Help me out: An experiment - Page 16

timmay29 · #**151** 08-15-2006, 10:34 PM

*Life story post*

Didn't take this test yet but for what it's worth I too was diagnosed with ADD. They tested the dogchit out of me at John's Hopkins in Baltimore. I was born with a fractured skull. It is entirely verbal, basically I have great difficulty processing more than one spoken direction at a time. This also impacts my reading since I am basically talking to myself, so I often have to read each sentence twice to really suck it in. However, the weird thing is that I've been a telemarketer at 3 different places and was the at or very close to the best one in all of them. Since I am reading a script, all I have to do is concentrate on the delivery of it, and since I've grown up having trouble comprehending what others tell me, I tend to put a huge emphasis on making sure someone understands what I'm saying so that even I can understand myself (make sense?).

Anyhow one supposed plus us ADDer's have is being more empathetic than usual because all our lives we've had to put significantly more effort into comprehending people. So this can obviously be advantagious in poker; you've become better adept at reading people if you've spent so much time and effort finding solutions to understand them better.

The bad side of ADD though is we get bored with something way too easily. I haven't played SNG's in about 2 weeks now, even though I was making more than I am at my job. And speaking of jobs, I've had way too many in my life to count with fingers and toes partly due to this boredom factor. As a soon to be bachelor graduate I'm scared I'll never find a gig that I will truly stick to.

If there's anyone else here with ADD in a similar situation I'd love to hear about it.

benza13 · #**152** 08-15-2006, 10:38 PM

50 - part time job

SlackerMcFly · #**153** 08-15-2006, 10:43 PM

I think Sklansky has found a new advertiser....

Actually, I think that ADD tendencies lend themselves perfectly to playing multiple tables. ADD folks would go stark raving mad playing one table at a time for example.

The need for quick, decisive action (or at least action of any sort) is perfect for "Short Attention Span Theatre" type people. Coupled with intelligence, ADD is a nice fit for multi-tablers.

Interesting that the younger ones are the ones that score the highest in the "test" (and I use the term loosely b/c it is far from realistic or diagnostic).

The reason youngsters score so high? They have grown up playing video games that require lots of action, bursts of concentration and the ability to process information quickly and act on it. So long as there is action and decisions, they will maintain focus at an abnormal level.

Geezers like me only had to make 2 choices once in a while: Left flipper, right flipper....

ADHD or ADD might actually be an advantage in the Multi-tabling poker arena. Just a thought.

McPinball

Newt_Buggs · #**154** 08-15-2006, 10:46 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think that ADD tendencies lend themselves perfectly to playing multiple tables. ADD folks would go stark raving mad playing one table at a time for example.

[/ QUOTE ]
I got back from vegas recently and was playing a lot of live cash games. There were certain times, especially after I had been playing for a while, where I couldn't follow the action. No matter how hard I tried my mind would start to wander after a minute or two and even though I was watching the table I had no idea what had just happened.