Why am I so nitty?

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I play like everyday, but I've never been able to play more than a 2hour session at once. Whenever I start playing I am always extremely nervous. If it's been a while my hands will shake and I'll get butterflies in my stomach. As I keep playing I get more and more uncomfortable. Winning or losing has no effect on this. It has NOTHING to do with wanting to protect a win or stop playing because of a loss. It's just a general uneasiness. After the 90min mark I will start shifting in my seat and sometimes think of excuses of why I should stop playing. Once I get close to the 2hour mark I will almost always quit, unless the game is very good then I will tough it out.


I thought this stuff would pass with time. I really have no taboos about gambling, and I have no gambling problems. In fact I would say I dont enjoy the act of gambling for gambling's sake. This is causing a problem now as the money is far better than my job, and I really want to put in more hours. I suppose I could take some sort of anti anxiety drug, but do those interfere with decision making? Id rather not resort to something like that out of principle, but if it's effective I'll do it out of pragmatism.

I thought I would just get dull to this after a while, but it really hasn't changed at all. Any advice?

[SNOWBALL138]

Hi Alex,

I have wondered why I saw you leave so many good games at peak hours. I guess it wasn't because you were afraid of my action afterall.

This isn't much of a problem if you can play 2-3 times a day in short spurts. You won't be able to do 40 hours, but maybe thats ok for you. Having a job to attend to can get in the way of this though.

I think playing in short spurts can help you to play your best more often. Are you sure this is really a bad thing?

Cheers,
Snowball

[Alex/Mugaaz]

Where have we played together? It's not a huge problem, I guess, but it does get in the way of my decision making towards the end of a session. I would really like to be able to sit down and play 4 tables for 6hrs at once. I see people playing 1500-2000 hands a day and I want to be one of those people, but this problem makes it really tough.

[SNOWBALL138]

We played 3/6 LHE full games at AP. Either that or it was your impersonator.

[ QUOTE ]
I see people playing 1500-2000 hands a day and I want to be one of those people,

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather play 750-1000 hands at 2bb/100 than 1500-2000 hands at 1bb/100. It sounds like what you are doing works for you, which is all that matters. Who cares what other people are doing?

Here's an idea:
Maybe you can play your regular amount of tables for 2 hours or so, and then when you start to feel a bit stressed you can kill your least profitable table for a little while and play the better ones exclusively.

I doubt you'll be playing in 8 hour shifts overnight.
If you're going to try to play longer, doing it gradually will help you to step perilously outside of your comfort zone.


Best,
Snowball

[Alex/Mugaaz]

If the game got full that why I left. I am trying to only play SH at the moment.

[raze]

Dude how long have you been playing? I find that like anything else, by pushing yourself you will adapt and get better. In a year I (verrry gradually) went from .10/.20 to 1/2 to double-tabling to 3/6SH 3-tabling. I used to play 15-30 minute sessions, then an hour at a time, and now I regularly log 6-7 hour sessions (w 2 breaks). With time, effort & guts you should overcome all obstacles

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose I could take some sort of anti anxiety drug, but do those interfere with decision making?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you'd be better off trying to find the root of your problem than to start taking prescription meds to mask it.

From your post it's very hard to tell why you get so uneasy. It sounds to me like you start out uneasy right from the very 1st hand. Then it gets worse as it goes on, and at 2 hours it just gets to be too much.

So the real question isn't why can't you play more than 2 hours, but why are you starting out nervous in the 1st place?

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I started 9 months ago with $20 at 2c/4c and I play 3/6&5/10 sh HE or 7cs. Like I said before, I don't see any reason to be nervous other then the fact what I'm doint actuall matters.

[DCWildcat]

I would advise against "pushing yourself." If the anxiety has persisted for a long time, then stretching your limits won't work. "Pushing," or attempting to flood out feelings generally only works when you have a strong aversion to it and you've avoided the task because of it. E.g., when addressing people who have fears of peeing in public restrooms, making them stand in front of a toilet in a crowded restaurant doesn't work if they force themselves to pee anyway.

[DCWildcat]

Some other things might be helpful in addressing this:
1) Do you experience this sort of anxiety with any other activity?
2) If so, can you think of any conceptual link between the two?
3) Do you experience this playing live? (and I don't mean little $5 buy in home games for fun...I mean legit, serious B&M playing).

That would help a boatload.

