Byron Bernstein

Byron Daniel Bernstein (May 8, 1989 – July 2, 2020), better known as Reckful, was an American-Israeli Twitch streamer and professional esports player. He was best known in the gaming community for his achievements in ''World of Warcraft'' and ''Asheron's Call''.

Personal life

Byron Daniel Bernstein was born into a Jewish family to Itamar and Judith Bernstein in Los Angeles. He had two older brothers named Guy and Gary; Guy, the oldest, died after committing suicide when Bernstein was six. Bernstein said he was a "nerdy kid that no-one liked" in elementary school and was made fun of for his difficulty speaking English, which was his second language. Bernstein said he was a gifted student who was good at math, but being made fun of discouraged him from participating in school. When he got into high school, he made friends at school but said his life revolved around playing the video game ''Asheron's Call'', which fell out of popularity while ''World of Warcraft'' was gaining popularity, and he fell into bouts of depression and attempted to kill himself at 16. He later dropped out of high school, also due to depression. He said that he recognized that video games were a form of escapism for him.

Bernstein said his brother's death had a profound effect on his life and his subsequent struggles with depression. Bernstein was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder as a child. During a trip to Amsterdam, he tried psilocybin mushrooms, which he said helped him for the first time.

Bernstein himself died by suicide on July 2, 2020, nearly a month after a final stream with his followers. He was 31 years old.

Career

Bernstein was a professional ''World of Warcraft'' player, best-known for his innovative play-style of the "rogue" class, and a pioneer in video game live streaming on Twitch. His popularity in the game began when he finished in the top 0.1% of the competitive ladder without the use of what were considered essential gameplay mechanics at the time. He finished in the top 0.1% of the player base multiple competitive seasons in a row. He competed in a handful of tournaments and won Major League Gaming's ''World of Warcraft'' tournament in 2010.

In 2011, Bernstein released the gaming movie ''Reckful 3''. It reached one million views within a week (as of January 2022, the video had over six million views). He later won the WarcraftMovies top-skilled contest, in which players cast their vote for player of the year. In 2012, he became a developer, operations manager, and concept designer at Feenix, a gaming mouse company. He created his YouTube channel in October 2012 and followed in November with his first video, ''Reckful 5 stack Taste for Blood''.

In 2017, Bernstein was ranked fourth in ''The Gazette Review''s list of top-ten richest streamers. He claimed to have a net worth of $1.5 million and was receiving up to 50,000 viewers per stream.

Bernstein played poker and entered the 2016 Unibet Open London main event, but was knocked out early. In November 2017, he played in a charity poker event sponsored by PokerGO. The event was won by itsHafu.

In May 2018, Bernstein began releasing a podcast called ''Tea Time with Byron'', which featured long-form interviews with notable guests in the gaming and streaming communities such as Pokimane and Hikaru Nakamura

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