character’s new wings and tail. He then looked at me with a smug grin and pointed out that the latter gave him two attacks in one turn. He waited for me to object, and when I nodded and mumbled that I would allow it, he giggled and nestled into his chair.
From that point on, the sessions became an unpleasant chore. Every encounter he would gleefully mock and ridicule my lack of tactical experience. He began subverting the setting without my permission, gloating how he turned the little pirate town the party was living in into the Fashion Capital of Varisia, and how everyone in the city loved and adored him. When we encountered Drow, he was already making plans on what kind of position they would hold as his sex slaves. One Drow he threw a net over before he started singing and miming himself dancing towards her. At one point, he bought a Helmet of Opposite Alignment and started using it to brainwash them (I know I know, that item doesn’t work that way) into giving him their undying loyalty and being grateful to him. And when he noticed I started throwing less and less female Drow at them, he declared his character was bisexual and ordered the party to capture one of the male Drow archers they were fighting. “The one with the tight, supple ass.”
At this point, I would like to make note that around this time I was slowly coming to terms with my own bisexuality. That sentence had me going back into the closet with a padlock out of disgust.
Bruce also found ways to keep me in line too. He would chastise me if I came in late or did anything “rude”. When I tried standing up for myself, he slammed his hand on the table in front of me and pointed at my face, warning me not to fuck with him. During one session, he noticed I was getting quiet as I scrolled through the PDFs and kicked my chair. “Hurry the fuck up, GM,” he said “I’m getting bored.” And one time, when he noticed I answered one of his questions with an irritated tone, he started screaming at me.
He even admitted he would derail the entire campaign if it meant he could stay in his city (yeah, HIS city) hoarding as much gold and power as possible. He was willing to sabotage the entire campaign just so he could put the game’s focus on his character. I tried asking on the Paizo forums how to handle this, which had a lot of people asking questions on how the hell one player had so much power in the first place. The next day, Bruce made an implication that he saw my post. I never went back to those forums again.
It came to a merciful end when Todd, having a convenient attack of conscience, finally couldn’t take it anymore and began arguing with him. Bruce, probably in an attempt to guilt Todd into backing down, declared he was leaving the game again. Both left without even speaking to me. The party sorcerer suggested that maybe he could run something for a while, and after two years of keeping this game together I welcomed the departure.
When I first got into GMing, I was excited and optimistic; convinced I would have so much fun running this game, and that it would all lead to me making my own homebrew fantasy world. At the end of this game, I was a tired and broken mess. I became such an angry, irritated man through it all, taking my frustration out on other people and snapping at the smallest of problems. I even began to hate tabletop gaming in general, and my attendance at the club dropped severely if only because Bruce was there, waiting for opportunities to mock me for not having a gaming PC or other things I couldn’t afford. It’s fair to say that if I had not been strong enough to give it a second chance, I would have not only have given up on ever playing RPGs again but outright condemn everyone in the hobby as absolute scum.
Why? Because one time, when I finally had the courage to stand up against Bruce and told him I didn’t like him adding rape and torture into my game, he replied with this:
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna meet a lot of players who are like me, so you should just get fucking used to it.”
Those words stuck with me ever since. If every other player was just like Bruce, than why bother?
A year after the game ended, I started getting back into therapy and even considered taking medication. It was also around the same time my grandfather died, and I realized I had strayed from the virtues I admired him for: kindness, honesty, bravery, and temperance. So I changed my pace; I found a new line of work, I started going back to gym, I started up a Tumblr blog (while it lasted), and I reconnected with the friends I had lost. I even went back to the club, when one of my friends told me Bruce stopped attending, and suggested I GM a game for a few newbies. I started running Curse of the Crimson Throne, and in the span of a few weeks I found the innocent magic of tabletop gaming again. I survived.
As of this year, I’m currently running 5e D&D with my own homebrew setting, just like my younger self always dreamed of doing. I get told that I’m a pretty good GM from a lot of friends and acquaintances, and the newbies I ran Crimson Throne for have credited me for inspiring them to run games of their own!
As for Bruce himself? I’ve cut most if not all of my ties with him. We still have mutual friends, and I get most of my news about him from them. He’s apparently gotten worse since we parted ways, and that it’s not uncommon to hear him complain about Muslims, Jews, the Chinese, and Indians; the latter he allegedly once referred to as “the filthiest of all the races”. He still prays on new GMs when he can, only they had the lick of sense to kick him out before he gets his claws in, thanks to word-of-mouth. Needless to say, those mutual friends are also trying to cut ties with him.
It took me so long to come to terms with the abuse he inflicted on me, and I’ve always wondered why he would do all of that just for personal gain in a fictional world. A few friends suggest that he might have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and looking back I think they might be right. It explains why he acted the way he did with me. But he’s spiraling down into a pit of his own despair, and I couldn’t be happier for it.
I dunno why I decided on writing this now... not because I should have sent this story out sooner, but more for the lingering fear of being judged. But if you took the time to read it all, thank you so much.
TL;DR: Naive First-time GM runs a game, and local narcissist joins in. Narcissist adds gratuitous rape and torture into the story, and bullies the GM into giving him what he wants. Naive GM becomes bitter and miserable, and almost quits.

hey. im posting this here because idk what else to do, and thought that someone out there could possibly help, or that my story could help someone avoid mistakes i've made
i started playing poker professionally in mid 2017, and for a while it was pretty great. i started out grinding live 1-2 at a local casino while living at home, quickly spun up a roll, and eventually moved to one of the bigger 2-5 NL hubs in the u.s.
my first month there was arguably the worst month of my life. my girlfriend of 4 years had just broken up with me, and that coincided with my biggest career downswing (almost 10k, probably had 55k at start of downswing). dealing with all of these external stressors was not easy for me. I have a history of depression, and all of these things lining up together threw me into one of the deepest holes i've been. there were days (prob less than 5) i spent 20+ hours in bed; only getting up to smoke some weed or find some shit food to eat.
i took some steps to pull myself out of this zone. hired a therapist, regular exercise, attempting to eat healthier, self-help books, etc. all of this, and some run-good on the poker tables, had me back to a fully-functional (and arguably stronger) 2-5 grinder.