[Pepsquad]

I'm at a loss. Is it possible you're in denial? I'm not trying to crack a joke, that's a sincere question. The only plausible explanations are fear of loss, or a deep rooted shame of gambling/risk-taking. How would you know for sure it's not a fear of financial loss? You say your anxiety grows regardless of if you're up or down but you can still have a fear of loss regardless (ie - if up, fear of losing what you've won/if down - fear of losing even more). Here's a question Alex. Does your anxiety grow the further away you get from break-even in a session (+ OR -)? In other words, at the 2 hour point does the anxiety become overwhelming even if you are dead-even for the session? I'm only asking because if you're anxiety grows the further you get from your starting BB's for a session, it's safe to say we can link your anxiety to money and fear of financial success/failure in some fashion. I don't know. Now that I think about it, that wouldn't really help either, I'm just thinking out loud. I hope you find the reasoning behind this.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm at a loss. Is it possible you're in denial? I'm not trying to crack a joke, that's a sincere question. The only plausible explanations are fear of loss, or a deep rooted shame of gambling/risk-taking. How would you know for sure it's not a fear of financial loss? You say your anxiety grows regardless of if you're up or down but you can still have a fear of loss regardless (ie - if up, fear of losing what you've won/if down - fear of losing even more). Here's a question Alex. Does your anxiety grow the further away you get from break-even in a session (+ OR -)? In other words, at the 2 hour point does the anxiety become overwhelming even if you are dead-even for the session? I'm only asking because if you're anxiety grows the further you get from your starting BB's for a session, it's safe to say we can link your anxiety to money and fear of financial success/failure in some fashion. I don't know. Now that I think about it, that wouldn't really help either, I'm just thinking out loud. I hope you find the reasoning behind this.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I'm not ashamed or proud of gambling/risk taking, but yes I'm sure part of it is a fear of loss, the money has reached a point where it does matter now in the sense that it pays for a lot of things.
2. No, how far I'm up or down doesn't seem to matter.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
Some other things might be helpful in addressing this:
1) Do you experience this sort of anxiety with any other activity?
2) If so, can you think of any conceptual link between the two?
3) Do you experience this playing live? (and I don't mean little $5 buy in home games for fun...I mean legit, serious B&M playing).

That would help a boatload.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Not that I recall.
3. I've never played live escept for with a friends for minute amounts of money,

[DCWildcat]

I seriously doubt this is an issue of denial or some deep-rooted psychofreudian mumbo jumbo.

If you want to help diagnose your problem, some B&M might be necessary. It could be something about the context of your playing that causes anxiety (people in general horribly underestimate the importance of context in such problems). If it occurs playing live, then we know it's something about playing poker, not the environment, that's causing your problems. If you can't find a game, even for a little while, well...do you do any other kinds of gambling?

[DCWildcat]

More questions to help...
1) You mentioned physical symptoms (butterflies in stomach, shaking, etc.). Is nausea ever a problem?
2) Is the thought of playing generally aversive? I.e., if you're walking over to your computer about to play a session, do you feel nervous/anxious/scared?
3) Do you concentrate on your nervousness while you play? Is it hard to ignore?
4) Have you found anything within the game that helps lessen it, such as winning a big pot, or even making an easy fold?

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
More questions to help...
1) You mentioned physical symptoms (butterflies in stomach, shaking, etc.). Is nausea ever a problem?
2) Is the thought of playing generally aversive? I.e., if you're walking over to your computer about to play a session, do you feel nervous/anxious/scared?
3) Do you concentrate on your nervousness while you play? Is it hard to ignore?
4) Have you found anything within the game that helps lessen it, such as winning a big pot, or even making an easy fold?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. No
2. Sometimes yes, but not always.
3. I don't concentrate on it, but it can be hard to ignore. It usually interferes the most when I'm not in a hand and could of been noticing some more things on the various tables.
4. No, but music does sometimes. The problem is that I can never concentrate while music is playing, so listening to it while I play doesn't help since I'll play worse.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
I seriously doubt this is an issue of denial or some deep-rooted psychofreudian mumbo jumbo.

If you want to help diagnose your problem, some B&M might be necessary. It could be something about the context of your playing that causes anxiety (people in general horribly underestimate the importance of context in such problems). If it occurs playing live, then we know it's something about playing poker, not the environment, that's causing your problems. If you can't find a game, even for a little while, well...do you do any other kinds of gambling?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I might have a chance to play live next week, but this might not help anything since I doubt the casino spreads 5/10 at the highest and I'm sure the game wil be very easy.

2. No I don't play any other gambling games.

OK, music helps. So most likely, the music interrupts some series of words you are saying to yourself just under your level of consciousness. Those words are part of a cycle of something you say to yourself, that makes you feel anxious, so you say something to yourself that makes yourself feel more anxious. Do you follow me?

Since you also "can't concentrate" with music on, you must also evaluate play using words you say to yourself. The trick here is to learn to keep doing the words that help you make your good poker decisions, and stop doing the ones that make you anxious. First step, find out what all these words are. Meditation, journaling, or a hypnotherapist or NLP practitioner may help. Then focus on the words you want to use, so well that you exclude the ones that make you anxious.

It's tricky. Since you have enough self-awareness to notice the problem, you have enough to correct it, too.