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Definitely buy and read this and you will get rid of your problem or at least find a way to work on it.
http://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment/dp/0452267560

Thanks for the reading suggestion, doc.lemon. I just finished reading "Mastery," and even though it was written almost 20 years ago (and has that "Japan knows a secret we don't" mentality of that time period with lots of references to Zen and Japanese martial arts), it distills everything else I've read in the past 3 years about talent and skill into a short, if not qualified, read.

I say it's not qualified since the author wants the reader to "surrender" (being one of the 5 master keys) and just believe this is how stuff really works then live his life according to it. The only real rationales given are Zen stories and personal anecdotes and even a nod to The Karate Kid. And there's also lots of pages given to personal essays on the ills of modern society. I don't agree or disagree with any of Mr. Leonard's conclusions, but it just drags in some spots and doesn't add (while possibly detracting) from the main message.

I've been fascinated by this genre of self-help since reading about "the 10,000 hour rule" in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". Books like Daniel Coyle's "The Talent Code" and Matthew Syed's "Bounce" followed up in detail about what goes into these 10,000 hours using modern science and sports psychology to guide them. An honorable mention should also go to Carol Dweck's Mindset (published before Outliers) which simply tackles the core driver of talent, namely motivation or mindset.

Some skeptical people might not be willing to buy what "Mastery" is selling and might find one of the later (secular) books more to their taste. But all these books are basically re-telling the same story. It's really revealing to know that the method to mastery/talent is ages old and universal. We just have to apply it in our lives.

(Also, it's ironic that the people are making cliff's notes and making shortcuts to knowledge for a book that espouses learning for a lifetime and not looking for quick fixes.)

Hi Monoreticle,

I am very similar. Over the years I have picked up and dropped so many hobbies, interests and jobs than most folks could dream of. The way I have come to terms with it is by finally picking a few things that I get the most satisfaction from and concentrating on them. It took me many years to figure this out on my own. Wish I'd known about the book doc.lemon linked to!

Try to concentrate on improving your poker game rather than making money. If you improve, the money will follow.

same here in regards to everything.

Threads 13 - Tolerance

Might also be very good if you are 'dreaming' of earning 1 mil. with poker. Maybe understanding variance might make you a bit more 'realistic'. There is a difference between goals and wishing. You are wishing you make a mil with poker, the reality is that you keep donating cash to the poker site while you should use proper bankroll management. A good goal for you might be: I am going to work on my bankroll management and I am going to play stakes my bankroll allows me to play.

Look up "smart" goals on google. Try to make some good goals that will work for you. Post them in this thread and let people tell you if they are good goals.

By the way, there are easier ways to earn a mil. then with poker

+ 1 mirrion

Glad to hear you're winning and feel like you're playing well. Clearly, you're on a huge heater, so enjoy it. The heaters are an important part of any poker player's winrate, as they offset the negative variance that seems to happen all too often.

Without trying to be a downer, what is going to happen to your emotional state when you downswing (as you inevitably will)? You seem incredibly prone to tilt and to being results-oriented. Do you think your reading and reflecting has given you better tools to deal with your monkey tilt when it happens again? I only say this so you recognize again that the road you're on (to self-improvement) is a long one and, given your issues, you'll need to be really vigilant throughout. When you feel yourself tilting, you must quit and be able to put things into perspective. You will never have any prolonged success if you don't.

Sounds like things are going well. Make sure you maintain a balanced life and a logical perspective. Keep going and good luck.

Fur Elise is a pretty hard piece. Piano is like poker in that you need to be pay obsessive attention to tiny details over a long time to get really good. You can't play "very good" Fur Elise after just 3 months.

Few things from my side, with honesty:

- when I start the poker session, all I have in mind is to double my bankroll. Very bad goal, if no goal at all. This happens even after I read Road To Mastery and other books. And how I do it: for the moment I have bankroll for 5NL. I open 12 tables and play premium hands, and every 5 minutes I look at the cashier to see how I stand. Very very bad. Cure: set up learning/growing goals for the session, for ex: play 6 tables and practice starting hand chart, or cbet, or 3bet, no bluffs, fold when raised ... and so on. And play a fixed amount of time: 30 min. After that, close the session and analyze I it worked from the goals perspective.
- what I experienced last week (+17BB/100, 4 days in a row, tripled my bankroll) was indeed a heater. A huge one. I thought I was the chosen one to beat 5NL, but after +17BB/100 came -17BB/100, LOL. What I do NOT understand is why AA, KK, premium hands in general, lose one after the other, usually all in, vs J8off, 48off... and so on.
- Fur Elise is a hard piece to master. But to be able so play it correctly, the whole piece, in 3 month after first touching the piano is a big deal for me. This shows high potential. To master the piece takes another 3 years probably, which I OF COURSE quit :-)

I enjoy reading what you write here, so if you have any other advises for a small dabbler who tries to find the way out of the hole, I would highly appreciate.

Few things from my side, with honesty:

- when I start the poker session, all I have in mind is to double my bankroll. Very bad goal, if no goal at all.

I mean this in the best possible way, my most sincere advice is to quit poker and never play again. You will probably be better for not playing the game.

