Sudden Realization

[Bill King]

So here's the story.. I've been playing poker for around 4 years, but basically 2 years seriously.. and about 1.5 years professionally. I am a regular poster on here, and when I first started reading 2p2 it only fueled my fire to become a better player. Since then I have worked my way up to the biggest games in the area, and have developed my game to the point where I feel I can beat any game.

Around 4 months ago I read a post (i think it was by AZK??) in the HSNL forums about losing motivation to play.. and every word he expressed pretty much clicked in my head. About a week later I was playing in the 75/150 Mixed game (HOE but mostly OE), and I had a HUGE weekend playing.. running well.. playing even better. Everything has been clicking for me both intellectually with poker and with results as an effect of this. Not only that, but my poker friends (some from here, and others from live play etc.) are all doing very well and it makes me happy to see them prosper. I was at the table and I just said to myself "what am I doing here? I feel like I am wasting the good years of my life." I picked up my racks of chips, and left, and haven't been back since. I left with the intention to not return there unless things in my life had gone seriously awry and I needed some emergency money.

Since this time, I have invested most of my BR, paid off about $50k or so in school loans (making me debt free), and I am looking into buying a nice car this summer. Life is good.. or so it would seem.

I am having issues right now, finding a way to expend the mental energy that I put into poker. I feel that there was so much put into playing, analyzing and developing my game.. that now I sit around and am bored with myself. I can't find motivation to do schoolwork, and I have just sort of stopped caring about the little things that used to make me so happy.. like running (I used to run 10 miles every day).

Is this me saying I regret the choice to basically start the process of weeding poker out of my life? I'm not really sure.. but the game for a while was making me generally unhappy.. regardless that I was making ~$300/hr and I don't even have a college degree yet.

I'm not really sure what to do here. I took a long break from poker, and I am at the point now where I am debating on just starting over. If I start with a small amount of money, and grind it back up into the bigger games again, maybe that challenge will make me more motivated and channell my efforts.

comments would be greatly appreciated.

[unfoldable]

It is amazing to me, how many people turn their back on poker these days.
I will translate a sentence from the book "Philosophy of money" from a guy named Georg Simmel, which i think of as true since i heard it the first time:
"Freedom without a worthy object of activity is worth nothing." (I hope the translation doesnt suck too bad)
It means: Get the [censored] out of your box and do something, bitch!
Find a girl (or a man or a sheep, whatever you prefer), talk to people, people you dont know yet. If you find it hard to meet people: learn that. Develop yourself.
You will pretty soon stumble upon a new field of interest. Be careful! Your drive for poker in the past doesnt mean that you like poker in particular, but that you have the personality to go really deep with things, once you accepted them as valuable.
Basically it comes down to: find new goals. This is difficult in a world without much sense. Now you have something to think about. If you are good at it, maybe you will become a new first class philospher.
And for the running: do it anyway. Once you start again, a lot of body processes get influenced positive, you will feel better.
There is so much more to say, but my boss thinks i should work now...

[goodgrief]

Sounds like clinical depression to me. If you were giving up running because you want your knees to last past age 40, and you'd chosen another fitness program to take up the slack, it would just be considered a smart move. If you were giving up poker because you wanted to focus on something more meaningful to you, then again, it would be a smart move. But it sounds like you just threw it away, with no plan to do anything better.

That is widely considered a symptom of clinical depression. I'm no psychiatrist or anything, but you might want to check it out with a doctor. Could be an underlying physical health issue, also. Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, and so on, but I think if you had one of these you'd be experiencing other health problems, not just malaise. Oh, and if you recently quit caffeine, for a little while, you might feel kind of "meh" about doing anything, but it shouldn't last more than a few days in my experience.

[Erik Blazynski]

Frank Wallace wrote the following..... (then he quit poker)


[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, in poker, the good player must strive to surround himself with losers--with people who are constantly defaulting on the use of their minds--the opposite kind of people whom the good player could respect and enjoy. That poker is not a very satisfying or rewarding way for him to consume large, irreplaceable portions of his life.... The good player, therefore, may be the biggest loser in the game.

And the superior professional player is perhaps the biggest loser in poker, especially in public poker. Constantly surrounded by losers, he consumes his intelligence and time in a situation that provides a guaranteed income, but offers neither an interesting nor a productive future.

[/ QUOTE ]

[PJo336]

This doesnt sound liek depression, just sounds like a rough patch. I would agree you should keep running. I am currently training for a marathon, and as of right now I am injured. Since stopping running I have kinda felt like [censored] all the time and worthless. This never occurred when running. KEEP RUNNING, i dont care how much you dont want to.
As for poker, no one said you have to quit. If you feel lame playing stop till you dont feel lame. I would say try building it back up from a small bankroll and see how you feel. In the meantime, work on school so you can at least keep a back up for whatever occurs in the next few years.

[johnnyrocket]

some people can play forever, some just play from money, if it isnt what makes u happy dont player, if it is then stick it out

take some breaks and recover

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
Frank Wallace wrote the following..... (then he quit poker)


[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, in poker, the good player must strive to surround himself with losers--with people who are constantly defaulting on the use of their minds--the opposite kind of people whom the good player could respect and enjoy. That poker is not a very satisfying or rewarding way for him to consume large, irreplaceable portions of his life.... The good player, therefore, may be the biggest loser in the game.

And the superior professional player is perhaps the biggest loser in poker, especially in public poker. Constantly surrounded by losers, he consumes his intelligence and time in a situation that provides a guaranteed income, but offers neither an interesting nor a productive future.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but the same can be said of lawyers.

[cwar]

One of the poster put it really well, you had a goal and that was great and it motivated you, now you need something to aim for. You have to world open to you find what you want to do and go for it.

[HOWMANY]

For me the thing is that while I often find poker pretty boring, I get even more bored when I'm not playing.

[Poker_Ace]

***Yeah, but the same can be said of lawyers.***

LOL! I am a lawyer and I thought the same thing.