Took me 10+ years to realize weed and Poker not a good idea. Would go through stretches where I ran good to fool me into thinking I was playing better than I was but overall can’t count the number of times I spewed my stack after smoking.

Took a break from weed but only to realize I was miserable as duck when grinding then smoked and was back to my usual self. After years of experimentation came to the conclusion that a little weed after gym is AMAZING. Just my experience. I do know some superstars who are great players and sill smoke, just not my forte.

I smoke during Mtt grind. I think it's probably good sometimes and probably bad sometimes. But I can't imagine playing sober. Rarely drink when I play but I agree at least for a few drinks I find I play great.

I play a lot better sober but it's a miserable experience. I'd rather be at work than sitting there stone sober watching a bunch of lowlifes get rewarded for making bad plays all day.

Honestly Poker is really only fun for me when I'm blasted. Of course when I need to win, I play sober. But if I'm in a place where I *need to win* then hopefully I'm not playing in the first place.

There's no casinos in the country where I live, so if I want to play live I have to buy a ticket and get on an airplane to do it. So either it's a big tournament and I'm sober, or I'm donking away dollars at some 1/2 table in Korea with a 10% rake and two players all-in in every other pot, in which case I'm at least going to get my free beers out of the deal.

I used to drink sometimes when playing tournaments a few years ago, I don't think it made me play any worse or any better but it definitely helped me stay calm when the inevitable 2 outer busted me. But one time I got very deep in a tournament while drinking and fell asleep and got blinded out so maybe 2 or 3 drinks is ok but don't overdo it. I can't drink now anyway, doctors orders because I nearly died from a stomach ulcer a couple of years ago!

Just casually did some painkillers one day and somehow decided to fire a couple tournaments and i was beasting everything so i did it again and again

I've been wondering for a while when we're going to see a PGC thread from someone who played 100k+ hands of 6max zoom while high (weed obv) and 100k+ hands without to compare WRs. Would be pretty interesting imo and wouldn't be risky or take too long to complete.

Drinking during poker is obviously -EV except for the fact that drinking at a live table almost always loosens up the game and attracts gamblers/fish. You might be playing a little worse after a couple beers but the game can potentially get so good that it doesn't even matter. It's still more profitable to drink sometimes I find.

Weed can be alright except that smoking lots of it makes me drowsy/sleepy which isn't typically good for poker. A couple puffs before a session or in the middle of a long one can be good sometimes, keep you relaxed and less likely to tilt. Stay away from stuff that makes you paranoid though, that's not fun at the table either.

dude its a paradox with weed and poker for me. i get really angry when im high and take a bad beat or run bad. its like im trying really hard to focus through the fog of being stoned and i lose my temper. weed is not for poker , weed is to make movies and music better.

Adderall for the win!

First time I took adderall, I entered a tourney and proceeded to mow down the field with a first place win! I was grinding my teeth while downing jack and cokes the entire time.

Tried to repeat it...NEVER happened again.

I'm surprised at how many posts here feel that drinking is automatically -EV. I'm picturing a situation where a tight player, lets say under-rolled for a 1-2 NL game, loosens up a bit and is bluffing and bluff catching at a more appropriate rate than they would otherwise be.

... and proceeds to build up a giant stack then blow it off in three hands in a row to the same opponent because "there's no WAY this dumb a-hole has a queen and just rivered me again, not a chance garblarblarbl".

I can do this. Already have over 150k hands at 200/500nl (results in my PGC, ~6.5 bb/100 iirc), none played sober besides one day which I can omit.

Doing the 100k without weed will be tough but is already something I'm working toward. Would only take a couple months, but I gotta stop smoking weed every god damn day to do it lol. will update if there's any progress

main issue is that I'm a better player now than I was when putting in most of those hands. so I'd expect a higher WR regardless of any effect weed has. also would be tough to do the 100k sober then go back to smoking and playing. feel like there would definitely be a decline in WR, at least at first. still an interesting experiment though

Here's a question have you ever played a ton of poker online? Did you drink alcohol while playing?

Probably not

So what makes playing live different? Why do some people need to drink to play when against real people?

Live makes us more anxious that's for sure.

Im assuming this is because live is more anxious and u wanna calm down a little bit. Also a lot more slow which could make it ****ing boring if u are card dead for long period of time.

there it is. I am going to start selling alcohol around poker tables because it makes you a better poker player. You sit down, things aren't going well, your poker brain is inferior to your opponents. Here, "let me sell you this, you will bluffcatch and bluff at the correct frequencies, it's that simple, instant transition!"

Cringe

sounds good let us know

I always stay away from alcohol when playing. Having that said, when I’m only planning on staying for about 30 more min or so, sometimes I will have the occasional beer or cocktail before I go as one drink won’t impact my play too much!

Likely true for most folks as far as the impact goes. However , for most folks who I see drinking at the poker table , 1 beer or drink is a fairly rare limit on their consumption , thank goodness for those folks !

I don't always smoke before playing. but I will do it periodically. it helps me "think outside of the box;" i'll make some unconventional moves that even if it isn't the best move possible, it still helps me to think about a certain spot in a way that I wouldn't have seen without smoking. In the end I try to carry that over into my sober playing.

I say be flexible. Come to the game ready to drink, ready to smoke, or do neither.

OP mentioned some types of herb seem to help concentration better than others. This is 100% correct imo. If you like smoking before a session figure out which types of weed work better for you and stick to those. For me there are certain sativas that are like aderall for the first couple hours. Also, if you do smoke, pay attention to the come down, usually an hour or two after smoking. This is a good time to be away from the table, take a walk, eat, get coffee. For me I'm prone to making big mistakes during this period, which is usually about 20-30 minutes of cloudiness. Best of luck.

this is when you roll up another one and bts

also, why is this thread titled: before poker? Toking up throughout a session is way better than just before. amateur hour here

Studies on vehicle safety while using pot strongly indicate that pot users are unable to multitask, but overly focused on the one task.

This may seem like a plus for playing poker, but staying aware of table conditions and multiple player tendencies while also playing the cards you are dealt is multitasking.

Except that Hunter himself said it was total bull****.

If I do either I'm playing like 1 or 2 tables and realize I'm gambling instead of grinding.