You have the same thing as me. I'm also quite neurotic. When I get a new hobby I completely obsess about it and get really good at it really fast, and then drop it completely and pick up a new hobby. That's how I got good at poker too. Only I kept playing it for the money, though I could clearly tell when I was at the point where I'd normally drop it. I don't have any problems with brm discipline though. At first a little bit, but I made a rule to myself that I'd never re-deposit. Maybe you should do the same? Make a single deposit that's large enough to play whatever stakes you can beat, no matter how low (even $1 SNGs) and promise yourself to never redeposit. If you fail, quit poker, which then surely is for the better.

99% of people wondering whether they should quit poker should though.

Hmm I only read the first post. Having read some more I'd say it's a no brainer quit.

When 2 coaches say you should quit, maybe you should quit . Well, I self excluded myself for 2 months from all pokerrooms. I will then give it one LAST shot. I will deposit probably few hundred dollars and this will be IT. If I lose it, then it's done. If I manage it, then I will be the master.
In the meantime I will watch videos and read books. That's all I can do. Last hand played before the self exclusion: I got called to all in with AA by 32off. You can imagine that I lost ... and during the same session i lost 7 buyins with AA and KK only. If this is normal poker, then my last shot to poker will surely convince me to quit.

Thanks to everybody!

You should try reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you're looking for a strong core which will help you achieve your goals in life. I'm reading it right now and it has certainly helped me to feel more in control of my life.

Here's a good overview:

https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php

I'm pretty sure playing 12 tables at one time is a bad way to learn poker and improve- this is like something someone would do for rakeback you aren't going to learn the game doing this.

I started off at 10NL and had to lose a couple hundred before I realized I didn't know how to play. I then went into tilt psycho mode and ranted like a moron on the forums, then I changed my whole approach and play at 4NL now and care nothing about the money. It was tough but I check the cashier less than once a week (probably still too much).

It sounds like you want the excitement of gambling more than the actual experience of learning how to be good at poker.

@Grindcore How Dutch!

@Monoreticle If you're not in it for the game you should just quit and judging by your posts, I don't think you care much about the game.

You never think that you can ever be The Gambler, The donk, The retarded Monkey, and yet, here we are. You guys were right, I should just quit. Well, it's not that easy to accept that I am the perfect moron. So I decided to give it one more try. I reloaded an interesting amount of money and I started playing 25NL in bankroll (between 35-40 full buy ins). It all went great for 2 weeks, but I realized that I am break even, after 2 weeks and 20k hands, having almost the same bankroll. I increased the session time, and I started losing. When I reached about 25 buyins, I decided, as usual, that I have to get my money back. And what did the stupid monkey do? Well, it went playing 10/20$ FL, to get the money back. And lost.

To me, this is the calm after the storm. I feel free. Now I know I am just a donk (took a while to find out). So I excluded myself for the next 180 days from all poker rooms.

Now a question from the donk: is there a cure for this? Is anyone like me able to learn to control and be a winner poker player? Or when you discover you condition, you should run away as soon and far away as possible, before you lose your money, car, house, marriage and maybe more?

Given all your experiences, just walk away from the game. For goodness sake, why put yourself through any amount of mental anguish for something so inconsequential? There are (and will be) plenty of things that will tax and test you in real life that HAVE to be dealt with, or are worth agonizing over. Save your energy for those things.

Best of luck to you.

I should just quit. ... So I decided to give it one more try.

Seriously you should quit. It sounds like you might benefit from contacting gambler's anonymous.

can an alcoholic ever become a 1-2 beer social drinker? yes. it's possible. but it's much easier to just quit drinking altogether. i don't think a conscientious person can tell someone else it's OK to keep doing something that's hurting them. if you need permission to master yourself, you're probably better off not continuing on this path.

Alright, I have read through this entire thread and have to admit, I see a lot of my old self in you. If you quit, then it's going to be EV=0. Nothing bad comes from walking away.

Now, do I think you can make it work? Maybe. Maybe not. I remember when I first discovered this game, I too, obsessed over it. I read every poker book I could get my hands on, played with friends and won every time, hell, I even won the very first online MTT I entered. All of this made me think I was the next big thing in poker. Combine my early results with watching ESPN and seeing all these big name players winning millions and I was just like you thinking I'll be a poker pro by 26 and won't have to work a day in my life!

Then reality hit in. It's called varience. I started losing...and bad. I constantly reloaded, built my roll up to a few hundred/couple grand and then would take a big shot and lose it all. I did this for a couple years probably. Finally, I took a 3 month break from the game all together and got my s**t together. Then on Jan. 1, 2009 I decided to come back to the game. I did what Grindcore suggested and put $100 online and told myself I would never redeposit. Four days in I binked a MTT and never looked back. I went on to make some good scores that year and also in 2010. I never reloaded once. You have to understand that the money is just the benefit of the hard work. I look back now at the player I was even in 2009 and the player I am today. It's like night and day. The goal shouldn't be winning money, it should be being the best damn player you can be. Don't play 12 tables at once. Focus on 3-4 and learn the game. You'll never beat it until you can handle the mental part of the game. You're going to have losing days, losing weeks and losing months. However, once you can come to terms with it and stay completely focused, you'll keep posting in this thread about another self-exclusion.

