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Message: [QUOTE="ilostmysoul, post: 3426453, member: 130341"] I've been noticing this for a while as soon as I started keeping records on the amount of hours I was playing. First of all, I'm not as far off as being in debt or losing money I can't afford to lose or depositing more than I was initially thinking of. I only deposit 10-20€/month (so far only had to redeposit 3 times) to play NL2 and make a mess (I know it goes against most bankroll policies, sue me) in .5-.75 S&Gs, if I lose the whole deposit, so be it, I wait until next month. This is more of an identity issue. I play poker since I was around 10, and I've been playing online as soon as I turned 18. I've studied several books. Poker has been a consistent part of my life. I consider myself a poker player, and I think this is my problem. Take chess. I know how to play chess, I'm pretty good at chess, I had chess classes through my childhood, but I don't think of myself as a chess player. I play chess for fun, I play chess to have a good time and think a little. I don't play chess to win. But when I play poker, it comes a point where all I care about is winning. Because after all this time and studying, I should be winning. So I sit down and start playing and I say "I should be able to get to 30€ playing NL2 and S&Gs today". Then 2 things happen. 1. As long as I am playing for fun and having a good time without caring about the money, I'm a profitable player, both at NL2 and S&Gs. In my first 2 sessions today, I had a steady increase from 10 to 25. But as soon as it becomes about the money ("Should I withdraw now? No, let's make it to 30. Let's just play this one more game, etc.") I suck. I will literally be thinking "I am beat, he has me outkicked" and I will shove 200BBs or call a river shove in NL2 with 3rd pair. I lose all my aggressiveness too, and I let myself be kicked around, which then gets frustrating and it turns to an endless negative spiral. 2. It took me 4 hours in a row to get from 10€ to 25, 2 hours to get from 25 to 9. I played 6 hours in a row from the time I got home. I am an university student, I work out, and I have side studies and other things I care about. I can't afford 6 hours. It wouldn't even be worth if I had kept the 25, not by a long mile. And the only reason I stopped playing is probably because it's late. Besides, along those last hours I received 2 phones calls and I'm aware I will have to call those people back tomorrow to apologize for my arrogance and unwillingness to talk with them. I have no idea what to do. Taking a break doesn't work. I had a 2 year break from online poker and the first day it got back this same exact thing happened; I played 7 hours in a row. I could stop playing altogether, but by now poker has become part of my identity. Ideally, poker would be like chess to me. I would sit at a table when I felt like it, play while it was fun, and leave (especially at NL2 where you really can't expect to make a living or even enough to buy a new book - which is the way I see poker, by the way, "I want this book and it costs 15€ so let's play to get instead of buying it right now"). If I ended up losing money, so be it. But I'm very far from that destination and I have no idea how to get there :mad: [/QUOTE]

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