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http://www.deucescracked.com/videos/841-The_Blueprint/10101-Episode_Fourteen

lots of temptations with house games if you're around poker rooms. the human mind is a stupid pattern-recognition machine. and it doesn't differentiate between completely random systems and causal systems. it just wants to find a pattern. our lives used to (maybe still do at times) depend on it. and if it gets lucky in random systems, we form a bad habit. this is how gambling addiction starts imo. the only way i know to break (or at least manage) the habit is to keep reinforcing the belief that random systems/house games have no causal relationships.

at the very least, understand how much EV you're giving up playing house games:
http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/nawhead/77761-Degen-Mode-Unlocked

I'm back ... , let's see what's coming... good news or bad news ...

$10 on bad

Good news would be a nice suprise...

Just found the thread I've looked throught the list of series a few times and never saw the pokersense series before. Relevant for me doing a lot of introspection at this time I'll check it out.

I just came across Einstein's 'world as I see it' writings recently and it's let me allow myself to move sharply towards the same ideals (such as mastery) and values and away from my culture's (putting it politely), I'm sure that's related to personity traits. Some people are generally motivated by money before mastery and curiosity, and are much less impulsive (for bad and good), we're all different.

http://www.geestkunde.net/uittreksels/ae-theworld.html

With the recent advances in the understanding of neuroplasticity and the extent of remodelling through experience it'll be interesting to see what changes can be made to each personality trait through experience... I mentioned I've seen some of the evidence re: neuoritism but as for the other aspects I'm not aware of the research.

This is my actual state of mind, poker and life, after searching and studying a lot of motivation, self control and other related topics. I wrote this on 2p2 recently.

What is, in the end, the motivation for playing poker? I mean, why did I started to play poker anyway? I played my first Texas Holdem being total drunk with some friends and I liked the competition and the action. This amplified and I wanted to play again, and I started searching on google "play poker". Millions of search results showed me that I could play anytime from home. And I really started playing and I really enjoy playing my first 1k hands...

But then I sensed that I could win a ton of money from this. My motivation switched from playing for fun and action and competition to money, and not 50-50%, but totally. I need to make money from clicking the mouse at home, after work, as a second job. I just click and money will come my way. But not only money did not come my way, money flew away. And I started studying, digging, learning, reading, watching, but not for the game ... but for the money I was dreaming about. Then came the history I wrote above .

In my engineering world, semiconductor microelectronics, which is one of the most exotic fields, I can see two types of people, passion-driven and money-driven.
- The passion-driven ones do not care about the money, but they have really big money. They are called technical experts and they really are. Therefore they get paid a lot. Way more than even top managers.
- The money-driven ones do not care about the passion, they don't have enough money and they are never happy. They are not at all technical experts and they think they deserve more and more money. As a consequence, they never have mood for work or improvement, and they end up searching for a different job, where everything will repeat.

You cannot blame any of these types of human beings, but I think one can mindfully recognize he is on a wrong path, after all - unhappy - , then he should work to understand the problem (study, dig, read ...) and then work to solve the problem. We are solving lots of problems for different people, but we never take the time to solve problems for us.

The problem with being money-driven, or money-motivated, is that you will never have enough, and you will never be happy, you will never find Avalon. Parkinson's law states that if the income will increase, the debts will increase, and you will be ultra unhappy, unless you evolve inside.
Being passion-motivated will also never get you anywhere, because this is the game of life: it never ends. You must learn your entire life. But you can find happiness. The happiness of understanding a new concept, of applying this new concept, combining tens of concepts and advancing to a level of understanding where no man has ever gone before - this is where the true passion lies.

Another difference between the two approaches is how you deal with everyday's issues, especially with people. In a money-driven world, you will hate everybody who get's in the way. In poker, when a spew monkey plays like an animal he is and sucks out 5 buyins, it will not matter that you did the right play and you played +EV for the long tern, but you will only think about the money lost, you will tilt and destroy yourself on the long run. In a passion-driven world, you can understand the other human beings around you. In poker, they can be drunk, just starting, jacking off in the same time, reading or whatever, and the fact that they play bad is the good thing you should be searching for. On the real life job, you can forgive animals that lie about you and get in your way just to make themselves remarked by the right people, and concentrate on your passion and on your journey which you chosen from passion.

A few days ago there was a nice saying on Facebook: No one can motivate you unless you motivate yourself. It was a picture of a lamp holding it's own cable in it's hands and connecting itself to the network.

It all comes back to Motivation .

I thought about quitting several times, but is seems that I keep coming back. And I keep coming back with the dream of making 1M, play good for few days, then go broke in 10 minutes. I self exclude myself several times, on some poker rooms until 2012.

Indeed I dream big. I quit the piano after learning very fast Fur Elise, because I though I am very good and started learning Chopin. Chopin needs probably years of practice until you play decent, so I just quit. As for guitar, I learned a lot several years, but then got to Jason Becker and Steve Vai. I tried a few months but it was to much, and instead of going back to the nice music I was playing, I quit.

It's probably the same with poker. If I dream about that million dollar, earning just 5$/day on 2NL is just peanuts. I do it for maximum one week, steady rate, but then I suddenly feel the need to double my bankroll in a day, or even cash 1st in a medium stake MTT. It's all in the Mastery book which I'm now reading, thanks again doc.lemon. You know the One Small step for man, on giant leap for man kind. I need the giant leap and i need it NOW.

Great guys, thanks, I will read and give it a real nice mental thought and come back with the result!

Sounds like you are looking for instant gratification and entertainment. In real life, there is no YouTube.

