Help me fix my psychological issue playing with friends

[CarlSpackler]

First of all, my problem has nothing to do with soft-playing my friends. I've never soft-played anyone, and I never will.

I usually have significant issues whenever I play with one or more friends, which adversely affect my play. This problem occurs when one or more of my friends are playing at the same table as me, or even if I just meet a buddy or two at the casino and we're sitting at different tables. Before I describe in detail the exact problems I'm having, I must say that I both want and need to find a solution to this problem. I'm not interested in taking the easy way out, which of course is to never play with, or go to the casino with, my friends. While this is an effective short term solution, in the long run it's impractical at best. Obviously this is only a problem when I play live.

I think the source of the problem lies in the fact that I'm an extremely competitive individual when playing any type of game, whether it be basketball, Madden football, pitch, poker, Risk, etc. I'm significantly more ultra competitive, however, when I'm playing anything with or against my friends.

One place this used to primarily manifest itself in was Madden football (without any $$$ involved). I destroyed just about everyone I played, except for one friend whose skill level and competitiveness was roughly equivalent to mine. Our games would usually be close, and my pulse would often race and I would be excessively nervous (often shaking), like I was playing in a NL cash game which was way over my bankroll. It was all about pride.

Now the only game I play regularly is poker. I think it's pretty common knowledge that one's ego and pride can be the greatest enemy when playing poker. If I'm sitting at a poker table with a bunch of strangers, or even people whom I'm familiar with and have played with on multiple occasions, but wouldn't consider friends, I have minimal problems with pride or my ego (I think on some level, every poker player has problems with their ego and pride).

When I'm sitting at a table with one or more friends, however, my ego and pride start to adversely affect my play. Instead of simply concentrating on trying to make the best decision every time it's my turn to act, I become distracted by how my friend is playing. My ultra competitive spirit rears its head in an ugly manner. I begin to compare how I'm doing to how he's doing as far as our stack sizes and general play are concerned. Despite trying not to, it seems I spend as much or more time focusing on his style of play, than my other opponents (theoretically I should be spending virtually no time analyzing his play unless I'm involved in the same hand he is, because I already know and understand his style of play).

If my buddy builds a bigger stack than me the after the first couple of hours (I mainly play NL ring), I feel this sense of urgency to catch up to him. I try to stay focused on playing correctly, but suddenly there's this huge temptation to start playing more hands in spots I shouldn't. For the most part I'm able to resist this urge, but my mind will eventually find ways to rationalize making -EV plays and I almost always end up making a few mistakes (usually preflop) which I normally wouldn't.

Even if my friend is playing at a different table, in the back of my mind I still wonder how he's doing compared to me. I never walk over to see how he's doing, but if he comes over and says he's having a winning session, and is doing better than me, my ultra competitive spirit kicks in and suddenly my new goal is to accumulate more chips than he has.

I never get this negative competitive urge when I'm playing at a table with no friends, and none of my friends are in the poker room. If someone of similar skill, or a better player, is sitting at my table and has built a monster stack, I feel no sense of urgency. If a bad player at the table acquires a larger stack than me, I'm happy and patient. I only have major problems with my ego and pride when I'm playing with and/or in the vicinity of friends.

Any advice, help, or other comments on how to alleviate and solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.