i basically god-moded for the next 6 months or so. I prob made 45k with one or two 5-8k downswings thrown in along the way. I'd begun playing 1-2 on ignition (initially for practice/ studying, but then continued bc games were good my hourly there was comparable to my hourly grinding live 2-5) and consequently got my hands on some bitcoin. i was already somewhat familiar with what it was and was generally bullish (still am) so figured i'd hold on to a couple of the fuckers since the roll was so healthy and it seemed like a decent mid-long term investment. well, what fucking timing this turned out to be, as price soared from 4k to rougly 8k by end of may. it was around this time that i think my success began to go to my head a bit. i mean, not that i had done anything particularly grand, but i def had a somewhat constant euphoric buzz going on basically around the clock. I was 25, had over 100k nw, had investments that seemingly were going to be worth millions in the not-so distant future (/s), and worked my dream job in which i was able to get away with whatever the fuck i wanted. "Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta," was like my life theme song, playing wherever i went. is this kind of phenomenon experienced by other pros when upswinging?
it's summer now, and the dreams of shipping a tournament are abundant. i create a ~15k package, and sell about a 1/3 of myself to maintain sanity in case things go poorly (net worth >100k at this point, abi mtt is probably 1100). my lease expires at my current spot, so i'm off to vegas to bluff johnny chan or something.
...or something indeed! i cashed just 1 out of probably 12 tournaments and broke even in cash. it felt not good, but I think i had/have a better understanding as to how big variance is (especially in mtts) relative to most, so I was pretty ok with this. not to mention, btc had topped at 14k, which def made dealing with the negative mtt variance a bit easier.
the highlight of my wsop was day 1 of the main event (didnt initially plan on playing, but I was able to sell 75% and it'd been a dream of mine to play since i was a kid, so fuck it, ill take a shot). my table is a joke. it is unfathomable to me that these types of players both exist AND somehow have $10k to light on fire in a poker tournament. one of my table mates felt the need to heavily exemplify the lack of fucks he gave about this $10k. the dude showed up for the tournament pretty drunk (started at 10am, LOL). first, he has this weird interaction with the dealer where he sits down in seat 5 and dealer tells him he's in the wrong seat, and to move to 6. it takes the guy an abnormal amount of time to understand, but eventually he figures it out and moves over. ok, let's run it. few hands go by and the drunk guy scoops a small pot (probably less than 1k chips and we started with 50k). the seat next to him is unoccupied but there is a stack in front of the seat that is blinding out. as drunk guy scoops his pot, he "accidentally" scoops the chips next to him, in what appeared to either be an extremely slick (/s) attempt to find an early double, or an attempt at a bad joke. imo, it was most likely either a poorly timed joke or the dude was just so fucked up that he just didn't realize what he was doing, but we will never know for sure. either way, jack effel promptly dq'd the guy, which i think was absolutely too harsh. i still regret not jumping to this guy's defense, as i really doubt there were any truly ill intentions behind his actions.
one more quick highlight from my day 1 : i mentioned my table being a dream, and it was, with the exception of one player. a former main event champ, joe mckeehen. i didn't know much about him prior to this except that he was a part of chance's Chip Leader Coaching team, which made me think he was prob a beast. and i was right... the guy undoubtedly had an edge on me (and ofc rest of table) and both played and carried himself extremely well. i played one hand vs him that was noteworthy, particularly because of what he said to me afterwords.
cant remember exact sizing's so bear with me: joe opens hj 2.2x, button call, i call bb with td8h. flop: q67r. i check, joe cbet 1/3 pot, button fold, i call. turn: 4x (i think i could do some leading on this card since i improve to straights and 2p at higher frequency than joe, but who tf am i to just lead into the former champ??) i check, joe bets 2/3. i think x/c and x/r are both fine, but decide on x/r this time. sizing was something where i'd set myself up for 80-90% jam on the river if he called. joe takes a few seconds, and as he's picking up his cards to throw them into the muck, says something like, "i really don't believe you, but i'm not going to call you down. don't do that again, kid." what a thing to fkn say man, absolutely legendary. he folds. i think to myself, "i've bluffed the champ! call me mike mcd mother fkers."
in all seriousness though, he obv did pick up on some sort of live read, but even with whatever that was, i think over-folding a high-variance, bluff-catching spot vs the only other competent player at the table makes a lot of sense given this is day 1 of the main event and our table is a complete and total joke. wp joe, and thank you for the story. a true legened, imo.
anyway.. fast forward to day 3 of the main and i'm out a few hours before making the money. talk about maximum pain, man. i felt i'd basically avoided any real feelings of tilt/ disappointment prior to this despite a pretty brutal summer, but busting the main was a scratch on the surface of the negative emotions/ tilt i'd buried during the bad downswing i had after my initial move away from home.
the roll is still healthy. the price of btc is falling, but my nw is still around 95k. even though i still have plenty of money and am well-rolled for the main game i want to play (1500 cap 5/t), i have this weird psychological block where it feels like i dont have enough. i think i began to feel this more so when i dipped below 100k. it's like my brain has this weird obsession or belief that i need to be over 100 to be complete (i know, sounds insane, but again, im curious if others experience this kinda thing?) somewhat dejected, i head back home to spend a few weeks with the family before i head out to boston to set up a new home-base.
fast forward to now: i've been renting a room at an air bnb for a little over a month. i'm breakeven over my last 700 hours of live poker (about 175 of those are me losing ~15k at mtt's). i've played about 135 hours of 5-t since moving to boston and an stuck about 6k. pretty normal i think. btc price back down to 8k though, so that + life expenses has brought the networth down to about 85k (70k liquid). i know, i know... plenty of money, even for playing 5-t. but holy fuck man, it does not feel that way. i feel like i did a year and a half ago when i first moved to the 2-5 hub and was dealing with downswing + major breakup. it's quite difficult to even get out of bed and take a shower. forget getting my ass down to the casino and actually putting in some volume in the volatility-chamber. it simply doesnt feel possible. it feels especially risky. like i want to avoid even giving myself the chance to book another losing session because i know how much it'd hurt. do other pros deal with shit like this? if so, what kinds of techniques do you use to combat these feelings? is there a way i can trick my brain into thinking more rationally?
idk how i feel about actually posting this shit. i'm pretty self-concision in general. i will say that writing this out has been therapeutic in some way, and i do feel a bit better. maybe tomorrow will try and do a low-volatility online session. going to try to get outside and get some sun while i still can today. enjoy the spew/ wsop main event weirdness

Part 8 (has access to parts 1-7 in it)
For some reason it would not post the last day or so.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress, which isnt much of a brag obviously.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. *** Ok here is what he said.
