i will not play poker for money again day 1

Well done on 3 days Adam, remember when we are in the grip of gambling, the money side goes straight out of the window, so in reality we are literally just throwing our money away,

Keep strong and keep safe and win for real:)

Suzanne xxx

Hi Adam, and good luck moving forward wth this. Can i make an observation and its that not all people gamble for the same reasons, not everyone chases or chases in the same way, and poker is one of those oddities which offers us a mixed skill/luck game so we can actually legitiimise it as both profitable (in the lng run) and entertaining if we actually master the skill part, and control bankroll and mental side. I was the one who talked about losing sight of the purchasing power of money in face of alreadys insurmountable losses, but not everyone will fall foul of this. You putting in 20, thne going to 40 or 60 more etc, sounds more to me like you want to stay in the game, the buzz and the entertainment its providing and your not feeling ready to stop but your not realy chasing heavily (thats not to say it isnt a problem tho). By the way ive probably logged over 30k of poker tourneys/sitngos (i prefered those to cash), and was a small net winner. The problem was for me that online poker means access to online casinos, live poker means being in a casino with table games like blackjack and roulette, and i could drink too... a recipe for disaster and insurmountable losses in the end. I have some friends who still grind the poker, and amongst our number some are even moderate longterm winners, but most if not all have life leaks (other gambling traits) so the benefit is never felt.

I would hate for you to travel that route, turn what seems on the face of it to be paying to be entertained and maybe paying a little too much for sure for that into something which is far more bleak. So i know its took a lot of my spiel to get here, your doinn the right thing by tackling it now and treating it as a problem. You need replacement entertainment. I can see your doing so with the gym, but then you cant go to gym for the 4/5 , 10 hour sessions you might find yourself playing poker. Perhaps you could look at bridge, chess, backgammon , reading, video games ,,, something you literally can crunch those hours at or the danger is you get bored, logon and go play poker. Of course you could also find something with real purpose rather than just a time killer, like volunteering/charity work/further education etc etc.

I think finding this alternate passtime is key in your scenario, but only you can work that out.

Hi manupnow thank u very much for ur post if means a lot that u would take a lot of time to read my diary. I will loom into other avenues to keep me occupied for longer periods of time. Cheers mate.

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And its an interesting insight to see how others have played poker and netted winnings but still not kept their profit. It would be interesting to see how much I have spent over the years. I think I've spent about two hundred a month over ten years ish maybe less so 24000 ish a lot.

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By the way its only 70 days since i last gambled ( that was binge gambling on fobts), and maybe 90 since i played poker. I actually miss poker more than any of the diversionary and purely negative expectation games i got hooked on and lost my insurmountable amounts on. My addictive nature and brain still keeps saying, why dont you kust play the poker again, you used to really enjoy that, you were even pretty good and won money longterm (this isnt delsuional i actually have proven results). Its still dangerous thinking tho which i am still trying to get to grips with. I dont now how much of this you do, but as well as playing oker i use to watch videos, be in skype groups discussing hands, forums posting and reading, talking with friends about hands and so forth. All of his is good if your looking to play and improve and it helped me become a small winner but its also immersion and habits that need unlearned if you actually wish to gvie up and not be drawn back in.

adampoker wrote:

And its an interesting insight to see how others have played poker and netted winnings but still not kept their profit. It would be interesting to see how much I have spent over the years. I think I've spent about two hundred a month over ten years ish maybe less so 24000 ish a lot.

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By the way i didnt mean to suggest your losses were in anyway trivial , not that any of us are keeping score or there is a league table of losers... i was however getting a sense that you havent begun stealing or cheating money from friends or family, or work and that you hadnt added lots of new gambling in or other co-dependencies. Maybe i jsut saw a glimpse of me before it really got out of hand inyour story, and hoped you were capable of not making the same mistakes. 10 years, turned to 20, turned to 30 for me, and a few additional dependencies along the way.