I wish you the best in whatever you decide. I know I didn't really give any help as to how to cure your tilt issues, but for me, it was just finally coming to terms with MYSELF and saying enough is enough. Some people can't do that, just like some people can't read a book or watch a video. Only you can decide what's best, and none of us can really tell you what to do.

Good luck.

Let's Recap:
-You deposited ~$1000
-You started playing $25 NL w/ a 40 buy-in bankroll (Seems ok so far...)
-You played for 2 weeks/20k and were breakeven (This is ok as well and not a big sample size fwiw)
-You saw that you were breakeven, got pissed/frustrated/disappointed/tilted and began playing
longer sessions (NOT GOOD!!!)
-You started losing because you continued playing while tilted and tired (Anyone who did this would
likely have the same results.)
-Once the bankroll was depleted to ~$625, you decided to play $10/$20 LHE to "win it back".
-Here's where the train went completely off the tracks. You sat down w/ a 31 big bet bankroll w/
some really tough professional players (Probably no game selection either right?) in a game type
that's not your best (Since your game of choice was $25 NL, I'm assuming you're more of a NL
guy).

Honestly, by taking this route, it would be shocking if you didn't lose. I think most winning players have at one time or another gotten frustrated/tilted while playing and have played too long. What they don't do is start playing different games at limits 10x higher. It was at this point that you should've taken a break, caught your breath and then moved down to $10 NL.

At the end of the day, if you can look back and understand what you've done and why you've lost, but feel destined to repeat it, you should definately quit. There's no shame in this either. There are plenty of people who never get to that point and lose their money, car, house, marriage and more.

GL

To me, this is the calm after the storm. I feel free. Now I know I am just a donk (took a while to find out). So I excluded myself for the next 180 days from all poker rooms.

Now a question from the donk: is there a cure for this? Is anyone like me able to learn to control and be a winner poker player?

This makes me think of my buddy who recently has been caught up in drugs pretty heavily. - "I know I can't do heroin/any drug, but maybe I can have a little or figure out how to work it in responsibly"- It just doesn't work.

I can tell you personally I realized I had tilt issues and was bad but it only took a few weeks- really less than a week to realize and start fixing the problem. I really doubt that after any length of time that you can fix your issues with poker.

This makes me think of my buddy who recently has been caught up in drugs pretty heavily. - "I know I can't do heroin/any drug, but maybe I can have a little or figure out how to work it in responsibly"- It just doesn't work.

Second that. I had a buddy who used to say exactly the same sort of thing. It was obvious to everyone who knew him that he had a serious problem and although we tried to persuade him to get help he thought he could manage it. He tried to get clean on his own, went back to it and died of a heroin o/d aged like 23 or something, leaving a young daughter. Terribly terribly sad.

OP, you notice that the last time you self-excluded yourself for "2 months" you posted a month later about how you had given it "one last try" and played for two weeks before blowing your whole roll. So you must have gone back after about 2 weeks right?

Second that. I had a buddy who used to say exactly the same sort of thing. It was obvious to everyone who knew him that he had a serious problem and although we tried to persuade him to get help he thought he could manage it. He tried to get clean on his own, went back to it and died of a heroin o/d aged like 23 or something, leaving a young daughter. Terribly terribly sad.

OP, you notice that the last time you self-excluded yourself for "2 months" you posted a month later about how you had given it "one last try" and played for two weeks before blowing your whole roll. So you must have gone back after about 2 weeks right?

Yeah...this. When I posted I meant overcoming your tilt issues. However, if you're self-excluding and then creating new accounts/joining new sites just to play, then you have bigger issues than just tilt.

Poker is more dangerous for you than you realize or like to admit. I'd strongly suggest you leave it behind you completely but I'd actually wager money on you not being capable of doing it since you show all the signs of degeneracy.

Listen to Grindcore, he is absolutely right.

im not surprised people telling you to quit..

that's what you always do. you will quit for whatever reason. you named several activities yourself. guitar, piano, whatever, you quit. great advice, quit again..

no. work out your issues and finally achieve. work out your fuckin issues or just stay being an idiot. your choice.
if you cannot handle poker, you wont be able to handle most things in life. poker is really difficult to master, not only for its theory, complexity, motivationals (money), but also yourself. mastering poker will allow you to master many many other situations in life and you will get in touch with yourself way more than you might imagine. as you said yourself, you had the wrong approach to the "game". figure out why, what and how this is natural to you, figure out what would be optimal, see the difference and learn from it. learn for life.

and haha what is proposed to you instead? esoteric, non-scientific crappy books that are topsellers, because 99% of people are retarded. i hate you guys, because OP is asking for help and what does he get from the masses? you should be much more careful with what you are proposing and believe in, because you might have so much influence on people.

only person i have hope for in here is OP, because he is not where he wants to be and is not trapped in some non-rational esoteric backwards-thinking, that lets him keep ignoring whats really going on..

"Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, has been a top-seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles"

seriously?

magic beans?


i am sorry that i have to be so rude to everybody