“quantum immortality. if i die in this universe, my conciousness will shift to others where i am still alive”
He just couldnt assure us ours would.
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though andd I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

With the remaster of Burnout Paradise release soon and worked on by Criterion and Stellar Entertainment (see Paul Ross for details on that company) I thought it might be fun to make a thread and track down the devs. If you want some additional reading about Burnout, Three Fields released a history about how it started in January.
For a quick summary, Criterion was originally a 3d graphics rendering technology company owned by Canon. It was spun out and became the “modern” Criterion Games in 1999/2000. In 2004 it was purchased by EA.
Most info/quotes are from company websites and LinkedIn. Now, this thread is long enough already, so let’s get started (this thread is long enough that I’ll have to go into the comments to finish the thread.
Fiona Sperry worked as EA Criterion Studio GM. Sperry helped form the modern Criterion Games and previously worked at McGraw-Hill. In 2014 she left and co-founded Three Fields Entertainment.
Alex Ward worked as creative director. Ward helped form the modern Criterion Games and previously worked at Acclaim. He continued to work at Criterion until 2014 (including a unreleased game codenamed “Adventure”) when he co-founded Three Fields Entertainment.
Peter Hawley worked as executive producer. Hawley previously worked at companies including Lionhead (where he was one of the first employees) and Sony. He joined Criterion in late 2005 and in 2009 became vice president of product development at EA. In 2010 he joined Crowdstar before co-founding Red Robot Labs in 2011, where he worked at CPO and later CEO until 2014. He next joined Zynga before coming CEO of Telltale Games in September 2017.
Craig Sullivan worked as lead designer. Sullivan joined Criterion in 1997 and was the first game designer for the studio. He previously worked at Millenium Interactive as a designetester. In 2009 he became creative director at the company before joining Ghost Games in 2013. Sullivan left Ghost Games at the end of 2016, and in May 2017 joined Amazon.
Jon Lawrence worked as senior development director. Lawrence joined EA in 1998 and worked on series including Harry Potter, F1 and Black. In 2012 Lawrence left to work at Sky before returning to EA shortly in 2013. Later that year Lawrence joined Microsoft as development director, and worked on Warface. In 2015 he joined Natural Motion before joining Digit Game Studios in 2017 as director of production.
Steve Uphill worked as art director. Uphill previously worked at Kuju Entertainment before joining Criterion in 2002. In 2008 Uphill left Criterion and joined Black Rock Studio to work as art director on Split/Second. In 2011 he co-founded ShortRound Games where he worked as art director. In 2016 Uphill returned to Criterion and is currently studio art director.
Stephen Root worked as audio director. Root worked at Acclaim for five years as head of audio before joining Criterion in 2000. In 2008 Root left Criterion and joined Codemasters, where he is currently VP of development creative services.
Olly Read worked as a technical director. Read joined Criterion in 1999 and worked at the company until 2011. In 2012 Read started work as a “game programming ninja” at Escapist Games.
Paul Ross worked as a technical director. Ross joined Criterion in 1996 and worked as CTO before leaving in 2014. He next worked at Three Fields Entertainment before leaving in 2016. Ross next founded Stellar Entertainment in 2016, which is making Burnout Paradise Remastered.
Pete Lake worked as a producer. Lake worked as an artist for early Criterion games before starting production on Paradise. In 2010 Lake worked as a producer for Harry Potter and The Sims. In 2013 he returned to Criterion.
San Shepherd worked as a producer. Shepherd previously worked at EA and Pyro Studios before rejoining EA in 2006. Near the end of 2008 Shepherd left and in 2009 joined Zero Point Software as a board member. At the same time, Shepherd co-founded Escapist Games and became director for European Construction Company. Since 1990 Shepherd has also been director of Citilet Booking, and in 1997 founded The Copenhagen Post, where he worked as CEO for five years. He also produced weekly music shows for Danish TV in the 90s.
Matt Webster worked as a producer. Webster joined EA in 1990 and worked on games including Syndicate, Theme Park and Populous II. He also created the initial concept for the first Fifa game and associate produced the game. After EA purchased Criterion Webster joined the company as producer. In 2013 he became GM of Criterion.
Hamish Young worked as a producer. Young joined Criterion in 1999 and had worked as a technical director and a lead programmer on previous Burnout games. Young continued to work at Criterion until 2013, when he joined Avalanche Studios (for quick reference this is the Just Cause studio, not the Disney Infinity one) where he works as a designer.
Steve Cuss worked as a development manager. Cuss worked at IBM and Intelligent Games before joining EA in 2003. Since 2005 Cuss has worked as a producer for Criterion.
Helen King worked as a development manager. King joined Criterion in 2006 but left in 2009 and joined Codemasters, where they worked on Bodycount. After leaving in 2011 King joined Deepmind in 2012, which was later bought by Google.
Radek Majder worked as a development manager. Majder previously worked at companies like Plastic Wax, Forte Studios and Perception before joining EA in 2006. Majder worked as development director at EA until 2013. In 2014 they joined BBC where they worked until 2017. They are currently head of development management at Mclaren Applied Technology.
Alan McDairmant worked as a development manager. McDairmant previously worked at Inner Workings, Data Design & Artwork, Red Lemon Studios and Visual Science before joining Criterion in 2005. McDairmant continues to work at EA/Criterion and most recently has worked as a director of product development/studio leadership on games such as Battlefront 2, Battlefield 1 and Need for Speed.
Dan McDonald worked as a development manager. McDonald previously worked in QA on series like Burnout, Harry Potter and Populous. McDonald did interviews for Burnout Crash and seemingly left Criterion afterwards. He was credited as a production manager for Until Dawn in 2015.