I play poker once a week at my local pub in the Sussex poker club and came first in the league in first quater of a year I played and got a trophy. Its a fiver a week along with some beers its only like twenty quid for some entertainment and met some good friends. I'm trying to just play this instead of on line.might try and look on forums or books too to get some advice. I just don't want to give up poker but also want to stop losing a sixth of my wages. A fine line

That's a great post by Manup I miss poker never had a issue with the amount I lost at it. It was entertaininment I'm not trivialising the amount buy you can spend £50 going to watch a football game. I had to stop as it led my down other paths looking to get the money back quickly. I don't know how much money you have but I'm spending the same on entertaining myself now. Maybe start small a build up that bankroll o don't know if you can but you keep trying and going back

I'm not sure if this the right thing to post and have considered deleting thus a few times but you can make your own call.

Hi Oldham cheers mate, I'm not tempted to play poker online after last night rolicking I got

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adampoker wrote:

I play poker once a week at my local pub in the Sussex poker club and came first in the league in first quater of a year I played and got a trophy. Its a fiver a week along with some beers its only like twenty quid for some entertainment and met some good friends. I'm trying to just play this instead of on line.might try and look on forums or books too to get some advice. I just don't want to give up poker but also want to stop losing a sixth of my wages. A fine line

ok so if you play with friends and its manageable and fun and affordable and hey you won the league too so its also given you some confidence, then thats kind of good, but dangerous. Good if you can content yourself with that and sticking to the league and the fun and your truthfully even tho im sure their are prizes of sorts, not really playing for the money. The bad bit is because your as good as or maybe even a little better than the players in the pub then you can subconsciously assume your therefore good enough to compete online. But lots of the online players are significantly better than your friends at the pub, and there isnt anything (money aside) stopping you sit with and play against arguably a whole table full of players who stand to be better than you.Our ego tells us we can compete cos we won our pub league, the reality is barring short term luck which might be in your favour, longterm they are going to beat you up pretty badly. once they are beating you up (in a poker sense) your reloading , and not rational. Spiral / lose/ exclude/ abstain for some period/repeat .

If you are very clear you dont wish to give up poker and therefore your still going to participate in your league, then thats likely to lead to the online stuff again. You either therefore need to exclude every possible online poker avenue with exclusions and blocks so that you cant be triggered to this by poker thoughts, becasue you are goign to have them whilst still participating. Or and here is a radical suggestion become good enough at poker such that you can be staked to play, thereby someone else takes the risk for a share of your profits. we are however now beginning to talk about enabling you to play but not risking or losing the part of your pay you dont want to keep losing, but that involves not distancing yourself from poker but greater immersion/study and dedication , as well as a huge degree of mental and financial control.

For the record I strongly suggest unlearning and distancing yourself to immersion and possibly going down exactly my route , i.e becoming good enough to win a little both live and online to only find other codependencies and insuffcient mental strength leading to catastrophic losses of far more than just a portion of my wages, not even accounting for the emotional damage.

Poker is given the television makeover and made to seem s**y, with life changing money on offer ... Reality it sucks unless your in a tiny percentile who have the right mix of mental and emotional inteligence to make it work for them, everyone else pays for their mansions.

adampoker wrote:

Hi Oldham cheers mate, I'm not tempted to play poker online after last night rolicking I got

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I think it was good intentioned Adam but maybe a little poorly word, I could see where he was coming from get you P****d of with him so you prove a point. You know I have time for you mate but I get frustrated as it's the same door that is open that lets you gamble.

Have you considered ordering a new back card them when it comes getting someone you can trust to scratch of the last 3 numbers in the back then you can't use that card to deposit. Jus a idea means you still keep your debit card

KTF

​thanks for the insight and your time its been an eye opener. I'm going to stick to my plan of giving up. I've played in tournaments and played just for the entertainment not to make money out of it really. I shouldn't really play for money as I lose however I didn't find it as much,fun when I played for nothing. I definitely haven't got the potential to win against those players so I must stop.

Hi all I've reached day 7, now got to reach two weeks. Got to find something usefull to do on my day off

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Day 10 day off tomo, still a bit hungover from yesterday at work today on the way home for a quiet night in and a ly in tomo didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Not thought about gambling online yet and still got ninety pounds left in my account for travelling to work next two weeks

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Hi Adam

Good to see you are still gamble free.

Take care.

Feb.