When you are in an upswing or winning like you are suppose to, most other things somehow go on the back burner. Visiting the gym certainly seems harder, when instead of training you could make about $140 in the same time. Also things like friends, family, studies and sleep seem a lot less important. On the other end when you are on a big losing streak you probably can’t be bothered with mundane things like, administration, health or working on your relation. So in order for you to be a winning person, and not just a winning poker player you should be very clear about the things that matter to you the most and what has to be done in order for you to live a nice life.

Even though it is a skill game (with a luck factor), the risk of addiction is the same or greater than the other gambling games. Let’s say you are on a table with 9 other players and it would be a home game without rake. As a total result the group won’t win or lose (since there is no money added nor taken from the table). So the only way to win is for someone else to loose. It has been said that on a full table in the long run 2 or 3 players are winners 2 to 3 break about even and the other loose. However if you would ask these players you will probably have about 7 “winners” and 3 than will say they break even. And that is even without the rake that the casino/poker room takes from the table. Somehow most players overestimate their abilities. It would have helped if they kept score on their wins and losses, but most players feels to much like a chore and poker should be fun. Well in order to be a great or even good poker player you should be brutally honest with yourself, and I mean brutally. As the word suggests brutally can be pretty brutal and anything but fun.

Poker also requires you to have or train yourself to have discipline, which is something most new players also don’t want to hear. Although there are some players with a natural talent, most of us need to study poker. Control our fears, angers and disappointments. Wait for quality cards and learn to use some basic math skills. This is probably why it is said that poker is “a hard way to make some easy money”

 Gambling addiction is another one of those dangers, as you could see from the other example, most players will claim to be winners. Gambling addiction has an extra tricky part, that drugs or alcohol don’t have. A gambler always thinks if he can just get even, he will stop and everything will be back to normal. While no alcoholic will think if he or she drinks some more she will have a better chance at getting healthy again. This is gamblers logic which is hard to cure. Add to that the fact that a poker player can use the fact that in poker money can be won in the long run, and there seems hardly any reason for a poker player to stop playing. However, the fact that there are poker players that consistently make money doesn’t mean that you or any particular player does. In fact if you take a random poker player the odds are 7:3 against him make money on the long run.

There is a chance that you are a compulsive gambler that will not be able to avoid going “on tilt” or have be playing addictively before. To check if you have addictive tendencies answer the following questions and I hope you are brutally honest with yourself and take action accordingly.

As you can see Poker can also be very tricky and we will write multiple essays on this topic and how to protect yourself from it, since all the knowledge, odds and strategy in the world won’t help you if you don’t control these other “disciplines”.