Is playing with friends plus or minus ev?

[darydarling]

I brought this up in our Wednesday Group meeting here in Vegas and it became an interesting debate.

It deviated into a discussion of softplaying friends *which I never try to do* but that was not the reason I brought up the question.

Okay here is my personal answer and take it for what it's worth and I would be interested in hearing yours.

For me personally I have been finding lately that playing with friends is -ev.

Why?

Two reasons.

#1 Tilt factor is magnified when friends are around.
I think the reason for this is because after a "bad beat," instead of just quietly sitting back and rethinking the hand for a few minutes and then shaking it off and getting back into the game what happens is you discuuss the hand with the friend.

I am not talking about loudly, but quietly because they are sitting to my left or right. This seems to stoke the fire if you will, and if they have their own bad beats going on stoke's theirs.

Misery does love company.

#2 My play is affected to some degree.
Once again this has nothing to do with soft playing, however when I'm getting ready to play a hand some doubt can and at time does creep in.
I start to ask myself instead of why am I playing it this way and what is my strategy on the flop, turn etc. I begin to ask myself "oh my what will so and so think if they see me play this hand here and it doesn't work out the way I need it to."

The play may not necessarily be questionable, but the self doubt and fear that I may donk it up in front of a friend may make me misplay the hand after the flop and so on.

My solution is that I am going to limit how often I play with friends, even though at times it would be nice to have a buddy to chat with while grinding it out for 8+ hours.

Just my thoughts.