What would that achieve? Put all what on black? I mean, if I had 180k in cash in my hand, sure, putting it on black is a better (less minus EV) bet than playing poker with it, but then it a). wouldn't last very long and b). wouldn't really be a "big" score - it'd just be doubling my money. I play tourneys for the thrill of the "big" score in relation to the stakes, not in absolute numerical terms.

This is a pretty spot-on analysis, or at least as accurate as you can get when you condense a complex subject involving human psychology and physiology (i.e. hormones, neurotransmitters etc.) into a couple of paragraphs.

And this is a pretty poor analysis, which demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding how addiction works along with some pretty tenuous extrapolation from limited personal experience. I'll just say that if everyone you've ever watched gamble stops when they win a certain amount, you've never watched a degen gamble.

It's also pretty asinine to assume that all gambling degens do not understand that they're playing -EV games, or suffer from innumeracy as you seem to imply. By that logic, we would have to assume that people who smoke crack or shoot up junk lack the medical education to know that it's bad for their health, and if only someone explained this to them, they'd have an epiphany and stop?

Seems from your last paragraph that you might have learnt something from this thread though, so I'm glad.

But how much did you win?

Do you ever feel the need to get help? Do you think you could live without gambling or would you rather die without it? Do you ever look forward to anything besides gambling?

Thanks for the post, and GL in the future.

Are you married/divorced kids?

Regardless of which one, how has your gambling affected things?

Yes true gamblers just gamble. They have no stop loss limit, no self-control and they certainly don't stop when they reach a "certain" win amount.

Being down 5400 buy ins is pretty terrible and isn’t just runbad. You should probably pay for a coach if you wanna win and are serious about the game. Otherwise I would just quit if you don’t have the discipline.

I would hire a coach.... if you can lose 180k, I would hire a good expensive coach bc you can afford it. I then would start at low limits to build up confidence and make sure you can actually win. Go over hhs with coach, maybe have them ghost you at final tables so you actually learn live in game (sorry this is probably unethical and against tos here but let’s be honest..... ghosting can’t be stopped online). Beat the low limits and move up when your bankroll allows + stats prove you win at lower levels. Just my thoughts.

Did you not read any of the thread

Just saw this now, we play a fair bit in the hyper sats, don't think you're even down that much at SNGs iirc

gl and will prob see ya for some scoop sats

-slayerv1fan

Update - I have been perma-banned from Stars because of this thread.

Two days after this thread was started, I received a message in the Stars client saying my account had been restricted, and I was unable to register any tournaments. The next morning I received an email from their responsible gaming team explaining that the restriction was due to concerns about this thread (with a link to it), and asking me to elaborate on specific statements I had made in some of my posts.

I responded, and a day later they replied to let me know that my account was being permanently closed due to the fact, that, in relevant part, "unfortunately, the posts are simply too concerning for us to overlook. " I assume that this decision was not taken lightly, as I have had my account for 6 years, played through >$1.3m and paid almost $100k in rake, and it appears that it took them a couple of days to reach the decision. By the content of their email it was also clear that they had read the whole thread.

I have asked a mod to remove my SN from the OP of this thread as I would prefer to have as little identifying information here as possible. In retrospect, posting this in MTTc where it was guaranteed a Stars rep would see it was somewhat, shall we say, not GTO.

Hey, thanks for posting in the thread. Unfortunately, no (see above), but have to say, the one thing I won't miss much about Stars is the hyper sats. Running bad in those would send me on rage tilt like nothing else on earth!

I had a feeling that u might get banned for this thread... and I'm half sorry for not warning you as u seem to like poker but if you're honest with yourself then you know it's a good thing.

I really wish you the very best and hope you can tone down the gambling a bit.

That's rough, seems like stars over-stepping a bit isn't it ? They sit aside while everyone hates changes they are making / times like the supernova elite pull back where they took millions off of loyal customers with zero public responses / rake raises etc essentially hurting or killing peoples livelihoods , but someone makes a AMA letting off steam and sharing stories and they perma ban him cause they gotta take the moral high ground there.

Look at the Pokerstars MTT thread, Luke pretends anyone with complaints doesn't exist, anyone giving suggestions that seem fairly beneficial for everyone go almost always ignored as well. How do you browse forums for a thread like this and take it into your own hands to have to remove him from your site but don't even respond to 99.9% of criticism or suggestions that affect many more people than just one individual.

Either way hope things work out well for you in the future man , glgl. Hope a stars ban doesn't lead you down the rabbithole of more casino games and maybe you can sort your future out and find a new hobby with less potential downsides

Amaya/Stars doesn't give one single **** about the moral high ground, or about anyone on their site. They're just covering their own asses

He's clearly been made a scapegoat for the thousands of others still playing with similar problems.

Sigh that’s a shame was a good read. I wonder if this is even for the best as you clearly will move on to other forms of gamble where u can’t improve your edge/ decrease ur losses if u so desire. Best of luck anyway sire and thanks for sharing

lol fuuu stars, gl OP! nice read!

I'm still around, just can't play on Stars any more obviously. Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

Well, they weren't dumb enough to out themselves somewhere where a Stars rep was bound to see it!

Seems pretty absurd that they permanently close accounts based on random unverified forum posts. All of this hits home since I'm down over half a mill this year myself, wish I could stop. My name on Stars is Isildur1, look me up on highstakesdb.

Haha, n1!

Wasn't unverified - I verified it.

Wow that's pretty absurd

good time to move over to party poker though if trying to grind some championship pokerz in may

At first I was surprised to read that OP been banned but I guess Stars doesn't want a lawsuit from the Responsible gaming commission and I guess after mulling it over they decided that would cost a lot more than the rake that OP generates.

Good luck OP...

I'm sure you're a great poker player, you seem to be very good with numbers - 1.8 x 10^5/33 is indeed ~5.4k.

You appear to have missed the context of those numbers, though; this is where reading comprehension comes in. Clearly, English is your first language, so I don't feel bad saying this - you are terrible at reading (and probably all other) comprehension. I award you zero points, and may your god have mercy on your soul.

You are also a cheating prick, and people like you are part of the reason people like me can't win **** on FTs. Thanks for the advice, *******.

crazy! Do you play live also? if so what are your cashes compared to money spent?

whoever said being down 5k isnt just runbad and means your bad, it depends on the stakes hes playing, if hes playing $500 or 1k tourneys its very easy to be down 10k-20k even in a short amount of time