It took me 6 days to hit level 60 from open beta's cap of 38. By then I had a stash of 5000 gold. It was then I found my first enigmatic tier 12 item. I quickly lost all 5000 gold enchanting it but never gave up. Needless to say after a mere 2 weeks, I had 100 gold, but a full set of +9 items. I was gear capped then, having the best equipment possible at the time.
Ever since then I built an empire of gold. Starting out from that remaining 100 gold, it quickly turned to 1000, then back to 5000. But I did not stop there, utilizing different tactics and trial and error, I ascended my gold to the 5th digit. I watched my gold it become 10k, 20k... 30k. I was considered wealthy.
Then I made myself a personal goal, the sixth digit of gold. It seemed like a pipe dream but I decided to go for it. 30k turned into 50k after 4 days, 50k to 75k within another 10 days. Soon I saw me approach that glorious six digit gold. Lo and behold, after only 4 weeks, I managed to turn that measly 100 gold, into an empire of 100,000. I considered myself a billionaire (of copper).
By then tier 13 and masterwork was common knowledge, but I did not care for masterworks. I spent 12000 of my gold buying pre-enchanted boots and gloves(tier 13). With 88000 gold I decided to simply keep playing and fix the missing numbers. That is when tragedy struck. It was a tier 13 sword, only 20000 gold. I bought it, and enchanted it to +7 with no problems. I had 65000 gold left, and an item level of 150. I was the envy of my peers, I had everything. I decide to go for +8 on my sword, and there my empire crumbled.
It was a prosaic idea, get one item from +7 to +8, might have a good number of failures, but in the end it should pay off, right? I threw two orange fodders rotting in my bank at it, both fail, no problem. I bought 3 more orange fodders from the auction, all 3 failed, still no problem. I bought 4 blue fodders and 4 oranges, all failed. Now I was getting annoyed, the auction was dry of blues and oranges. One attempt for blue or orange was 1000/2000, while one attempt with green was 500. So I decide to throw green items at it, thinking It would save me money. Thirty tries, all failures.
I felt a gambling addiction coming on. In the end, my empire of 65000 gold became nothing more than a pile of rubble. I lost everything, trying to get that single cursed blade from 7 to 8.
I fell so quickly, I was at the top, now I am little more than a random noob begging for gold. It was all over, I could not bare to rebuild.