Sheri Patterson worked as a development manager. Patterson previously worked at Pixar (on the Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Boundin’), Blue Sky and Charlex before joining Criterion in 2006. In 2008 she left and worked as a producer for various companies including DreamWorks and Disney (on Frozen). Patterson also worked with companies including Apple, Google and Land Rover.
Cath Schell worked as production coordinator. Schell first appeared in Criterion credits in 2002, and is still with the company. She posts a lot of mushrooms.
Charnjit Bansi worked as a designer. Bansi previously worked at Codemasters before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2009 Bansi joined Bizarre Creations as a/the game director (Activision doesn’t tend to give detailed credits so I can’t tell if Bansi was the only person with the role). After consulting for a month in 2011 at Neversoft Bansi joined Sledgehammer Games as a/the development director.
Richard Bunn worked as a designer. Bunn previously worked in QA at Sony and as a level designer at Argonaut before joining Criterion in 2004. Bunn worked on the design of the “open-world traffic system, vehicle A.I. behaviours and the Crash Mode gameplay,” for the game. After leaving Criterion in 2007 Bunn rejoined Sony where he worked for three years on the original version of Until Dawn and the canceled Eight Days. After leaving in 2011, Bunn has worked at Mindshapes, Nice Touch and most recently Aceviral.
Matt Follett worked as a designer. Follett joined EA in 1999 working in QA and design. He joined Criterion in 2008 after working on previous Burnout games, and worked on algorithms and scripting for Paradise along with the PC version. Follett later became a lead at Criterion before leaving in 2014. Since then he has worked for Boss Alien.
Paul Glancey worked as a designer. Glancey previously worked as an editor for games magazines in the late 80s/early 90s before joining Eidos in 1998. He joined EA in 2000 before leaving in 2008. He next worked as design director on Split/Second before joining Ubisoft in 2010. In 2012 Glancey returned to Criterion.
Tommy Hudson worked as a designer. Hudson joined Criterion in 2005 and worked at the company until the end of 2010. Hudson next joined DICE where they worked on Battlefield. In 2013 Hudson joined Remedy and worked on Quantum Break. They are currently lead designer on a new game at Remedy.
Oliver Reid-Smith worked as a designer. Reid-Smith joined Criterion in 2004 before leaving in 2010. They worked as a lead designer on Split/Second before becoming a freelance consultant in 2012. Reid-Smith has worked on games including The Room, Disney Infinity and Blackwood Crossing.
Steve Watt worked as a designer. Watt joined EA in 2004 and worked as lead online designer. In 2008 Watt left and joined Codemasters where they worked as lead designer. After the closure of the Guildford studio in 2011, Watt did some freelance in 2012. Later that year, Watt joined Microsoft.
Ben Earnshaw worked as a level designer. Earnshaw worked on AI and planned race routes for the game, before leaving at the end of 2007. He next joined Dark Energy Digital as a designer on Hydrophobia. In 2010 Earnshaw left the gaming industry and joined his family’s woodworking company.
Mata Haggis worked as a level designer. Haggis previously worked at Channel 4 and MTV before joining Criterion for 2007. Haggis worked on building the world and make it seem believable. In 2008 he joined Rebellion where he worked as a designer on Alien vs Predator and PDC World Championship Darts Pro Tour. After leaving Rebellion in 2010 Haggis lectured at NHTV for five years before becoming a professor. From 2013 to 2016 he worked with Sassybot freelance, and since 2000 has worked as a game designer with Matazone.
Dave Sage worked as a level designer. Sage joined Criterion in 2007 after short work lecturing. In 2008 Sage left and joined Codemasters, where he worked until 2011. Since then Sage has worked for various groups teaching, and currently is general manager of a cafe/bicycling company.
Jason RM Smith worked as associate CG supervisor. Smith joined EA in 1998 and worked at Bullfrog and EA UK before joining Criterion. At the end of 2007 Smith left and joined Lucasarts where he worked on The Force Unleashed, 1313 and other games. When Lucasarts closed Smith co-founded Soma Play where he worked until 2017. He currently is a creative consultant.
Richard Franke worked as a lead artist. Franke worked as an artist for Scavenger and Mucky Foot before joining EA in 2002. At the end of year Franke joined Criterion, where he worked until 2012. After leaving Franke founded Magic Notion where he has made games and worked as a contract artist for Media Molecule.
Mark Hamilton worked as a lead artist. In 2008 Hamilton left Criterion and co-founded Fireproof Games.
John Lewis worked as a lead artist. Lewis worked as an artist at ICE, DA Group and Bits Studios before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2012 Lewis left and joined Codemasters. Lewis is currently art director at the studio.
James Lipscomb worked as a lead artist. Lipscomb worked at Line One, Red Hot Chilli and Orange Crush before joining EA in 2002. In 2009 Lipscomb left and joined Disney where he worked on Split/Second. At the end of 2011 Lipscomb joined Lucasarts where he worked until the company’s closure. After that he worked at Rumble, Gaia Interactive and Linekong working in UI and UX. He is currently director of UX at pocket gems.
Neil Manners worked as a lead artist. Manners seems to have joined Criterion in the mid-90s. He seems to still be at EA, last working as a senior animator on Need for Speed Payback.
Barry Meade worked as a lead artist. Meade joined the studio in 2003 after working at PCSL, Bullfrog, Scavenger, Negative Productions, Mucky Foot and Iguana. Meade worked mostly on the lighting for Paradise. In 2008 Meade left Criterion and helped found Fireproof Games, where he currently works.
Yuta Nakamura worked as a lead artist. Nakamura worked for Video Systems before joining EA in 2001. Nakamura went on to work as a art director on Need for Speed games before joining DICE in 2016.
David Rack worked as a lead artist. Rack joined Criterion in 2003 and worked at Criterion until 2008. After leaving Rack co-founded Fireproof Games, where he is currently a lead artist.
Damien Rayfield worked as a lead artist. Rayfield worked at Rebellion before joining Criterion in 2004. In 2008 Rayfield left and co-founded Fireproof Games.
Roger Schembri worked as a lead artist. Schembri worked as a graphic designer before joining Criterion in 2004. Schembri worked on UI before leaving in 2008 to work as a lead UI artist at Codemasters. At the end of 2010 Schembri left and joined Fireproof Games.
