Poker is hurting my life

[SNOWBALL138]

I read Dr. Al's article, and I realized that poker is a source of disorder for me. I play long hours, forget to eat, stay up way too late. Its gotten so bad that I almost never study at all. Sometimes when I am trying to have a conversation with a friend, all I can think about is improving my game/moving up in limits.

I get distracted in school because I'm thinking about how I played a hand. Yesterday, I yelled at my sister because she wanted to use the computer while I was on it. I'm totally ashamed of that.

When I start a session, I will often play until I am exhausted. It hasn't always been this way for me though.

Often, I would say to myself "I'm going to play for 4 hours tonight" or "I'm going to try and play 20 tournaments online" and then when I got to that point I would just stop. Negreanu calls this "playing for time, not for results". Now, when I start a session, I say "I'll play till I want to stop"

I remember when I would just play for x amount of hours, or x amount of tournaments. I would want to get through that time, much like working a job. Its not that I wouldn't enjoy playing. I really would, but my goal was to finish, not to win pots. By setting that goal, I would feel good whether I won or lost that particular session.

The worst way that I've ever approached the game is to play for money. Once in a while, I'll say, I wanna make 150 tonight, or some such number. Well, what happens? I start to feel like a failure if I take a bad beat, or miss a lot of strong draws with good odds in a big pot. Why? because I'm not meeting my "goal".

When I go on these huge marathon sessions, my winnings make me euphoric, and that makes me almost uncomfortable. I hate that side of myself. I just had a really bad session lastnight, and the opposite feeling of losing after playing for so many hours is actually physically painful. I feel disgusted with myself, and often feel like I want to vomit.

Today, I did something I never do. I went "double for nothing" so to speak when I lost a heads up freezeout online. Why would I do something so irrational?
1. Because I have let poker become my major activity, and almost the source of my identity.
2. Because I was playing for immediate results, and felt emotionally attached to the outcome of the game.

My life has become very unbalanced, much like what Dr. Al talked about in his article in the internet magazine this month. I think I have to take steps against this, like only playing a certain amount of hours/week or hours/day. Otherwise, my life becomes unmanageable.

Has anyone else faced this problem of playing too much and been able to set a schedule for themselves to deal with it? I really don't want to quit playing, because I've read 17 books on the game, spent time on the forums, always read poker articles, and have been able to hugely improve my game (and my results) ever since I started playing.

[sexdrugsmoney]

I read an article where someone said to Layne Flack, "Hi Layne, how's life" to which Layne replied "What life?".

That's poker.

[SNOWBALL138]

I think Layne is one of those broke tournament pros that Nolan Dalla talked about in a recent article. If thats poker, then why play?

[sexdrugsmoney]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Layne is one of those broke tournament pros that Nolan Dalla talked about in a recent article. If thats poker, then why play?

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the question is "what do you want from poker?" and the answer is different for everybody.

Once you really stop and think about what you want from poker, the answer will come.

[revots33]

It sounds like you are playing too much poker. There's really only one way to fix that. Play less. In fact, it sounds like you should take an extended break and rediscover some of your other interests. Your life is out of balance and it sounds like your priorities (not studying, etc.) might be out of whack.

I think it's especially easy for winning players to justify playing too much. They rationalize that more play = more profit. However, I think there's a lot more to life than the size of your poker bankroll. And there's lots of things much more important in life than poker. Such as your studies, your family, and your health. Best of luck.

[OrangeHeat]

Take a vacation.

After over 2 years of playing almost daily i just took a nice 7 day cruise to Alaska. No poker at all.

It was very refrshing. I am actually looking forward to playing some poker tonight after the break. Too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.

Of course if you feel you cannot take a break then you are having too much of a bad thing which will always be too much of a bad thing and you should try GA.

Orange

[Aytumious]

You may want to try actually writing down your daily schedule and then psychologically train yourself to feel good when you complete a task. I think doing this is very important for semipro or pro poker players because it can be very easy to slip into a routine of non-routine, which can be very harmful to both your life and to your game. Try laying out your day on paper for a few days in a row and see if that helps to get you more focused on short blocks of time and the task at hand rather than having it be all poker all the time.

[deacsoft]

It sounds like you already have identified your problem (which is a huge 1st step). Now you just need to go through the process of coming up with viable solutions and choose the one that will best improve your situation. Taking a vacation doesn't sound like a bad idea, but it seems more like hiding from the problem to me. I think this is one you have to take head-on. A daily schedule is a great idea. I came up with one not too long ago and for different reasons, but it has increased my productivity and made me healthier. Above all, I believe you need to get into the correct frame of mind. Poker is a game. Nothing more. Sure it can be made into a career, job, etc but when all is said and done it's still just a game. There's so much more to life. Realize what should mean the most to you and make it so. Things like family, friends, and your own health (mental and physical) should probably top that list. You know what you need to do. Make it happen. Best wishes to you.

Cheers,

deacsoft

[cardspeak]

Hi, Snowball:

"...ashamed...want to vomit...euphoric...feel like a failure...irrational," etc.

You're saying some very powerful things that cover the polarities of painful and pleasurable. You might want to ask yourself what poker gives you that is worth all the extreme pain, disorder and misery you descibe. Certainly the money isn't worth it, is it?

My suggestion is that you are experiencing addiction symptoms. The very intensity itself may be the reward. I also feel that setting schedules will be next to useless since anyone addicted can find ready rationalizations as to why, e.g. "they will play until they feel like quitting."

With myself I've found that it's not hard for me to quit when ahead, but it can be very hard when I'm having one of those bad, bad sessions. I just want to win it back. It sucks to quit a loser, to have worked for hours and just swallow hard and click "Leave Table." Logic about it all being one long session means little to the desire to feel like a winner and avoid feeling like a loser.

I see poker as an intense experience. Relatively speaking one is risking a lot of money on a per hour basis. Add a little ego investment which somehow imagines one's self-worth is on the line and, Voila, you're subject to all the thrills and chills of the poker life.

I think all these emotions are like a drug. Maybe you need the drug of intensity. So, I'd suggest asking yourself what you need from poker. I believe you/we all end up doing what we feel we need regardless of what we think. If you can stop linking poker with what you identify that you need then maybe you can just play instead of going through all these trips.

Another thing that's helped me is to make as one of my primary goals playing with detachment, actually choosing to quit when behind as a triumph. I've identified that the only really serious errors I make is when my emotions get into the game. I can play good poker if I don't screw it up with wanting or fearing rather than knowing and seeing. So, I've made it goal to create a calm state of mind that can leave at any time. This itself becomes a reward rather than just the short term bucks.

FWIW. Thanks for being so honest.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

You are in danger crossing the line into Pathological Gambling. You may need counseling, but definitely need to make a change.

You know what the problems are. What are you going to do to fix them?