Gotta pour some stuff out here, so just bear with me.

I just recently got into my "groove" as a live 1/2 player at 23 years old. I still make the occasional triple barrel bluff against a fish who wouldn't know what a scary board looked like if it slapped him in the face...I still will call a big river bet when I hold top set with 4 to a straight out there...but I'm doing it A LOT less frequently than I used to. I'm really impressing myself with how much I've improved my decision making at the table as a whole. In order for me to have a losing session these days I need to get in a pretty sick cooler spot where it's unavoidable to get stacked off. A year ago I was still looking for my first winning session in my first 60 or so hours of live play. So I'm night and day from my fish days last year.

Now that I got that out of the way, I want to talk about the ultimate downfall of me being able to build a bankroll: roulette.

For some reason it sucks me in a majority of the times I pass it. The one at the Borgata in AC right by the Water Club entrance, the rapid roulette one is my biggest downfall. I will be walking back after a winning session and put a 20 in and throw it on red just for a thrill but then if I lose I end up feeding more money into the machine and before you know it my winning session that took me 6 hours to grind together is all gone and maybe then some. Anyone who can relate knows how it goes. You bet 20, then 40, then 100 and all of the sudden you've got that feeling of someone punching you in the stomach and your mouth is hanging open wondering how you can be so stupid.

My biggest problem here is personal discipline. I read all inspirational quotes about how important discipline in, repeat them to myself and still I can't grasp it.

Any advice/articles you guys can share with me? I'm tired of feeling like this and I know I need to stop being such an a***ole but it's hard. And it's not any other pit games that I have the slightest interest in playing, just roulette because of the "coin flip" atmosphere of it.

Thanks in advance.

Discipline is a lot like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it becomes, the less you use it ... (you get the picture)

Try exercising your discipline over other things that have a hold of you in some way, like sex or sweets or cigarettes or whatever. By limiting how much you let yourself indulge in things that have a hold on you, you will be strengthening your self discipline, which will ultimately help you walk right by the roulette wheel.

Hope that helps. Good luck, and never lose faith ... in yourself!

Thanks for the reply man! The weird part is I have been on a diet since February and am down like 40 pounds so I've had the discipline to do that but not avoid stupid ass roulette. Ugh.

Ask yourself : what is roulette for you ?
I mean, really ask yourself why you are putting that money in this game you know is -EV. Do a long post about it.

It's really really dumb, I know that. Like I'll be on my way down to enter a tournament, see the machine and throw 20 in and say win or lose I'll go register. Of course I lose and don't listen to what I said and end up blowing the whole tournament buy in and after that I am in no shape mentally to play cards. It's sickening.

I, by no mean, am judging you.
I'm just asking : what is roulette to you and why are you playing it ?
I don't care what people think, I'm caring about what you think.
You can PM me if you prefer.

Honestly theres just this desire to gamble. I've also lost my whole online bankroll just recently because I was on tilt and decided to flip for my whole account. Something about that 50/50 chance gets me. Same with roulette. If I end a poker session us 490 dollars I need that extra ten bucks so I'll put ten into roulette for a 50/50 chance of getting the 500 even. If I quit the pits and flips altogether I could honestly see myself making a nice run at being a successful poker player. These things are just crippling me and no matter how much I tell myself how stupid it is I keep doing it.

Tell everybody in your games that you will pay them $500 if they catch you playing the roulette machine.

Idk if that was sarcastic but it's not a half bad idea.

It's not sarcastic at all. I used to have a problem getting past the BJ tables. One day I came up w/ the idea to tell 'everybody' (which means more than I can remember) that I'd pay them various amounts (I'd say to one guy I'd pay him $500 and then another guy would ask and I'd say 'I know this guy better, you get $100) if they caught me playing BJ and that was that. The urge to play disappeared because I KNEW that I COULDN'T play.

It worked for me.

The wheel cannot be beat, it is there to take your money. The game of golf cannot be beat, it can only be played. Life cannot be beat, it is there to take to your soul. You have to decide what you truly want out of things. If you want to stick it to the wheel, but in for a few hundred and bet the numbers big till you run up a huge stack. If you want to have fun, buy in for a bill or two and bet some numbers, have a drink, watch the action and enjoy yourself. If you want to beat NL hold-em, keep paying your dues and stop being a nit. Never forget that a half-assed sharp is the biggest mark in the casino.

I can see this being very effective. Wow thank you.

This is spot on. I used to play alot of table games. But then I started thinking...technically, everytime I play a table game, I am literally just paying to be there. I'm not making any money. I am just paying in order to play the game.

Once that really set in, I started only playing table games when I was with friends because then I saw it as "paying" to have a fun time with my buddies. I stopped thinking about trying to make a profit from it.

Naturally, I play alot less table games now. It just seems like a waste to put any money in a table game where I KNOW I am -EV when I can just bring it to the poker table where I have a pretty good chance to be +EV.

Learn to enjoy the gambling that is in poker. I've never figured out why so many of the poker players who donate way too much in the pits are the same guys who'll get it in against a draw and be sick to their stomach, want to take insurance and make deals, moan over every beat, etc. There's plenty of gambling in poker get your fix there.

Table games offer something that poker doesn't: The quick rush, the instant score potential, the 'just one bet' mentality that usually doesn't work and the rapid pace. People get hooked, so hooked that they'll need GA, a psych, lose a business or a marriage.

Try it my way, OP, it'll work bec you'll never know who's watching and you don't want to pay out.