Chris Cannon worked as an artist. Cannon joined Criterion in 2005 after animating and storyboarding for various companies. In 2008 Cannon left and co-founded Fireproof Games, where he is a lead designer.
Max Cant worked as an artist. Cant joined Criterion in 2005 and worked as an environmental lead. In 2008 Cant left and joined Codemasters as an art director. After leaving Codemasters in 2011, Cant worked for six months at both Koyoki and Vatra Games. At the end of 2012 Cant joined Deepmind, which was later bought by Google.
Tony Cartwright worked as an artist. Cartwright “worked for a several game companies, some that he would prefer not to mention, working on titles that he’d also prefer not to mention.” (mostly movie tie-ins) before joining Criterion. In 2008 Cartwright left and co-founded Fireproof Games, where he is currently a lead artist.
Ingmar Clarysse worked as an artist. Clarysse worked at Larian and Argonaut before joining EA in 2004 as a VFX artist. In 2008 Clarysse left and joined Rocksteady Games, where he works as lead on VFX on the Arkham series.
Will Evans worked as an artist. Evans worked at Teletext before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2009 Evans joined Codemasters before joining Supermassive Games in 2010. After leaving in 2014 and working for 9 months at Rodeo Games, Evans co-founded Playsport Games in 2015.
Dave Flynn worked as an artist. Flynn joined the games industry in 1991 working at Storm Education Software. Flynn also worked at Oregan Software, The Automotive Association and Interactive Studios/Blitz Games (including work on Glover) as well as co-founding Paradise Games. In 2003 Flynn joined Criterion before leaving in 2008 and joining Slightly Mad Studios.
Nicole Gabriel worked as an artist. Gabriel worked as a 3D modeler for various architecture groups before joining EA in 2005. Gabriel worked on the art for Paradise City before leaving in 2009 to work as a freelance artist.
Derek Germain worked as an artist. Germain worked at Bits Studio before joining EA in 2005 as an environmental artist. In 2009 Germain left before joining Slightly Mad Studios as a snr artist. In 2011 Germain left and joined FIreproof Games, where he is a senior artist.
Jack Griffin worked as an artist. Griffin joined Criterion in 2005 before moving into management in 2012. Griffin is currently development direction at the company.
Ben Hall worked as an artist. Hall joined Criterion in 2005. On Paradise he worked on vehicles and later the environment. Hall moved into world design for later Criterion games before becoming lead. In 2013 Hall moved to Ghost Games for five months before working on Battlefield Hardline as an artist for seven months. In 2014 Hall joined Ubisoft where he worked as a level designer on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. He is currently working as world director on an unannounced game from Ubisoft Quebec.
James Hans worked as an artist. Hans ran Infinite Detail before joining Criterion in 2001. In 2011 Hans became a producer at Criterion before leaving in 2014. Since leaving, Hans has worked as an artist/producer at Natural Motion.
Scott Harber worked as an artist. Harber joined Criterion in 2003 and worked as a technical artist on Paradise. In 2013 Harber worked for a year as technical art director on an unannounced EA game before working on Battlefield Hardline. In 2014 Harber left and started Sc0tt Games which he ran for a year before joining Natural Motion as lead technical artist.
Young Jin Park worked as an artist. I’m unable to find additional information about what Park did (they are credited on Black and Burnout Dominator, but their Mobygames page is mixed with another person with the same name).
Jin Jung worked as an artist. They were last credited with Hot Pursuit, but I’m unable to find any additional information.
Quyen Lam worked as an artist. Lam worked shortly at La Paraguas and Axis Animation before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2008 Lam left and joined Ubisoft, where he worked on Driver: San Francisco. After a short three months at Slightly Mad, Lam joined Rockstar as an environmental artist in 2010.
Kwok Law worked as an artist. Law previously worked on films and television like Harry Potter before joining Criterion in 2005 as a level artist. In 2008 Law left and joined Doublesix Games, where he was a seniolead artist. In 2012 Law left and joined Born Ready before joining Digicub nine months later. In 2013 he co-founded Polynation Games until 2016, when he founded Massive Kwok.
Steve Leney worked as an artist. Leney worked at Mindscape for most of the 90s before joining EA in 1998. In 2008 Leney left and joined Relentless Software, where he worked until 2016. Since leaving Leney has worked as an artist at Make Real.
Mikael Mettania worked as an artist. Mettania worked at Atari and Eutechnyx before joining Criterion in 2005. He worked as a senior vehicle artist on Paradise and a world artist on the DLC. In 2013 Mettania moved over to Ghost Games for seven months before joining Natural Motion as art director in 2014.
Lyndon Munt worked as an artist. In college, Munt worked on Driv3r before joining Criterion in 2004. In 2010 Munt left and joined Fireproof Games, where he is currently a senior artist.
Ben Murch worked as an artist. Murch previously worked at Rebellion before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2007 Murch left and joined Codemasters as a senior artist. In 2010 Murch co-founded Rodeo Games. In 2016 he co-founded Perchang.
Adriaan Pottas worked as an artist. Pottas previously worked at Three Blind Mice and Indestructible Productions before joining EA in 2005. In 2009 Pottas left and worked for a year at Ignition London as a senior artist. Since 2010 Pottas has lectured at Southampton Solent University.
Richard Thomassen worked as an artist. Thomassen worked at Psygnosis for a year before joining Criterion in 1998. In 2013 Thomassen moved to Ghost Games before returning to Criterion the following year.
Marcus Wainwright worked as an artist. Wainwright worked for a year at Rebellion and joined Criterion in 2005. At the end of 2008 Wainwright left and soon joined Codemasters, where he worked until the start of 2012. After a year at Climax Wainwright joined Deepmind in 2013, and is currently a senior technical artist.
Chris Walley worked as an artist. Walley previously worked at Revolution Software before joining Criterion in 2001. On Paradise Walley was lead previs artist. In 2008 Walley left and became director at Escapist Games.
Sam White worked as an artist. White joined EA in 2005 and worked as a graphic designer and GUI artist. In 2009 White left and joined Supermassive Games as an interface artist. In 2015 White left and became director at Playsport Games.
