A little more than a year ago Duff McGuire made a post describing how his addiction had hurt his family life, and how he was quitting as a result.

I find myself in a similar predicament, although I am doing this for myself rather than my family or other people. Luckily, poker has not destroyed relationships in my life (although it may have kept them from becoming as strong as they could be at this point), but I fear that could be a possible outcome if I continue down this path any further.

I began playing when I was 15 years old. I turned $100 into a few thousand and from there it was off to the races. I began playing higher, and for awhile I found myself basically being a breakeven player, until recently. <span> </span>I�m now a freshman in college. Since arriving at school, I had what I thought was a breakthrough in my game. Playing cash games, I finally grew some balls and starting playing LAG instead of TAG, and the results were good. I built ~$400 deposits into 10k a couple times before losing some back prior to cashing out.

Then came the week that changed everything. I was very sick a few weeks ago, and really didn�t leave my bed all week. This was obviously very conducive to playing online poker, and I ended up turning a $750 deposit into just under 37k in 8 days. The 9^th day, I took a bad beat playing $10/25, and that put me on monkey tilt. This is the biggest example of the problem that�s plagued my poker career the past couple years. I�ll take one beat and proceed to tilt off ridiculous amounts of money. In the past, I�d joked that I was a master of going from $500 to $5,000 and then back down. It�s just not funny anymore though, it�s sad. On this particular occasion, after losing the $2500 buyin to a bad beat, I dropped another $2500 tilting to the same player. Then I sat at 25/50 and lost a buyin on a terrible bluff on maybe the third hand I played. I went out and got something to eat, came back, and quickly dropped another buyin at 25/50. Then one at 10/25. Then came 50/100 against lumbardo on UB. Went from the 10k buyin up to 18k on a bluff. I could�ve walked away down less than 10k on the day and still with ~27k. I thought about it, before deciding to win a little more before I stopped. Obviously, that 18k was soon gone.

That was by far the largest scale example by far, but the bottom line is despite many tries, I haven�t been able to stop myself from chasing losses and tilting away profit. Whether this alone classifies me as a gambling addict or not, I�m not exactly sure, but I would think so. I took some time off following this massive blowup, and began playing again. I built 1500 up to 10k, and then boom, another blowup and it was gone in a couple hours.

I love poker, but fuck man�I�m young. I�ve got a lot ahead of me, and there�s a lot prettier of a picture to be painted than the one I�m working on right now. I have let my emotions become far too controlled by how I am doing in poker. During that week where I made 36k, I felt like I was on top of the world. Thoughts of doing it the rest of my life entered my head. I extrapolated what I made that week out for a whole year, seeing I could make over a mil a year. Obviously, this was foolish, and I was brought down to earth hard. My thing is when I�m running well, I feel like I can do anything and instead of realizing that there is going to be a downswing following running well, I lose my cool and make it much worse than it should be.

Poker has been good to me financially. After already paying for a year of school and paying for stuff throughout high school, I�m left with right around $10k. This makes it incredibly hard to walk away, as there is money in poker right now that is just unheard of for kids my age. Playing calmly, I know I can make a good chunk of change. Problem is, it�s only a matter of time before I crack.

Because of that, I can�t play poker for a living. I put poker above pretty much anything when I�m doing well, and it just isn�t logical or healthy for me to do that at this point in my life. I can�t afford to blow off school because I�m banking 10k in a week anymore, because I know it�s just not going to happen long term since I can�t keep my composure. I need to get out now before I throw away my education, the money I have, and my future for a game I am not mature enough to play at this point. I hope at one point to be able to handle a return to poker, but that is likely nowhere in the near future (If at all).
I've deleted all the poker sites from my computer, and am going to pursue other things in my life that I've neglected in favor of poker. Hopefully you won't see me in the near future. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming poker, as I know there are plenty of people my age who can handle playing and making a lot of money. I'm just not one of them at this point, so it's time to let it go and stop letting it dominate my life.

It's been real...

Congrats on your realization... however...it almost seems like a waste of talent....i fully support getting a degree, strengthening relationships etc., but if you could just put some rules on it... i mean hell... if you are paying for college, spending money etc. why not? But, as you said, you have no self control... which is a recipe for disaster....

gl dude.

that was some Tear jerker sir.

good for you sir...not many people/players have what it takes to come out and admit to what you said. I believe I speak for most here, when saying you are DEF taking the CORRECT Path here.
Im sure Poker wont be excluded from your life forever, but it would be a good idea to take a nice break, and be able to control your tilting when you return.
It seems to me from what you said, you can make a lot money quickly from poker. If I were you, I would <span>FINISH SCHOOL</span>, then get back into poker, find a way to be UNtilted when playing...it may seem impossible, but if its gonna save you 30k in just one day, by not having tilted sessions, im sure you can find a way.

Excellent path you are choosing tho...good luck.

I think this is a very mature decision for you. Most guys your age and with your talent would say screw school, but college is some of the best times of your life that you will remember forever. I think it is better to enjoy everything college life has for you, than to be glued to a computer all of those years playing poker. Congrats on your decision and best of luck to you!

teach it, dont play it...

I'm pretty much in the same spot. I've tilted off or drank away my bank account many times. I usually take a month off, or just play in person. Not sure if thats an option for you, but if you make money in poker it is hard to ever give it up.

Good decision. I hope the response I gave you to your email helped. Like I said it will be very very difficult to quit. Lord knows it was and is difficult for me. There seems to be two sides of the brain. One that says "I am done" the other says " I am good and can make it with discipline". It is very easy to listen to the latter.

When i wrote my post and quit, at that time I did not think I had a problem. I still thought I could control my tilt and my lazyness. However my wife and Nip/tuck stepped in and forced my hand. Nip came over and watched me write letters to the sites and take them off my computer. I was not ready to quit but I had to listen.

Taking them off my computer has helped the urge to play. I have played since I quit. I played live and online.

I have not played obsessively. but the one thing I can admit to myself now is that I have a problem. I could never do that before. So it takes time to have it all sink in. I know poker is not my answer. I really don't have the patience.

I thank NIp and Artiecat and the others that have helped. I now spend my time working (mortgages in the worst housing slump ever) and spending time with my family. My son is 2 now and I am glad that I have spent my time with him over the last year.

Happy Holiday,

Mike

i call it winning tilt, once you feel like you cant be beaten your game suffers.

Here is a tip with that 10k set a goal for yourself.

So say if i make this 500 into 5000, im done for the day.

Set goals , and then follow them with no "well i will just play another game and if i lose im done for the day"

just stick to them.

GL

Best of luck in all your endeavors.

Yeah the best thing that happened to me was waiting until my junior year of college to dive head first into poker.......had an awesome 2 years before that!!! broke....but awesome

Gl man hope that one day you can play without worrying about this and just do it for fun until then peace