I think I'm experiencing this right now.
I haven't got a hunger for grinding and discipline, day after day, click after click. When I first started playing, I could play for months in a row. Nowadays, I'm getting bored more and more often.

I wonder what is going on... Any advice? Anyone else relate?

take a break. Best thing you can do when burned out, not motivated or in a bad mindset.

Take a break. Turn the computer off and get away for a while. It could take a couple of days or a couple of months. But yes, you're burned out. It will cost you money not to play, but will cost you more money TO play.

dude, it's a card game. after awhile it's bound to get mundane. if ur passion is there, sounds like it once was, it pry still is. I've played like 60k hands one day of rush poker. in terms of poker players, I would easily be in like the 100th million percentile of hands played, I have mass tabled for 10 years, much more tables now than then. today I played just 3k hands, binked $1100 in sngs, it was fun. what made it fun? it wasn't the poker itself, it was the fact that I had a great day, and great days prior, and the winning today helped . today I walked my dog and watched him chase squirrels through the park as I pushed my daughter in the stroller ahead of me. I watched my daughter laugh, I fed her, she depends on me. I got to see my wife, I ate healthy food, and generally speaking do these things each day. poker is only going to be as good as your life around you. focus on good things first and then poker second, your passion for it will follow, it's what still works for me. happiness outside of poker will equate to happiness during poker. challenging yourself outside of poker equates to challenging yourself during poker. breaks can help as others have mentioned to, in fact my optimism now pry stems partly from the fact I have not been playing all that much lately. poker to me usually gets boring when it's live, that **** is sloooow.

u don't have to play poker either, there are way funner things. for me, it's a profession, I have to keep it fresh. focus on the good things first (health, relationships, our world). get those in order, your poker will follow, the desire to play will follow, your win rate will go up, I promise

I think p2 dog might be right. It sounds like you are out of balance with your life. When you take anything you like and turn it into a job, that is when all of the fun gets sucked right out of it. I personally love to surf. I could surf all day, but if you told me to start surfing 9-5 for 40 hours a week for months on end, I think that would suck the joy right out of the experience. Anyways, echoing what others are saying you are burnt out, you should try playing something else for fun.

Burnout happens with anything in life that you do repetitively for a long period of time, even some of the best things in life like poker or even sex. I notice when I become bored with poker, I have a tendency to seek out risky situations and plays to make myself feel some sort of excitement, even when it's clearly a poor decision. Take a break for a few days or even weeks and do things completely unrelated to poker. Only you'll know when you're ready to return and play again.

Well, that depends on a lot of things. Some people love their jobs and are happy working 50+ hours a week. Other people will grind at their job, no matter how hard it is, if they can make a lot of money.

If you offered a job shoveling manure for eight hours a day, for a salary of $1 million a year, a lot of people would take that job. I am a retired army musician and a full-time poker player, and I could be very happy doing either of those things as my job for the rest of my working years. Even so, I would probably scoop the poop for a million dollars.

Another thing to consider is that almost every job involves grinding. Pro football players spend a lot more hours in a season watching film and practicing than they spend playing. Surgeons read a lot of medical journals to keep with developments in medicine.

When I'm playing full-time (I'm in a caregiver situation that makes that impossible for now) I study at least 15 hours a week. I read every new poker book at least three times, either to make sure I didn't miss all of the ideas, or to find specific concepts and ideas that I can apply at the tables. I run equities.

I memorize certain hand ranges, for example, one day I decided that I wanted to learn to play more hands when deepstacked. I had been opening with about 15% of my hands. I decided to memorize an opening range of 20% of my hands, to include all pairs and suited connectors. I figured out which hands I would have to open from each position to make that work, then I put the opening hands from each position on flash cards. I have ADD and I get bored very easily. And studying flash cards is really boring. But I thought it was something I needed to do to be a successful player.

By the way, a little studying can go a long way. Knowing what cards are in that 20% range benefits me in many ways. I can be more aggressive, and win more chips, before the bad players get knocked out of the tournament. If I see a player showing down small pairs and suited connectors, I'll know what he's doing what I'm doing, for example, he wil be more likely to be betting than the average player with a set, straight draw or flush draw.

Also, with my 20% range, I could start out playing 10-15% of my hands, then change gears to keep my opponents guessing. Or when someone opens with a few more hands than I, I can put him on a 25% range and be very close.

What would happen if you bumped up your opening range a bit? You might cash more often, but by itself that adjustment won't make you rich. But what if you also:

revaluate your c-bettting ranges?
work on spotting tells that show your opponent is weak?
go over your hand histories after playing online?
practice better tournament selection?
learn to play more tables online?

You get the idea. Studying isn't always fun, in fact, for most of us it's grinding, just like my flash cards. But grinding might be what it takes to be great. Cellist Yo-Yo Mo, one of the most famous and successful classical musicians in the world, has to been known to practice scales in his hotel room for six hours.

I love poker. But it's hard. I am so easily distracted that I log my study time to the nearest quarter hour, just like I'm punching a time clock. Otherwise, I would be probably be studying a lot fewer hours than I planned. I have to force myself to grind, but I get it done.