Iain Angus worked as a lead programmer. Angus was an intern at APR Smartlogik before joining Criterion in 2002. In 2011 Angus left and joined VLI before joining Konami in 2013. In 2015 he joined Lionhead until its closure in 2016. He currently works as a development manager at Creative Assembly.
Chris Cummings worked as a lead programmer. Cummings previously worked at Eutechnyx before joining Criterion in 2004. In 2009 he left and joined joined Media Molecule. In 2015 Cummings spent a year at Hello Games working as a programmer on No Man’s Sky before joining Happy Robot Games and Future Tech Labs in 2016.
Alex Fry worked as a lead programmer. Fry joined Criterion after college and worked on rendering. Sometime in the last few years Fry moved over to EA Guildford and currently works on rendering for Frostbite. If you want to learn more, Fry did an interview with EA
Andy Hubbard worked as a lead programmer. Hubbard joined Criterion in 2004 working on physics. In 2008 Hubbard joined Black Rock Studios to work on Split/Second before becoming director of ShortRound in 2011.
Mark Huntley worked as a lead programmer. Huntley worked at Bullfrog from 1993 to 2000 before joining EA. After some Harry Potter games Huntley worked on Paradise. At the end of 2010 he left EA and in 2011 joined Codemasters as a lead programmetechnical director on for online. In 2013 he moved to Lionhead where he worked until the company’s closure. Since then he has worked as a technical program manager at Highlight - See Clearly.
Steve Lucas worked as a lead programmer. Lucas worked at IBM for around a year before joining Criterion in 1998. In 2013 Lucas moved to Canada and became a technical director at EA.
Toby Nelson worked as a lead programmer. I’m unable to find out much info about Nelson. Their first game as part of Criterion was AirBlade and they directed Burnout Crash.
Tad Swift worked as a lead programmer. Swift worked for about a decade in programming/consultation before studying games programming in 2003 and 2004. Swift joined Criterion in 2005 as a junior programmer before becoming lead VFX programmer for Black and Paradise. Swift next went into core engine technologies before leaving in 2013 to join Lionhead. Swift worked as a lead programmer for Fable Legends before joining the Microsoft Advanced Technology Group as a senior software engineer.
Rajan Tande worked as a lead programmer. Tande joined EA in 1996 and in 1999 became a lead programmer. After two years as technical director for Harry Potter, Tande joined the Burnout team in 2006. After Paradise, Tande moved over to EA Bright Light where he worked until its closure in late 2011. He next moved to Maxis Emeryville in California where he worked until its closure in 2015. Since then, he has been CTO at Magic Fuel Games.
John Twigg worked as a lead programmer. Twigg previously worked at EA Black Box before joining Criterion in 2006. Twigg led the design of the audio software for Paradise before leaving in 2008 to joining BNP Paribas. In 2010 he co-founded Crankcase Audio and has worked for a year or so at companies including United Front Games, Snowball (which he co-founded) and Credit Karma.
David Addis worked as a programmer. Addis worked at Codemasters for a year before joining EA in 2005. On Paradise Addis worked on the HUD and refactoring the system. In 2008 he left and joined Lionhead where he worked until 2012. Since 2013 he has worked as lead UI programmer at Natural Motion. Since 2010 he has also run ESP Games.
Mark Baker worked as a programmer. Baker worked at Sony, Metrowerks, Mucky Foot and Climax before joining Criterion in 2005. Baker worked on tools and workflow for Paradise before leaving in 2008 and joining NCSoft for five months. Later in 2008 he joined Black Rock Studio and worked as a lead programmer on Split/Second. In 2011 Baker joined Mind Candy before returning to EA in 2015 as a technical director for development release engineering.
Peter Bliss worked as a programmer. I’m unable to find much information about Bliss but they seem to still be at Criterion.
Garry Casey worked as a programmer. Casey joined Criterion in 2006. At some point Casey moved over to Ghost Games and last worked as online lead on Need for Speed Payback.
Rob Cowsill worked as a programmer. I’m unable to find much information about Cowsill but it seems like they joined Rebellion in 2009 any maybe currently works at Force Field.
Ken Cropper worked as a programmer. Cropper is still at Criterion, and is currently director of engineering.
Antony Crowther worked as a programmer. Crowther joined the games industry in 1983 and worked at Aligata Software, Mirror Soft, Mindscape, Gremlin Interactive, Infogrames and Genepool before joining EA in 2004. In 2006 Crowther moved to Criterion for a year before returning to EA. Since 2011 Crowther has worked as a technical consultant at Sumo Digital.
Graham Daniell worked as a programmer. I was unable to find much information about Daniell but they seem to be at Rocksteady.
Robert Dodd worked as a programmer. Dodd previously worked at Codemasters before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2008 Dodd joined Supermassive before becoming technical director at Fireproof Games in 2011.
Jon Evripiotis worked as a programmer. Evripiotis worked at Travellers Tales before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2008 he joined Bloomberg as a software engineer.
Martiño Figueroa worked as a programmer. Figueroa joined Criterion in 2005 and worked as an AI and gameplay programmer for Paradise. In 2011 Figueroa left and worked at The Foundry for 10 months before co-founding and becoming director of JFDP Labs in 2012. Since 2015 Figueroa has been director of Madruga Works which released Planetbase.
Rich Geldard worked as a programmer. Geldard joined Criterion in in 2005 and is still with the company as technical director.
Joseph Goodwin worked as a programmer. Goodwin joined Criterion in 2006 and worked on tools, UI and localization for Paradise. Goodwin is still at Criterion as a software engineer.
André Jacobs worked as a programmer. Jacobs previously worked at Fifth Dimensional Technologies, Adreniware, I-Imagine and Climax before joining Criterion in 2006. Jacobs worked on the traffic system for Paradise which was later used in Criterion Need for Speed games. In 2008 he joined Lionhead before joining Bloomberg in 2010. In 2012 Jacobs became lead programmer at Medopad before leaving in 2015 and working a year at ICSA. Since 2010 he has also run Voxel Beast.
Matthew Jones worked as a programmer. Jones previously worked at Terabyte and Infogrames/Atari before joining Criterion in 2006. In 2013 Jones left Criterion and worked JFDP Labs on contract while being self employed. In 2015 he joined Microsoft as a senior software engineer in rendering.
