Taking a Break Until School is Over

HoldemPokerPlyr · #1 05-16-2007, 10:01 PM

I'm 18 years old and I've been playing online poker for awhile now and doing alright. I made a decent amount of money. However, I'm still in HS (my last year finally and I'm about a month away from graduating). Within the last month I hit a really bad streak of cards and went broke.

I tried reloading with just $50 and I got back up to $200 really fast. However, I the cards went bad the next time I played and I went broke again.

I did hit a cold deck this month but I think my play isn't up to par and I'm looking to work on it. I'm always reading up on poker articles and books. However, I'm always tired and this is because of school. I go to bed late, I wake up early and I sit there all bored in class. I can never concentrate and etc. I do however do decent in school so it's not affecting my grades but when I come home from school all I want to do is sleep. I believe I lost 50% of my bankroll on the cold deck but the other 50% had to do with my lack of concentration.

So I've got a month until I graduate. I'm thinking about taking a break until I'm done with HS so I can relax a bit and get more sleep. Anyone else have a problem like this?

AaronBrown · #2 05-16-2007, 10:21 PM

Someone about to graduate from high school has more important life decisions than whether or not to risk $50 playing on-line poker. If you're bored and can't concentrate, don't blame it on poker. If you're losing money at poker, don't blame it on the cards.

You're not a winning poker player until you can keep your profits. Being up lots of money is not "doing alright" (or, as your English teacher probably told you when you weren't concentrating, "doing all right"). It doesn't matter how high you were at the peak, it matters what you finished with (or, English again, "with what you finished").

I suggest you figure out what doesn't bore you, instead of resting up to concentrate more on what does bore you. Once you know that, you can make a non-boring plan to succeed at something. Only then does it make sense to decide where to put your energies. Sleep is over-rated.

HoldemPokerPlyr · #3 05-16-2007, 10:26 PM

Well to be honest I started playing online with $10 about a year or so ago and built it up to $1200 or so playing micro stakes for the most part. This was the first time I ever went broke.

Oh and I'm not bored when I play poker. I love poker. I was just saying how I sit in school all day I get bored and tired.