I'm a much better player than I was last year, and my hourly rate is better. I expect that to happen again next year, and the year after that. At some point I might hit a ceiling when I'm too old to keep up with the changes in the game (I started playing poker at age 50, I'm 58 now), or the buy-ins will get too high, or for some other reason I'll be maxed out. I might decide that's it time to give up poker.

On the other hand, if I remember correctly, Doyle Brunson won a WSOP bracelet at age 76. So I have still have 18 years left to keep grinding, keeping getting better, and get a bracelet.

+1

Some excellent responses in this thread..

Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away knowing what to keep,coz every hands a winner and every hands a loser and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep...
Kenny rogers.
if you like music you can grind all day!

Play live and work on the social aspect of your game.

One of the best things live low stakes no-limit is good for is developing your table talk skills and table presence. Chatting it up with whales to keep them happy and having fun, keeping the table drunks on a good buzz, knowing how to keep talking and stay relaxed during a big sweat facing a tank, knowing how to talk competent players into making calls they wouldn't normally make, and knowing how to be the table captain on a table full of competent regs are all very important skills.

A solid social presence is also the best way to get information on opponents in live tournaments because chances are you're often going to be at a table where you know zero or only one or two of your opponents. You'll also get more lay downs on big bluffs in tournaments because when people see you're very comfortable sitting at the poker table they'll give you more credit than they would most players.

In which case you are a world record holder congratulations.

im bored of hold-em, but i still like the 2+2 community :P

When i feel like being bored playing i just make it a habit to relax and not to think about it for a couple of days. However, i still love playing after tho..

Wow. These are some really thoughtful responses in this thread . I can understand things much better when one guy is using examples of surfing and other people are relating poker to sex though I think it’s a good time for me to take a break right now, but what poker clif posted really resonated. I feel that even when I am taking a break I can do some extra curricular learning about different poker games, strategies, etc. I was reading other forums and I just found out about a game called Open Face Chinese Poker. Any other recommendations for good poker games especially one that can spice up my poker life?

Welcome to my life. I get bored with anything if I do it often enough. I don't believe "ADD" is a real medical affliction, but I sure do believe that describes me to a "T". The only constant in my life is change, and apparently that's the way it will always be - a nomadic existence isn't all that bad tho. Variety is the spice of life!

Before I was diagnosed with ADD I managed to flunk out of two colleges--with an IQ of 154. Once I had the whole picture of what I was capable of, and understood what I was dealing with, it changed everything.

My wife is convinced the medicine helps, but if that's true, I don't notice it. But now that I know how distractable I am, and why, I know what I have to do, and that's getting rid of every possible distraction.

When I study or play poker online, I do it in a closed office, often late at night when no one else is up, and I sometimes ever wear earplugs.

When I was in college, I couldn't study for 15 minutes at a time. Now I can study poker for an hour or more without a break, because I set up my environment so there are no distractions.

I know that there are things I'll never be able to do. I can't really study or learn anything unless it's quiet, and I can't play poker (at least not very well) while I'm talking, or listening to music, or watching a football game. Now that I know that, it makes all the difference. My best environment to accomplish anything is complete silence, or as close to that as I can get.

I had already screwed up college twice when my employer closed, and I decided it was time for a fresh start. Poker was that fresh start. There is no way I could have done that before I was diagnosed.

probably i have to work at this a lot cause when you are in a bad mindset or not motivated you just burn money you shouldn`t!

Oh for sure. That one pretty popular these days. There is a huge list of poker games that you can play. Not all of them are available at the casino, but since you want to take a break anyways, you can just find them online. Open Face Chinese Poker FTW!~ Gus Hasen got me into open Face Chinese poker from his video on YouTube.

This is absolutely true. I realized that when I am bored with the combination of being tired after a few drinks and hours at a table, I start to make a lot of mistakes. This is generally also when I start losing money. Now that I know I have this bad habit, I try to avoid being bored at all times. I generally start chatting with the people at my table, I text some friends, listen to a podcast... pretty much do anything to keep me from carelessly playing my hands and taking more risk than I should because I am looking for the thrill.

lol@scoop the poop.. good point tho and we SHOULD pay more for the ****ty jobs and less for good jobs with job satisfaction I reckon ..

Speaking as an economics minor, I will stay that that's the beauty of a free market. If you want someone to do a dirty or dangerous job, it's hard to find people like that. After all, who grows up wanting to be a septic tank cleaner? So, you have to pay extra for that person. It might be hard to get someone to do a dirty job for 50K a year, but if you offer 100K the job gets a lot more interesting.

If you watch the TV show "Dirty Jobs", you can bet that the person you see scooping poop or removing beehives* makes a very good living.

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*If the hives are removed intact, complete with bees, they can be sold to beekeepers.

Interesting. I didn't know that this game is so big, but on the app store, I can't find a good Open face Chinese poker app or Japanese poker app. At least not one with a good tutorial.

Dirty jobs only pay well in North America. In Asia and most other parts of the world, dirty jobs don't have too much pay from what I heard.

hi . I think poker boredom occurs during the dowsing !

I get bored after a month or 2. I think it is the personality of the person. Just like some people tilt all the time and some never do. I am a break even player tho. That why I only play when I get a good bonus anymore.