[bernie]

Yknow, I've pondered at times, especially lately, sending you or clarky or ed inquiring whether you guys ever found yourself in this spot and how you worked through it:

I haven't run into slavic lately to get his opinion on it. He always has a cool way of looking at it.

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However, something else was building up slowly. I think I first recognized it during that road trip at the Commerce at the end of June. Clarkmeister, Ed, and I were there for three days. I managed to play a total of 8 hours of poker. I can’t even remember what it is that I was doing during the day while they were playing. What I do remember is that I didn’t want to play. And, that was a feeling which was going to stick with me for quite a while.

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I'm working through this right now. I'm slowly coming out of it, I think, but I just couldn't stand to look at cards a month ago. I was even running fine when it happened. I've never experienced this type of burnout before. The other day I played for 6 hours live. It was the longest session I've played in about a month+. It sucks to feel this way. However, I have noticed on those sparse attempts, I'm much more relaxed. I'm also watching closely to see how far my game slips.

I think this is one of the things that many 'aspiring' players haven't really considered. When this time comes, how they'll handle it. I never really thought about it until I was in it. I'm doing kind of the same thing you are. Just hanging and playing sparsely. You get a whole new set of questions from the floorstaff/dealers when you take a break like this after them seeing you in the room regularly for 100+ hours a month.

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Prior to this, the worst run I had was about -120 big bets in the Mirage 20-40 game.

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I am suprised at this a little. I figured you'd have endured a bigger swing by now. One thing about online, it puts these streaks into perspective when converting it to live hands per hour. This is one reason I'm not worried since it took me 'til late may to be in the black on my normal live limit.

Your story helps me with alot of what I'm going through right now. It's nice to see that this type of crap happens to someone you consider a great player giving it a little bit of normalcy. (not sure if that's a word, but you get my drift) It doesn't feel as isolating reading this. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen this issue(burnout) addressed much if at all on this forum. I find it encouraging, actually.

I'm thinking this may also be much more common with players who've intensely worked on their games. Not just played, but really dig in and work on it.

Thanks for a great post. I found it inspiring in many ways.

b