Poker - Career, addiction, sport or skill?

Matzo

Hey guys, I've been playing for about 8 months now, and have viewed the forums quite regularly looking at peoples advice, but haven't posted up until now.

I see that a lot of people post Blog's onto the forum that track how they're doing and I have decided to start one myself on a website, following my play, but primarily to look into the pyshcology of the game.  I assume I am allowed to post the link on here so I shall, 

http://matzopoker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/matzo-introduction.html

Playing Poker and improving my game (or trying to at least) has begged one big question to me.  And that queries why people play poker. Is it for leisure, money or just pure addiction?  It would be interesting to find out people's views and personal (although nothing too personal please ) reasons for playing poker, and just some feedback would be appreciated on here to help me continue writing and make some statistics. Why do you play?

Thanks,

Matzo

chicknMelt

Hi Matzo, 

GL with your blog and your quest to become a better player.

Are you setting yourself any goals?

Most days I play poker simply because I enjoy the challenge. Only occasionally do I find myself at the tables and not really enjoying it. and that is mostly because I am (or at least feel like I am) running badly, playing badly and just hemorrhaging money.

THEROCK573

welcome to the forum, thats a good question matzo, personally speaking i suffered for years with gambling addiction, got myself in a lot of debt and had to be bailed out by my parents, i used to go to work every day and as internet access was easy id gamble £100 a day and i was only making half that. while my sports betting was out of control compared to what i earned i came across sky poker which you could play threw your television at the time, i began playing and was instantly hooked on the game, i wasnt any good but i loved anything to do with gambling, after donating more money playing online poker on cash tables i decided to try and learn the game properly, i gave the cash tables a wide birth and started playing dyms and the odd tournament, was rubbish at dyms but after sometime i managed a 2nd and a 1st in the primo all for over a combined total of £6000 and all in the space of a couple of months too, this pulled me out of a hole and i finally had money in the bank rather than actually oweing money too the bank :-) ive never looked back since really and now im making regular withdrawels every month from 4 sites including this one and i couldnt be happier, me winning money playing poker also allows me to be able to afford to lose money on sports bets and not worry about getting in debt although to be fair im controlled with it these days, just a football coupon and a a lucky 31 at weekends usually satisfies the itch.

SO TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT I PLAY POKER FOR MONEY, PURE ADDICTION AND A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE FOR THE GAME TOO!!! BEST OF LUCK AT THE TABLES.

Matzo

Cheers for the feedback guys.

chickn - Nah I haven't set any goals cash wise yet. I guess just kinda playing and to keep a steady bank roll. That's my next step to set a visual goal in sight once I've started to settle down a bit more

The rock - Cheers for the feedback, great story and really interesting to read! Sounds a bit like I started, but managed to avoid the hole because of a few lucky wins at the start haha