Why am I so nitty?

[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.