Playing with sizable money feels stressfull sometime

[MarkSummers]

Like lots here, I'm a young college student and I messed around last summer with online poker and slowly but surely turned my original deposit of $50 into around $7000 now and I play 5/10 and 10/20. The money i use to play poker is just from that original deposit and i dont use it to buy anything, i just keep funding poker.

The problem is that I play for pots that are pretty big in relation to what the 20 year old has in terms of money. Winning and losing pots of 100 or 200 is more than the average 20 year old student even sees in a week if they work part time. So even though I'm bankrolled to play these limits, I'm always feeling stressed out when I play. A lot of the time I realize I'm holding my breath and i have to make a conscious effort to take full breaths.

I dont really know if any of this makes sense because I dont think i'm playing scared, it's just all that money is way more than I feel i deserve.

I would appreciate comments. Thank you.

[tylerdurden]

The feeling will pass. You will quickly become desensitized to the amounts. For now, if it's just making you nervous but not changing your play, keep going. If you do find that you're making bad plays because you're apprehensive about the amounts, then drop back for a while.

[MarkSummers]

thanks.

[aflaba]

When you know you are a winning player at the limit you are playing I think this feeling goes away.

[Dan Mezick]

You might take a periodic draw, like an income, from your poker account. You mentioned $100-200 a week.

This will reinforce your successful efforts with tangible results and tangible rewards.

Removing the winnings over your required backroll and rewarding yourself systematically for a well-done effort may create important psychological benefits that support your longer-term poker effort.

The dynamics of this are well described in psychological literature and even pop-psychology books that demystify important psychology concepts. (see Awaken the Giant Within-- Anthony Robbins).

All 'work' and no 'reward' can lead to a muted sense of achievement, and may actively promote burnout and anxious feelings.

So consider take some money out systematically as you earn it, and see if it has the desired effect on your feelings about the magnitude of what you are doing.

.

[mosquito]

There is also no shame to playing a bit lower until you
get more comfortable with the money.

It can be overwhelming to progress too quickly if you
are not mentally prepared for it.

Stay in your comfort zone, but advance as you can!

Good luck.....

[Reef]

think in terms of BB not dollars.

This is hard and I don't always do this either. It was such a shock to me when a friend of mine showed me a $35 paycheck for a half day of work- that's not even a friggen good pot! Hell no would I ever work for $8 something/hr.

I really don't know if this post had any meaning. hmm.. just read the top sentence.

[Stever]

Mike,
I read the other replys to your post and all are saying you will get used to it. Surely you will. BUT you also need to take your profits once in a while. Before you blow them.

I came to poker from day trading the stock markets. An important aspect of trading, like poker, is minimizing your losses (folding when you know you dont have it)and taking your profits.

After turning a $50 deposit into $7000 I would seriously consider withdrawing half of that. Park it in a high intrest bank account or use it to pay for part of your tuition. Well earned money- Use it wisely.

Stever
www.TheManWithTheAxe.com

[tek]

[ QUOTE ]
I came to poker from day trading the stock markets. An important aspect of trading, like poker, is minimizing your losses.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder how many of us there are here?

[golFUR]

On the one hand, having turned $50 into $7k you already know this. On the other, it might be a conceptual twist you aren't using.

If you are playing 5/10 and 10/20, yes, the pots can be a few hundred. A few hundred is easily a few day's if not a week's earnings to someone in their early 20s. Further, $7k is a few month's earnings, and looked at all at once it is a not inconsiderable sum.

However, you don't gamble the whole $7k at once. You play by the 300bb rule and never put more than a tenth or a sixth of it on the table at once. If you are playing limit, the concept extends.

The same is true of the pots.

If you think in terms of 2bb/hour you can think of every multi-hundred pot as being 2bb's for the hour with everything left over going to cover losses in this or the next hour.

Like someone else pointed out, think in terms of bb, not dollars. But further, realize that for those one or two pots an hour where there are several caps and you put several hundred into the pot - only a small portion of it will remain "yours" should you win it. The rest is going to go back to the table as your cost of sitting there, seeing a flop here and there, going away on fourth...