Ian Lambert worked as a programmer. Lambert is still part of Criterion and works on UI and UX.
Ling Lo worked as a programmer. Lo worked out Logica, Coment, Argonaut and Symbian before joining EA in 2005. Lo worked on tools and build for Paradise before moving to Vancouver in 2008 to work with EA Black Box. In 2012 Lo moved to Burnaby and has worked as lead online engineer for the Garden Warfare series.
Phil Maguire worked as a programmer. Maguire joined Criterion in 2005 and worked on Freeburn Challenges, Mugshots and Road Rules for Paradise. After working on autolog and multiplayer for Need for Speed games Maguire because technical director of Criterion in 2013. In 2014 he left and help found Three Fields Entertainment.
Alex Mole worked as a programmer. Mole joined Criterion in 2005 and was lead online programmer for autolog. Mole is currently technical director of Criterion. In 2016 Mole gave a talk at GDC.
Robert Perren worked as a programmer. Perren joined Criterion in 2005 before becoming lead tools and workflow programmer in 2012 at Criterion/Ghost Games. In 2014 he left EA and became technical manager at Falmouth University.
Davide Pirola worked as a programmer. Pirola previously worked at companies including Psygnosis, Steel Monkeys and Kuju Entertainment before joining Criterion in 2005. As part of Criterion, Pirola was the self-described “lowest ranked programmer ever.” Here is Pirola’s description of working at Criterion unedited: “My main duty was playing foosball at their mega bar and basically trying to do as little as possible! I mostly succeeded for almost 5 years, my contribution to their games was very minimal, in fact the worst part of every game they made was probably my code, specially crafted in such a way that was a mess to understand and run, credits go where credits due people… I once tried to write some proper code, I remember, it was a Thursday morning, but then I've changed my mind.” Pirola left in 2010 and is currently “Le Grande Fromage” at JFDP labs.
Gavin Rouse worked as a programmer. Rouse joined Criterion in 2002 and seems to now be at Ghost Games as a senior software engineer.
Andrei Shires worked as a programmer. Shires is still at Criterion and seems to work on front end and UI.
Dave Smeathers worked as a programmer. Smeathers joined Criterion in 2006 after being “forced into making video games to pay off his online poker debts.” On Paradise Smeathers worked on coding physics and coding crashes. Smeathers later became physics lead on Need for Speed Most Wanted before leaving Criterion in 2013 to join Fireproof Games.
James Smith worked as a programmer. Smith worked at Mentor Graphics before joining Criterion in 2003 as an audio programmer. Smith became lead audio programmer before leaving Criterion in 2007 and moving to Canada to work at Black Box. In 2012 he left and joined The Coalition, where he is lead audio programmer.
David Steptoe worked as a programmer. Steptoe joined Criterion in 2002 and later became lead audio programmer. In 2013 he left and joined Escapist Games, before leaving at the end of the year. In 2014 he joined Lionhead where he worked until its closure. Steptoe currently runs Audio Software Development, which he formed in 2016.
Alex Thomson worked as a programmer. Thomson previously worked at Rebellion, Elixir and Kuju before joining Criterion in 2006 as a senior software engineer. He has worked as a technical director and lead software engineer in his time at Criterion.
Alex Veal worked as a programmer. Veal joined Criterion in 2006 as an online software engineer. In 2014 he left Criterion and helped start Three Fields Entertainment
James Warren worked as a programmer. Warren joined Criterion in 2005 as an audio programmer. He currently seems to be at Ghost Games and is audio lead.
Tom Williamson worked as a programmer. Williamson previously worked at The Marketing Bureau before joining Criterion in 1999 as a software engineer. In 2011 he left Criterion and the following year became director at JFDP Labs, where he worked until 2017. In 2012 he also started a company called Threeshinyapples Limited.
Ben Woodhouse worked as a programmer. Woodhouse joined Criterion in 2005 as a graphics programmer. On the Paradise engine, Woodhouse worked on “lighting, shadows, occlusion culling, frustum culling, scene management, and various low-level CPU/SPU jobs used in the rendering pipeline.” At the end of 2009 he left Criterion and joined Lionhead as lead engine programmer. After the closure of Lionhead, he joined Epic where he is currently lead console programmer.
Chris Hegstrom worked as audio lead. Hegstrom previously worked at Stormfront Studios and Lucasarts before joining Criterion in 2005. At the end of 2007 Hegstrom left and joined Sony where he worked on God of War. In 2010 he joined Microsoft as audio director before leaving in 2015 and starting Symmetry Audio. In 2016 he joined Technicolor before joining Amazon in September 2017.
Steve Emney worked as an audio designer. Emney was previously self employed before joining Criterion in 2004. He became audio director at Criterion before joining Disney to work on Split/Second in 2009. After the closure of Black Rock Emney became director of TRC Family Entertainment in 2012 where he worked until 2014. Since 2014 he has worked for eMotion in Sound and since 2015 has worked for The Trailerfarm.
Lewis James worked as an audio designer. James joined Criterion in 2005. In 2008 he moved to EA Montreal until 2011, when he moved to Guerrilla Games. At the end of 2013 he left and became director of Improbable until 2015, when he joined La Indiana Sound.
Zsolt Marx worked as an audio designer. Marx previously worked at Rockstar Vienna before joining Criterion in 2005. In 2008 he started to work on other EA games before leaving the company in 2010 after working on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Since 2012 he has worked as a producer and lead programmer at Noizoo Games.
Thomas Belmont worked as an additional producer. Belmont previously worked at Ubisoft (first in QA and later as a designer and producer) and Eliad Technologies before joining Criterion in 2006. In 2011 he moved to Vancouver to work on other EA games before leaving in 2014 and becoming a producer for online technologies at Ubisoft.
Nick Channon worked as an additional producer. Channon joined EA in 1996 in Vancouver before moving to the UK in 2000 and joining Criterion in 2006. In 2008 he moved back to Vancouver and is currently senior director of business development at EA.
