The Excitment

I thought the Internet had been fixed, but just as I sat down at the tables and started recording a video it went down again. Looks like I’ll be poker less and posting from shaky wireless for at least another day. Until I can play I’ll relay some thoughts and stories about being an online poker pro.

I live with 3 other people who all play online poker for a living. Over the last few months I noticed a trend and couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was till now. It was the initial recognition of this trend that sparked the idea for this blog. I had felt for a while that something was missing from the apartment. There was an emptiness about us that seemed to suck in our poker enthusiasm like a black hole. Nobody was getting in enough hands, we couldn’t get excited about someone going deep in a tournament because nobody even bothered to play in any, and we weren’t having the animated poker discussions we used to.

I’m pretty sure it started after Jared and I returned from the WSOP ME. In order to qualify we had to multi-table 16 hours a day for a couple weeks. The high from the WSOP kept the burn out from happening till we returned. I also think I beat myself up too much about missing a great opportunity to go deep in the Main Event. Whatever it was things weren’t quite the same when we returned, and we didn’t do enough to rectify the situation.

When I realized what was going on I looked for something to breathe the life back into me, and hopefully the rest of my roommates. Working on Poker Dynasty was the first step to reconciling my love of poker. Things improved over the last few weeks, and when my roommate Brandon won a Stud H/L tournament we were messing around with, I finally realized what the problem had been.

We had lost the excitement. I think to be truly successful at this game you need to have a child like excitement for the game. Sweating your friends when they are deep in a tourney, posting funny hands on the wall, and having heated discussions about the game all help refuel you when you are about burn out. If poker is your job it needs to be treated as such, but when going pro you must not forget that you love the game. Get drunk and play fake money games with a friend. Play a game you’ve never played before. Always remind yourself that you love the game. The excitement is what will allow you to enjoy your life while making the great amount of money available to you in poker.

Burn outs are going to happen if you play for a living. You need to be able to recognize them and do something to recharge your batteries. The only thing worse than going broke would be to leave the game because I lost the excitement, and let myself be burned out by poker.