Why am I playing poker?

I've been thinking about this point a lot as of late. Ive moved my money from my Empire to my bank, and from my bank to my neteller, which will take until monday or tuesday to appear. So until then, im off poker.

But taking a step back, I've been wondering what my plan is for poker. Ive always thought of myself as a good player. Ive earned money from grinding, took down a MTT. I cashed out my MTT monies for a new computer. +EV, my old one would crash alot. Anywho Ive got about $800 or $900 US in my poker bankroll.

Alright.. im going a bit off track now. Im wondering what I am playing for. I keep thinking too short term. I understand that ill have my good nights and bad nights, i will always win and lose. Ill run cold, ill run hot, etc. But I dont know what I want out of it.

I recently got accepted into my first choice university, it has been haunting me all year. I didn't take calculus, so I needed a better average to get in. I worked hard, I got accepted. So now i know i can play poker with little else on my mind. Ive got enough money to cover about 2 of the 4 years of my tuition, and after this summer working ill most liekly have almost all my tuition covered. So winning at poker wont be a sick grind to pay for my school.

So what do I want? I dont know. Ive been hoping I could grind, move up levels. I think I lack alot of confidence in my game though, and I know its holding me back. I think I have alot of potential though, and with guidance I can become a solid player at medium stakes, taking shots at high stakes. The furthest ive gotten is taking shots at 100NL, then I had a sick downswing. That hurt my confidence alot at that time, but I now know that things like that just happen.

So im yeah. blabbering a bit. Any encouragement, adivce, anytihng realted to this would help me out. I need to stay focused, post hands for dissection, maybe read up, get a mentor maybe. Id also like to log ~20-25K hands in april. I dont want to set too many goals because they might force me into bad plays as i get close to reaching them, just so I can say i did it.

Blah. That was a massive spew I think. Whatever im spent now.

4 Years of school without withdrawing from the roll, and you don't know what you want? How about $50K or more when your done school to have a down payment on a house? How about $10K for a trip during your summers off? How about making more than the $8/hr your gonna be making at summer jobs? Money is necessary, have fun making it, there is no shortage of places to spend it.

When I broke even on SNGs for about 3-4 months I saw the light!!

I want monies!! Im a poor bastard so i want money.Switched to cash and its going great overall (this week sucks tho lol)

Of course I want money too, but really my main goal for the next few months is to improve as a player. If I ever get to some sort of plateau, then I will reevaluate then.

first you want money, 5k seems a lot at the time. Then you want to get better. That leads you to want to just win, which leads to monies.

i just play nowadays because i love to win, and actually still enjoy the game.

WHAT??! when your OP runs around in meaningless circles, you know you are confused.

been there.

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Originally Posted by Chopper

WHAT??! when your OP runs around in meaningless circles, you know you are confused.

been there.

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finally, someone actually read my post. i knew it was fairly incoherent after i read it :P

i´m having similar thoughts these days and had a discussion about this with my dad, too. i´m spending a lot of time with poker, reading books, discussing about certain hands with my friends or here on FTR, playing all night and sleeping half the days, just to enter the next downswing and struggling to break even for ~20k hands.

as things are going right now playing poker is -ev for my life. i´m still doing well in school, but being poker obsessed might cost me 1 or 2 semester, which means i´m giving away ~ 40k EUR/year for graduating later.

Thinking about these things i came to the conclusion, that i am and always was a bad loser, who won´t stop until he kicks ass. blame your ego and go on making money.

we are all obsessed too some degree. i DO have an obsession but its probably no different to when i wanted get better at bball.

The best way to get better at poker involves a large part of your life getting wrapped up in it. i dont think there is another way around it. Personally id find it very hard to accept being ok at anything, its either all or nothing really!!

im ranting abit but i dont know what the OP question was anyway :wink:

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Originally Posted by Da GOAT

Personally id find it very hard to accept being ok at anything, its either all or nothing really!!

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i´m with you.

Go big or go home ;)

I think I would like to disagree with your two on the fact that poker requires a fanatical obsession in order to be played well. I like to think I have good balance in my life, between school, friends, poker, and other things. I think that if you are too attached to a game like poker you will eventually start playing with the worst of it. If you love poker, and you suffer a downswing, you will be affected. If your playing poker, and you run bad, you look at it like "well, im on a downswing. better luck tommorow." If your obessessed its play play play.

I think what I want to do more than anything is achieve in poker. With achievement comes the money, yeah, but id just like to take this poker as a project and become a better player. Its no different than taking a course at school, only this is self taught. The more homework I do, the better I will play, the faster I'll move up, and the better I will achieve. My goal? As far as I go before I quit.