Neil Kaminski worked as an additional producer. Kaminski previously worked at companies including Bullfrog, Pure and Argonaut before joining Criterion in 2005 as a lead artist. In 2006 he became a producer before leaving in 2008 to become studio art manager at Codemasters in 2008. In 2011 he left and joined Escapist Games before joining Pixel Heroes in 2013. After leaving in 2016, he joined CCP in 2017.
Emily Newton Dunn worked as an additional producer. Dunn previously worked in PR for various companies before joining Criterion in 2005 as a producer. In 2007 Dunn moved to EA and became a game designer before becoming lead game designer at Playfish in 2011. In 2013 she left and after being after a few companies for a few months Dunn joined Another Place in 2014. In 2017 she left and after seven months at Playdiation joined Media Molecule in January 2018 as a consultant system designer.
Anja Haman worked on additional support. Haman previously worked at Radical before joining EA in 2005. In 2007 she left before joining Black Box in 2009-2011. From 2012-2015 Haman worked at Work at Play and has been part of Microsoft since the end of 2017. Since 2000 she has worked as president of Haman Consulting.
Maëlenn Lumineau worked on additional support. Lumineau worked as a translator before joining EA in 2000. In 2007 she joined Criterion as as operations manager before leaving in 2013 and joining Ubisoft as a producer.
Adrian Selby worked on additional support. Selby joined Criterion in 2002 as a producer before leaving in 2009 and becoming a producer at Disney. After 2011 Selby worked at some non-video game companies like BP before joining Boss Alien in 2015.
Harvey Wheaton worked on additional support. Wheaton previously worked at companies including JPMorgan Chase before joining EA in 2003. In 2007 and 2008 he was COO/director of product development at Criterion before joining Supermassive in 2008 as their studio director. At the end of 2013 he left and, after working as a consultant for over a year, joined Codeclan in 2015. In 2017 he became executive producer at Natural Motion.
Graeme Williams worked on additional support. Williams worked at Virtuality, Psygnosis and Rebellion before joining Criterion in 2002 as head of product management. In 2004 he became development director before leaving in 2008. After five months at Supermassive Williams joined VIrtual Toys where he worked until 2011. He next joined Digital Chocolate before joining Ubisoft in 2013. From 2014-2016 he worked at Guerrilla before taking a break and joining Virtually Live in 2017.
Paul Dibden worked as an additional artist. Dibden joined EA in 2005 as a graduate artist before eventually becoming a development director. In 2013 he left and co-founded Milkcap before joining Splash Damage in 2015 as a producer.
John Humphries worked as an additional artist. Humphries previously worked at Bubball before joining EA in 2005. In 2008 Humphries left and joined Realtime Worlds as a lead environmental artist. In 2010 he founded Onyx Digital.
Vincent Jenkins worked as an additional artist. Jenkins joined EA in 2006 as a concept artist before joining Codemasters in 2008, where he worked until 2011. Jenkins has mostly worked as an artist for films, including Rogue One, Game of Thrones and Casino Royale. He last worked on concept art for Solo.
Rasmus Jorgensen worked as an additional artist. Jorgensen joined EA in 2000 as a concept artist before leaving in 2007 to join Codemasters. In 2010 Jorgensen left and spent about a year at Leading Light, Double Negative and Ghost A/S before joining IO in 2014.
Jason Lord worked as an additional artist. Lord joined EA in 1993 and worked as a video director until 2012. In 2012 Lord started Liquid Crimson, which has worked with companies including Square Enix, Supermassive, Hello Games, Microsoft, IGN and Capcom.
Osman Nazlivatan worked as an additional artist. Nazlivatan previously worked freelance and at Argonaut before joining EA in 2004 as a technical artist. In 2007 Nazlivatan left, and after months freelance at Big Head, joined Hotch Potch as lead artist/director. In 2011 Nazlivatan left and after under a year at both Natural Motion and Sony joined King in 2014. In 2016 Nazlivatan left King but I’m unable to find what they’ve done after. Edit: Nazlivatan is still at King
Justin Rae worked as an additional artist. Rae joined EA in 1996 and was lead artist on F.A. Premier Manager games. In 2008 Rae left and became director of art at Supermassive before starting his own company, Studio 96, in 2016.
Peter Reeve worked as an additional artist. Reeve previously worked at a few different companies before joining EA in 2004 as a video editor. In 2008 Reeve joined Black Rock before freelance in 2009 and working with companies including EA and Crytek. He currently works at RMV Productions.
Dean Stolpmann worked as an additional artist. Stolpmann worked as an artist at companies including Frontier and Sony before joining Criterion/EA in 2005. In 2007 Stolpmann joined Outso and Codemasters before joining Supermassive as art director in 2010. Stolpmann joined Gameloft shortly after before becoming head 3D tutor at South Seas Film & TV school in 2013.
Avril Lavigne sang the song “Girlfriend” which was featured in the game. The song released in 2007 and the music video has been viewed over 400 million times. Lavigne also recorded the chorus of the song in 8 different languages.The song also got another version with Lil Mama.

Part 8 (has link to all before it, part 7 link has each individual link)
I expect this one to be the least popular one. Just wanted to be a cynic to open it up. I have been busy and this ones prob a bit sloppy, I didnt really proof read it or clean it up. The next one will likely be my last and hopefully the best one.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. (I will have him tell me this stuff again and leave it in comments, it was pretty funny and I kinda want to think he believes what he said as it was clearly not something he just came up with).
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though and I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

Part 8 (has link to all before it, part 7 link has each individual link)
I expect this one to be the least popular one. Just wanted to be a cynic to open it up. I have been busy and this ones prob a bit sloppy, I didnt really proof read it or clean it up. The next one will likely be my last and hopefully the best one.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. (I will have him tell me this stuff again and leave it in comments, it was pretty funny and I kinda want to think he believes what he said as it was clearly not something he just came up with).
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though and I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

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Part 8 (has link to all before it, part 7 link has each individual link)
I expect this one to be the least popular one. Just wanted to be a cynic to open it up. I have been busy and this ones prob a bit sloppy, I didnt really proof read it or clean it up. The next one will likely be my last and hopefully the best one.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. (I will have him tell me this stuff again and leave it in comments, it was pretty funny and I kinda want to think he believes what he said as it was clearly not something he just came up with).
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though and I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.