Well. Had the pleasant occasion to try various forms of amphetamine in the poker room recently. Did extremely well. Made an absolute ****-pile of money in fact. Small sample size, I know. But I think this is something more than just random variation. I've noticed way fewer brain-fart mental errors, and basically zero tendency to tilt. Paradoxically much more patient, much more strategy-focused.

Now, you might be saying, "brother-man, you gots ADD. You need to go talk to yo doctor." Well, maybe. But surely you know how easy it is to talk yourself into something, and then talk your doctor into something as well. ADD or no, amphetamines increase alertness and improve certain measurable performance variables, which for one thing is why fighter pilots have been popping "go pills" since WWII. So I ask the question again.

Is this cheating?

Am particularly interested to hear the perspective of our college-age brothers who use amphetamines to get better grades.

just watch out when tilt hits on that ****. some of the most fiery tilt i've ever had.. and i could not quit

and on topic: i wouldn't say it's cheating.. if anything you cheat yourself having to play when not amp'd up after.


i have a love hate relationship with adderall.. the few upsides are met with many downsides of it. aside from the amazing focus it is a really bad drug

i used to take aderall in college pretty much exclusively for exams and writing papers. always seemed to score quite high on those assignments where i was under the influence and pretty average when i was just sober.

i remember being able to write non stop during an exam and having all of my memories very easily accessible; whereas now, my pot-ridden mind can barely recall what i had for dinner last night.. in fact i can't remember.. im trying now..

with regards to poker, i def think it helps a significant amount with focus and remembering previous betting lines a particular player may have taken 20 hands ago etc, like a mini HUD in the head or something.. i have personally never used it with poker because i left the states around 5 years ago and it is just not available in most countries outside of the US.. however, even if i was offered it now, i would probably decline. Its just so terrible for the heart and the nervous system, that at age 28, i dont really see the merit.. (i know a similar argument can be made for weed but i think the effects are slightly less exaggerated with long term usage if we were to compare the two).. obv i could be completely wrong on that, just an opinion derived from personal experience..

aderall helped me immensely with my grades, and essentially got me through college.. but i think if i was to use it with poker today, i would either enjoy the experience too much/reap the rewards of its effects and then become addicted to only playing on aderall.. or it would just have a negative long term effect like all amphetamines do.. prob both..

is it cheating in poker to use aderall? good question. Certain sports do test for performance-enhancing drugs, and i think the use of aderall does correlate with that effect in the game.. on the flip side, it can also increase anxiety/cause players to make rash, uncalculated decisions as a direct result of the mental stimulation...

is it cheating? prob not. The negative long term ramifications to your game generally will cancel out the short term positive response. I am not really sure though and would be curious to hear from players who currently do use it during online/live play..

It's not cheating, in fact, it's a handicap after a certain point.

It turned me into a raging degen when I got really buzzed, and really showed up during losing streaks.

Sober I'm not like that at all, I'm really nitty and won't even play games in the pit. Speed made me want to gamble until I busted my life roll several times while in college. (I should mention that my adderal abuse eventually led snorting meth when I couldn't find pills, so it wasn't just adderal that made me like this, but the two drugs are really pretty much the same)

Be careful.

Adderall improves your performance if you're otherwise always on drugs and being on adderall keeps you sober from them while you're playing. Which is how most college students use Adderall to "get better grades".

Also I thought Adderall was one of the coolest drugs on Earth until I caught myself kicking in the passenger side window of somebody's car in the middle of a public intersection while on it.

if its not prescribed by a doctor, yes i would consider it cheating. its no different than bodybuilders using anabolic steroids as a performance enhancer to gain an unfair advantage over others in the sport

ive taken adderall a few times, it deff helps when your trying to get through the day. but ive never used it to grind, i can imagine its effects are amazing when your running well and in the zone, but ive heard from others that have used it to play, when your on tilt or justrunning bad it can be a horrible drug.

Used to eat it during pool league tournaments and crush.

Taking Adderall when it is not medically necessary is a recipe for disaster, and I am NOT talking about poker.

Leaving adderall ethics to doctors annoys me. In many cases, you end up selecting for dishonesty rather than disability. As I understand it, there's no real, obvious, discontinuity between those who have ADD and those who don't, and even if someone can draw a clear line, no doctor actually does it. I can't help but think that what happens is, loosely speaking, Mensa+ level performers end up feeling bad for people 2-3 steps below them, so they want to make mental enhancers ok for those people, but not for those a single step down. I consider cheating on the part of those high performers. For this reason, I tend to think adderall should be OTC (w/strong warnings).

IMO, It can't be cheating as there are no rules that I am aware of from any organization that offers poker tourneys or cash games that states that the use of adderral is against the rules. It may be illegal if you don't have a prescription to use it, but it isn't cheating since cheating is about breaking the rules of the game.

It might be an ethical question, along the lines of do you tell the guy next to you that he is flashing his cards or not. But I don't see how it could be considered cheating.

What mg are you talking about? For ADD, the dosage is low, usually15-30 mg. While speed is also amphetamine, the normal "hit" is 10x or more of a therapeutic dosage for ADD.

Anybody else see the irony in a guy with a Walter White avatar being the first to reply?

If you bought it illegally, it's cheating. If you get it legally, it's not cheating.

This.

