Winning player, but thinking of quitting poker...

[portisfreak]

I had a minor downswing last night (-20BB). Went to bed, turned on the TV, watched a movie then felt like "I don't know if I want to deal with this anymore." I enjoy the money, rocking the 08 tables at least at 4-5 BB each, but my heart isn't in the game anymore. I don't play for a living, nor do I feel burned out, but I had an overwhelming feeling "wow, I've wasted a lot of time." I'm in college, and I find myself winning or burning through a week's worth of work for my friends who would probably react like that kid who was cutting himself after a downswing if they went through the worst of my downswings.

I don't know what to do. My first instinct is just to withdraw the 2k or so I have and just go somewhere. I also feel like maybe this is just passing, but are existential crisises supposed to happen at year three of playing poker?

[Grandezza]

"that kid who was cutting himself after a downswing"

link?

And take a break and see how you feel in a couple of months. If you feel the same "just" quit.

[CrayZee]

"Wow, I wasted a lot of time" is sunk cost. All that matters is if you want to continue to spend time on the game. It sounds like might be bored of poker. Nothing wrong with that, I'm sure you can find plenty of other things do with the time.

I can understand that shifting money around and playing games might not fully satisfy a person.

[KurtSF]

[ QUOTE ]
"that kid who was cutting himself after a downswing"

link?

[/ QUOTE ]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=0#Post7822469

[portisfreak]

Sat down, played for an hour. Down 2 BB. My heart is defintely not into this anymore. Cashed out the money and will put it into a savings account or something. I'll reconsider this, but I'm a little ambivalent right now because my buddies are heading to AC on Friday. After teaching them how to play every poker variant of HORSE the last few years, they're probably going to be like "WTF" when I tell them I'm semi-quitting/on sabbatical.

[pfapfap]

So stop! Online poker is a huge time suck. You're in college, cripes, go chase the tail around. Or, y'know, better yourself. You're not going to be in an environment that has so much to offer and so few rules and so many hormones ever again.

[Off Duty]

Take the money to AC with your buddies.

If you feel like playing, play live. Else, play BJ at $5 a hand and scream for cards and get loaded on the casino's nickle.

[Maize]

Only YOU can decide whether or not to quit poker.
But, if you do, I PERSONALLY don't believe it's been
a TOTAL waste of time.
LIFE is a poker game. For the rest of your life,you
WILL be drawing upon experience from your poker days,
even if you're not conciously aware of it.
If you can look at it through THIS approach, you may
even decide to not COMPLETELY give up poker.

[steamboatin]

You are very level headed, whatever you ultimately decide is probably correct.

I find myself thinking about quitting poker from time to time, especially after down swings.

[toots]

For me, the time to scale back was when I realized that I was smarting from the downswings more than I was enjoying the upswings. I realized that it was a net bummer.

Now, I'm back to much more occasional play, and for fun only.