Poker Boredom

[gmoneyAK]

Okay i admit it im bored with poker. The one area of my game i have always suffered is discipline and bankroll management. I have said this in the past but i have on a few occasions built up a good roll and then donked it all off playing out of my reach and letting the game effect me. Ive really worked on it recently and believe my discipline has improved i managed to build a good roll on FTP playing stt within my limit and doing well. There is one probelm im running bad and im bored. I dont know which came first but the worse i run the bored i feel. I have not won a mtt for around 2 and a half months. Honestly on most occasions it was my own fault but there are times when the bad beats feel like they never end. I also had to take some money out of my roll for "something personal" which never helps but thems the breaks. I just cant seem to get excited about poker, does anyone else ever feel like this.

Mtt are going so bad that i have decided i should maybe try my hand at cash games see if some of the excitement comes back. There is a problem though im crap at cash games. I find it so difficult to lay down overpairs when i know im beat and i dont think i have the roll to play at a level that would sustain my interest.

I was thinking of using DTD to set up a new account and start from scratch on cash games. I have always liked crypto cash games. What i was wondering is what roll would i need to play say .50 £1. Im also going to get poker tracker and have a real crack at it.

So any advice about beating the boredom of poker when you hate the game or maybe any books on cash game strategy. I have played cash games before but never consistantly winning. In fact im sure if i sit at a cash table people will lick there lips.

[CelticGeezeer]

I think that cash games are much more boring than mtt's.

[Jim-D]

I think that cash games are much more boring than mtt's.

I cant agree more, Bore the living shit outta me.

[RED-DOG]

Re- read your post carefully mate. You can't manage you bank roll, you play out of your limits, you haven't won an MTT for two and a half months and you say it's your own fault, you're considering playing cash for excitement, even though you say you are crap at it.

What a recipe for disaster!

Poker is a very hard way to make an easy living. If you are weak in any department of your game, there are 100s of  dedicated, disciplined players out there who are just waiting to pick you off.

If you can't change your attitude, the sooner you get bored and pack in, the better.

Sorry for the harsh words, I mean well.

[TightPaulFolds]

I hear what you're saying and hope things pick up for you. You have a much better chance than most people in your situation because you have a clear idea of the situation. If the stats are to be believed (85 percent of poker players are on big long term losing streak) a lot of people are in this situation.

I'd be pretty careful at the moment. Being bored and disillusioned about 'the luck factor' really puts your mindset at the opposite end of the spectrum from the ideal place for profitable poker. It's really hard to do with bad beat after bad beat, but you have to keep the faith that probability evens itself out over the long term and the only way to make money out of poker is to have an edge over your opponent; this edge is made up of superior game and psychological knowledge, patience, and discipline. Reading decent literature like Miller & Sklansky starts drumming the discipline in. For me, an easy way out of boredom is to start playing 'fancy poker', trying to 'play like a swede' I suppose, which is pretty much doomed to failure. I think this is because the vast majority of your opponents are so crap at the game and putting you on a hand that any extravagant moves are lost on them.

I find boredom for me creeps in to cash games as much as tournaments, there's more action in cash games so I can kind of handle it a bit better. The rub is that you can wait ages for a decent hand and even then know that the right thing is sometimes to lay it down when you know you're beat.

I personally avoid cash games because I just don't like the variance, multitables are ok but you can go for a while without a cash finish. About a year ago I started concentrating on 6 seater sit and go's online, and find them by FAR the most reliable source of cash. By far the overriding component of long term success there, more than skill, luck, or knowledge, is patience: just WAIT. You know you have top pair, top kicker. A decent player has gone all in and you know you are probably beat. Just drop it. The poker environment is so full of fish that when YOU hit a set and he has top pair, top kicker, you will be able to take his whole stack. Thus you win long term, and he doesn't, because your main advantage over him is patience.
Mostly though I just can't abide sitting looking at a screen with 6 avatars on it, waiting for a hand, so I will always have at least one heads up going on at the same time, or be working on something on the web, dropping everything only when it moves to heads up. It's the main reason I prefer online to live overall: I miss the banter but I get bored much more quickly live for want of other things to do.
I would try an experiment for a while, maybe in MTTs and STTs, of just waiting (until the blinds prohibit it) for when you know you have the best hand and letting some 'really super aggressive' fish just give you his chips.
Good luck, but be careful.

   

[M3boy]

I have recently started to "enjoy" playing poker again online.

I have been through something similar, boredom, running bad and generally NOT enjoying it.

As soon as I have started to enjoy it again, the results have picked up.

My advice,,, DONT PLAY AT ALL!!! Wait for the hunger/desire to play returns - if indeed it does.

GL

[gmoneyAK]

Cheers M3. And Red i dont take it the wrong way its good to have honest opinions and thanks for the advice. Just to say though i dont play poker as a source of income as i have a full time job and sometimes barely find the time to play at all. I also dont play with money i cant afford to lose. My lack of bankroll management has got better but i still leak what bankroll i have. I play poker for fun and it just isnt at the moment. In fact the only time i have fun at the moment is the 20 quid homegames that we have every other week with my mates.

[I, Zimbra]

I think this has been mentioned before, but I routinely change up my games when I feel like a bit of boredom setting in. Hold'Em getting me down? Switch to Omaha or Omaha Hi Lo. Or move down a few notches in terms of stakes, and see if my game improves at a level I know I've beaten before.

Lately I got bored of NL Hold'Em and played a $3 HORSE Turbo on Stars; was down to just 63 chips at one point and all-in blind (after a mistake in one of the Hi Lo phases); I came back to win the whole thing. Sweetest $12 I've made in a long time

[ACE2M]

i to get bored and found that a change of game is best. I've knocked the stts on the head for a while.

Just playing tournaments and I've started 9 tabling cash games and i'm winning and you certainly don't get bored with 9 tables.

[Raindogs]

To play .5/1 NL you would need a bankroll of about $3000.  The normal bankroll estimate for NL is 30 buy in's. 

Trying other games like Omaha or Stud at lower limits is also a good way of re-stimulating your interest.  Another option if you are considering cash games is to try fixed limit for a while.  I even re-discovered draw on Stars (until I donked off $400 in one session after a good run of results made me overconfident). 

[bolt pp]

I was helping my pal run a place he'd taken over and was playing a lot of my poker live recently, It was taking it's toll and i couldnt wait to get back to grinding it out on the net, two weeks later and i'm bored shitless again, theres got to be a better way to earn money than this but i couldnt hold down a proper job anyway because i cant stand being around mugs all day and i tend to find when i go out that everyone is a mug exept me.

[danafish]

i to get bored and found that a change of game is best. I've knocked the stts on the head for a while.

Just playing tournaments and I've started 9 tabling cash games and i'm winning and you certainly don't get bored with 9 tables.

Don't encourage him to play 9 tables at once, he's losing!

[byronkincaid]

I was helping my pal run a place he'd taken over and was playing a lot of my poker live recently, It was taking it's toll and i couldnt wait to get back to grinding it out on the net, two weeks later and i'm bored shitless again, theres got to be a better way to earn money than this but i couldnt hold down a proper job anyway because i cant stand being around mugs all day and i tend to find when i go out that everyone is a mug exept me.

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