Making poker not feel like a job.

I use to just play poker for fun but now that i'm playing to get good, it's starting to feel like a job. I know it takes a long time to get good but how do you keep it fun? It feels like a long grind to me and getting ready to sit down for a 1-3 hour tournament sometimes can be a pain. What do you say to yourself to keep it from being a job?

gkh1 said:

I use to just play poker for fun but now that i'm playing to get good, it's starting to feel like a job. I know it takes a long time to get good but how do you keep it fun? It feels like a long grind to me and getting ready to sit down for a 1-3 hour tournament sometimes can be a pain. What do you say to yourself to keep it from being a job?

Click to expand...

stop playing tournaments and focus on cash games instead. Then you can quit whenever you get bored/tired.

Tournament are focus to be patient, agreed play with cash game whenever you get bored you can leave but Poker never get bored.

My wife used to say "When your betting or playing cards, your having fun". As in its not really a job. I tried explaining to her when its your main source of income etc. it is not as fun as she thought.

My one buddy used to say "Your the luckiest, you get to gamble etc." Well that was until he tried to do it for 6 months and he came back and said "Never mind about what I said". This was after he he a two month long losing streak. He chased and chased his way deep into debt giving back all his rather impressive winnings from the first four months and then some. He did not understand that when your trying to be top notch or playing for your income you start thinking am I calling this guys all in with a mid or small flush draw, pot odds etc. and a lot of the thrill does leave the game.

My buddy and wife have a few things in common, neither likes to hit or when I hit a bad streak.

When sports betting and or playing poker for your main income you have to learn to ignore the rush the comes with winning or losing. You have to stay even keeled not to try to get back what you lost during a session or week at sports and remember there is always a tomorrow and proper bank roll management cause you will hit bad streaks no matter how good you are.

If your playing to make money on a consistent bases then it needs to be taken more seriously thus it loses some of what it started out as perhaps.

But you can improve your game and still have fun. You just have to keep in in perspective and play what you enjoy still. If you do not like the time it takes to play tournaments try cash games keeping it to a very affordable stakes. If you would pay 100 per ticket to go to NFL games and have fun then translate that to poker I would suggest. The difference being you have a shot to make the 100 a week last a lot longer than if you spending that much for NFL tickets or whatever you do for entertainment. Down side being you can spend much more if your not careful. Only play one or two days a week.

Myself, I enjoy playing poker live. I enjoy devoting time searching for one or two good sports picks that meet my criteria to put my money on it, if there are any on any given day. I do not enjoy online poker as much so I treat it as so, I do not play for much money online and only play to keep somewhat sharp when not playing live for a week or two. This allows me to have some fun online not worrying about too much.

If your not having fun and your not looking for it to be your main or side source of income then why play poker?

If you want to get better in poker stay in the tournaments. Sometimes they can be boring, but why are you playing poker in the first place?? I think the people playing in the tourneys play harder and they will make you a better player in the long run.

MTTs are my personal favorite. I love to sit there (live or online) and just play. The stakes are higher and its worth doing. You can sit at a cash table and play but to me, thats not the same as a MTT. Going for the 1k or 2k first place is a lot better then risking your OWN MONEY in a cash game. IMO.

SNGs are fine for building up BR, but MTTs (if you win enough or cash enough) will put you in another BR Area.

GL

gkh1 said:

I use to just play poker for fun but now that i'm playing to get good, it's starting to feel like a job. I know it takes a long time to get good but how do you keep it fun? It feels like a long grind to me and getting ready to sit down for a 1-3 hour tournament sometimes can be a pain. What do you say to yourself to keep it from being a job?

Click to expand...

If you are having too much fun playing poker, you are setting yourself to lose. Contrary to public opinion, and what you see in the movies, poker is a grind. If you want to have fun, go to the park, watch a movie, etc. Poker, I feel, is very UN-fun, and should be.

if you play poker as if it were a Job, You`ll do better, the best way to get good is treat poker like a job, not like having some fun, and your game will improve, take it from experiance, i know,,,,,,,,,,,, buck

Well to me poker is a job,it is how I make my main source of income.
Granted I have things I fall back on if need be,but it is my main source.
I just love the game of poker so much that I try not to just play one type of poker.
Ilike to switch up games alot.
I am mostly a mtt tourney player,or an sng player over cash tables and often find myself in front of the computer for up to 12 hours a night grinding it out.
I guess it is a job and it feels lie one alot of the time,especially at 4 in the morning playing sngs(because that is the time where i seem to do the best).
Luckly for me I love my job.

I agree with the majority here and you should play cash games and only play the tourneys when you have the time to sit down and play them. When you try to force yourself to sit there for the length of the tourney you tend to make it feel like a job fortunately for me I don't feel that way and never have. I get frustrated with the donk callers but not the game.Hope you have better luck.

You could play the shorter sit&go like 27 or 18, even turbos or like the others play shorter times with the ring games. Good Luck

That is the way it is. In any endevor when you want to make it more then just a hobbie it takes practice and time. If you want to start making a living at playing poker be prepeared for a major life change. If you are playing the same games maybe try some new games such as Razz, Omaha or 2-7 triple draw at low stakes to try and change you thought process. Maybe the change in games will bring about a new attitude about the game. And improve your overall play.

I think that if you play to earn money you got to treat poker like a job, it could be good job though its depends on your skills.

I find that poker is extremely boring when you spend hours in a single tournament only to get beat out on the bubble or make a small cash and gain under $1/hour. Playing 6 or 9 cashgames at a time is when poker is real fun, and once you get good at the level you're playing, consistently stacking players is even more fun. Nothing feels better than taking someone's whole stack and watching them leave. Damn that feels amazing.

If playing well gets tiring for me and I want to be able to play "just for fun", I play the play money games....no money at risk and I can play just for the fun of playing wiothout any of my normal "good player rules" to follow.

if you;re getting bored then maybe it isn't for you. poker is a game after all technically. i do it to try and make money as well, but i play it because its fun and i'm good at it. its like any other sport, don't forget why you started playing it in the first place, because you really enjoyed it, then worry about the money. players can sense when you're worried about losing money. also, if it isn't fun anymore, then why waste your time? research has shown there are much stabler forms of earning a living that can produce the same boredome.