The problem with moving up and trying to double your bankroll is that there's no end to it. If you do it successfully once, you will try again, and again, until you go broke. Don't you see how that's a losing strategy?

... and I return again to this thread 3 month later :-)... and with good news. I've been searching deep inside me to find answers of all kinds, read a lot of books (poker related by Tommy Angelo, Harrington, Sklansky, life related by Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey and many others).

One of the 2 most important truths I came across are: "to make a change on the outside [of you], you must first change the inside [of you]" and "you are where and what you are right now only due to your past actions and decisions". These 2 combined go into: "if you want to be something else in the future, you must go into yourself and change the goals and decisions, then these will change your actions, and your inside and outside world will change" (Monoreticle).

Now I am trying to apply this in poker as well. I created written goals for my poker life and I am trying now to follow these goals and to enjoy the road as much as I can.

I discovered that I tilt a lot in cash games. Probably because I don't have a roll for more than 10NL, I get bored and tilt. Instead I discovered that I enjoy very much the high fields MTTs. And this is not because of the gambling and luck factor, but because of the competition which resembles a medieval war. You need tactics, you need to adapt, you need to know the enemy, you must know survival techniques, and so on... I get the same thrills in 1$ MTTs as in the 215$ MTTs. And YES, I can say I found my way in poker.

And with this state of mind, and playing MTTs, I started winning for the first time in 3 years. I made a 2k roll from a 20$ deposit playing 2$ turbo MTTs. I won several Sunday Million sats, played my first Sunday Million and cashed in 250 out of 7000 entrants. I see a nice and happy future playing MTTs, but the only drawback is the time needed. I don't enjoy turbos very much, because being tight aggressive, the time isn't enought to be tight and then the luck factor becomes bigger.

When I started this thread, I was playing only cash games and doing very bad. Lost a lot of money (~3k), a lot of time, and having a bad life in general. My advice to others in the same situation, who enjoy poker a lot and don't want to quit, go and find your poker game. Maybe it's cash, mtt, snd, sattelites, maybe other variants than holdem, if you're losing and think you can do better, try a change. It might work!

I think it all comes down to discipline and the correct mindset. I am just getting back into game after a year of ZERO hands whatsoever. I reevaulated what i did back before black friday and while i didnt do horrible (winning 2 nl player) pretty much breakeven at 10nl. I did have serious discipline issues, tilt issues, and generally incorrect thought process on my approach to the game. Waaaaaaayyy tooo concerned with making an immediate profit instead of playing solid poker regardless of the outcome of the hand.

Now im not a succesful player by any means but i firmly believe the key to success in todays tougher games lies in having the correct mindset and the discipline to stick to your game and your stake even when things arent going your way. Always analyze your game and review your sessions good or bad and instead of thinking dollars and cents or how much am i up or down just focus on making the correct plays and following nitty BR guidelines and the success will follow. Just my 2 cents coming back from a long layoff.

sometimes the most succesful players might not even be the most skilled they just have the correct approach. Last thing....i came back to the game simply because i truly enjoy playing it.

I started playing online poker in highschool and I used to be a pretty big video game nerd, was in some competitive gaming teams and stuff. Well I was not bad at poker but I would go on horrible tilt sessions. After a month of being break-even around 25NL I told myself I needed to try out 50NL because there's too many fish at 25NL, well at 50NL I was a losing player and this caused me to tilt even more. Eventually I sat down at a HU table with my entire roll and inevitably lost it. I felt horrible and decided to not touch poker ever again. I self-excluded myself for 6 months from the poker sites and never looked at another forum again.

In the meantime I focused on college and picking up new hobbies such as working out. I actually learnt a lot in college and through working out about discipline and not expecting results fast. Now, 3 years later, I decided that I'd give poker another shot. Before I started I told myself I would control my tilt issues and not play for the money but just to have some fun and enjoy the game. I'd make sure I control the game and not the other way around. If this ever turns out to not be true and if I ever spew my roll then I promised to stop playing immediately. I made myself these promises because I still remember that time I basically handed this guy money at the HU table (forgot what stake, I think 400NL, I was literally 3betting and open shoving all my hands preflop).

Right now I'm doing fine and have grinded up from 2NL, I'm taking shots at 25NL now after a couple months and I haven't seemed to be having any tilt, psychological or bankroll issues. I think this is because I've matured a lot as a person and learnt the discipline necessary through college and through working out consistently.

I believe that if you've progressed and matured and have learnt discipline better than you can play poker. You should just realize that it may take you years to make near the amount of money you want to make, hell, you may never make money, which is why I think you're going to have to actually enjoy poker and being a student of the game rather just playing the game.

... ah, and forgot to bring the best news. I started again some old hobbies. And it's been around 6 months now.

1. My aquarium is better than it ever was. Nice setup, nice equipment, working on it every week.
2. Bought a new nice electro-acoustic guitar and I enjoy playing it very very much. Got into jazz and started composing.
3. As wrote above, playing poker in bankroll and ballancing life and poker.

Maybe it's just another peak in my sinusiodal way of living, but I feel more confident and positive than ever before. I think all that self-help s**t did some mental change inside me. I also played neuroplasticity games, read nice books, defined writen goals ...

Like most of you said, I also came to the most important conclusion: LOVE THE PLATEAU!
Guitar, aquarium, poker, reading, sports, dog owning, husband, father, driver, engineer, cook, lover, sex-machine , chess, writer, painter, economist, bla bla bla ... you should LOVE THE PLATEAU, meaning that it all makes sense a lot more if you do those things from a student perspective, enjoying that you are actually doing it, instead of doing it for some instant gratification, like social recognition, money, women or other bad stuff.