No doubt there is a population of people who find that dopamine agonists smooth them out. Kind of a paradoxical effect. Defining this as a disease is ******ed and leaving some doctor in charge of determining the ethics of prescribing Adderall to help a college kid compete with his peers is even more ******ed. Just sayin.

I appreciate all the replies. Still not sure what to think, but I'm pretty sure having an Rx isn't the key principle.

I think the discussion revolves around whether or not Adderall is truly a performance-enhancing drug. Very interesting perspectives here.

beware of the addy tilt

Adderall is a performance-enhancing drug in the same sense that cocaine is a performance enhancing drug. It absolutely does not enhance your performance, but good luck trying to convince someone on cocaine of that.

You have to be aware of what really makes a drug "performance enhancing". If something is a huge double-edged sword, its not really a performance enhancer. Steroids are a performance enhancer because there are no downsides to using them in a competition-sense when you're talking about athletics. Many athletes also consider marijuana a performance enhancer, since it can be used post-training as a painkiller to relieve the pain and inflammation from muscle strain(or during training to relieve pain from injury) without any of the huge detrimental effects on muscle growth associated with many painkillers and other drugs(alcohol absolutely destroys muscle growth) and it can be completely out of your system by the time competition comes around.

Adderall is not a performance enhancer because for every good read you pick up that you wouldn't have without it, there will be two or three bad plays you wouldn't have made if you weren't on it(in addition to other side effects that are possible like completely maximizing your capacity to feel rage, causing you to visibly sweat large amounts, causing you to play well past the point where natural fatigue has started having a significant impact on your performance, causing you to ignore other signs that your performance is decreasing like hunger, causing your confidence to skyrocket to the point where you're convinced you don't even need to be anywhere near A-game to beat the players at your table, etc. If you take too much it can also cause you to be paranoid, overanalyze situations, and fearfully put players on hands that they likely aren't on over and over).

its how I played 43 hours of poker straight one time (the game was the Commerce 60/120 FL). Yes as far as I can tell I seemed to play better poker, but coming down off it of it wasnt so much fun. The jaw clenching and general feelings of depression you get coming down off it of it suck. Its just too similar to speed imo.

Adderall is definitely a performance enhancing drug(i think the amphetamine drug class is generally considered as "cognitive enhancers", but is it cheating? No I don't think so. It's not the same as a body builder gaining muscle 3-4x faster with steroids or something like that. Adderall simply increases activity of the dopamine receptors, which allows you to think a little more clearly and not notice fatigue as much. It doesn't actually increase your mental capabilities, like say if you could implant a computer into your brain or something, it's certainly nowhere near that level. Adderall also has many downsides. If you use it even just slightly frequently(think weekend warrior, twice a week max) you will build a tolerance very quickly and will start sliding down that slippery slope of addiction, and stimulants are not something you want to be addicted to. It also puts extra strain on your cardiovascular system, not as bad as a stimulant like, say, tobacco, which deposits tar and deadly chemicals causing plaque build up, but it does constrict the blood vessels for several hours(similar to almost any other stimulant class drug), making your heart need to work a little harder. Also, it causes permanent change to the dopamine receptors and possibly other parts of the brain with long term habitual use, which means once you've been using it every day or every other day for a few years, you'll never feel quite the same again without your adderall.

tl;dr yeah it enhances your performance in a way similar to caffeine(faster response, more focused, less fatigue feeling), but since it doesn't actually make you more intelligent, I'd say no it is not cheating.

Also, I think it's different from having a marijuana habit, because when you come down from the effects of adderall, it is not exactly pleasant(jaw tension, headaches, etc...more common the higher the dosage), weed on the other hand is a pleasure from start to finish for the vast majority except those who may just not like the effects in general, but once you come down from it there is really no lingering after effects, and no physical craving for the drug. If/when you start to get addicted to adderall, you may find yourself just popping pills because you don't want to come down and go thru the withdraw period, and find yourself awake for days at a time. By contrast, you can smoke weed all day every day for years, and you'll never find yourself staying awake for 3 days straight smoking blunts, and if you ever want to stop, it's very easy due to there being no physically addicting attributes to cannabis. People who quit cannabis after longterm use usually experience a psychological craving for 3-4 days, where they may not eat too well, and might have some trouble sleeping, but those are not physical withdrawals. Anyone who has ever known an opioid, stimulant, benzo, or alcohol addict should know what I'm talking about, actual drug withdrawal involves intense physical pain, and alcoholics and benzo addicts can actual sieze and die due to the physical withdraw.

I think this has more to do with mental stability and self control than amphetamine usage. Someone taking an amphetamine (adderall, vyvanse, dexedrine) for the first time might get a little jumpy and overzealous, but people who have even just a little experience with it probably won't be making irrational decisions just because they feel good. We're talking about amphetamines here, not cocaine.

That's just a terrible argument. If I come to the poker table stoned as **** (and not in a jurisdiction where cannabis is legal) or tweaked out of my mind on meth are you gonna bar me from the game for cheating?

I think depending on the poker table, yeah you might get banned. I've never seen it because everyone I know does drugs of somesort(at least drinks/smokes) but if you come to a game full of straight edge people, they might not feel comfortable and kick you out.

How can Adderol possible help anyo..

Oooohhh! Shiny!

If you come to my game tweaked out on meth I absolutely will bar you from the game before you even get a chance to cheat.

It'll make you prone to verbose replies.