losing the passion

Lamb_of_johnLamb_of_john
in General Poker Chat
hey guys, there is something i wish to disguss with everyone else. i woudl like stories and as much feed back as i can get.

see the thing is this, after a bad beat, or i get kicked out of a tournament wthout making the money (which is a fairly big part of playing poker), i feel al little like poker isnt for me. I personally am in love with this game, it just about all i think about. i wake up in the middle of the night with dreams of great hands and huge pots (i am %100 serious here) and i really only want to be a good player.

sometimes i find myself losing the fire. thinking that poker is a waste of time (and my money) but only for about an hour it seems. after a few minutes my mind starts rushing to thoughts of bigger pots and greater hands.

does anyone else feel the same? anyone else ever thought about giving up poker? what made you wanna keep going? was it a bad beat that got you thinking about it?? did you lose too much money doing it??

thanks guys,
johnny
john@singlethreat.com

Comments

  • ErculesErcules
    Yeah, this happens to me to from time to time.

    My advice, take a break, stay away from the game for a little while.
    I usually avoid poker for at least a week when I get this feeling.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • esoolesool
    I don't get as bad as what you're describing but after a bad night, a run of bad luck or stupid play by myself I will take a couple days off and then I am good to go.

    If I am playing badly I will try and spend time reading poker books instead of playing to get back on track.

    I never get too down though since I track all my game and know that I am a winning poker player. It's like I tell my wife when I am on a bad run, I just need to play more poker to get to the wins.
  • iceice
    yeah, I say just take some time off and don't play for a week or two. I guarantee the itch will consume you after the time off.
  • ScottyZScottyZ
    One thing that Jesse May really nails in his novel "Shut Up and Deal" is that poker in the long run is about much more than the cards, game selection, textbook strategies, looking for your opponents' eye twitches, and the other poker ABC's. That things like handling the psychology of bad beats is not just part of poker, but that in some sense, those sorts of things *are* poker. I'm going to go pull out some quotes from the book later. :)

    MS&M also point out a nice way of handling bad beats in SSHE. A (long-run) winning poker player should have a casino-like mindset when it comes to poker. Casinos make money by having many many players play many many hours of many many different games, the casino having a small edge at each game.

    The casino couldn't care less about the individual outcomes. Say some high roller from Texas comes into a craps table, tosses a purple chip at the stickman, and calls out (Texas-style) "Sssnake Ayes". Wouldn't you know it the shooter throws pocket aces, and the crazy Texan presses the bet the full amount. If the first bet didn't get everyone's attention, this one sure does. This being a story I just made up, the shooter hits a pair of aces again. This, of course, is a bad-beat. A 1,295 to 1 shot.

    Is the casino concerned about this? Not at all.* The casino will still win money in the long run, simply because it has the edge.

    Do the casino owners become downtrodden due to such a bad beat? Do they go on tilt, and suddenly alter the rules of the game to favour the opponents? That would be lunacy, right? :cool:

    This is also the way of poker. If you have a long-run edge (which is big enough to overcome rake, fees, etc) when you play poker, you will win the money in the long run. Going on tilt hurts you. Getting emotional hurts you. Not playing a single hand to the best of your ability, whether it is your first hand of the session, or the hand following your opponent making a set of dueces on the river over your pair of Aces, hurts you.

    Handling bad beats is a good example of something "easy to learn, but difficult to master". A lot of winning poker players understand the concepts of the bad beat and the long-run, but few are able to really incorporate such knowledge into their real-time poker experience. Keeping an even keel while playing is something I work on a LOT myself.

    "Staying in the moment is the path to poker mastery."
    -Howard Lederer

    ScottyZ

    *Okay, okay. They would probably go over the security tapes with a fine toothed comb, and send the dice to the "lab", but that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about.
  • Lamb_of_johnLamb_of_john
    wow man, thanks alot. all i wanna do is play soem pokes now.

    johnny,
    John@singlethreat.com
  • Paul3221Paul3221
    I've been so frustrated that I'm ready to throw my PC off my balcony at times. After a fit of swearing that would make a death-row convict feel uncomfortable, I tell myself I'm taking a week off, and not even thinking about poker!! I'm usually back playing by the next night... ;) The longest I've made it is 3 days.

    My wife says I'm addicted. I told her that I'm a "calculated-risk investor".
  • UnknownUnknown
    I've been so frustrated that I'm ready to throw my PC off my balcony at times.
    I've mentioned this before, but if you missed it... it is apparently a fact that Mike Matusow once threw his laptop into a swimming pool.
  • ScottyZScottyZ
    Apparently a fact?

    ScottyZ
  • UnknownUnknown
    I knew I'd get called on that.
  • ScottyZScottyZ
    Knew I'd get?

    ;)

    You know, thinking about it carefully, "apparently a fact" technically makes sense. Just sounds weird...

    ScottyZ
  • pkrfce9pkrfce9
    ScottyZ wrote:
    technically makes sense
    ????

    ...since we are being English nazis. Ooops! Never mind. :tongue:
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