"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

Sabr- don’t do it man.

I’m sorry that you’ve had a rough go these past few years. It’s never too late for things to get better.

Life can be unfair and random. Bad things happen to good people, but with even time, good things will happen for you too.

Please seek help.

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It also can be learning new, better ways of thinking, and learning better behaviors. Agreeing with Venice, it doesn't have to take years. It didn't for me.

Meds helped. You're not sentenced to having to take them forever, either. They did help me though get to a mental place where I'd care about the behavioral work.

Where you are, SABR, may feel and look absolutely hopeless and you've thought this through up, left, down and sideways, but we are terrible judges of what's actually happening inside our own heads. Even if we think we're approaching things objectively, we simply can't. I thought I'd be doing everyone a favor if I killed myself. I was wrong. But I needed help to see that.

Go talk to someone. Do it right now. Please.

+1

There is no harm / nothing to lose in asking a professional for help, right? And it's exactly what you'd do if your car broke down, your cat got sick, etc.

GgoodluckSABRG

I randomly saw this post in my tapatalk feed,and i feel too strongly for this topic to not chime in.

Look SABR i am not gonna pretend i know you or what you exactly is going through. I do know a thing or two about serious mental problems and severe depression. Ive been living and dealing with clinical depression my whole adult life. It is a diagnosis that means i have dark depressive stretches randomly,and its something i have to live with until my time is done. As others have pointed out the right meds can help,and at the very least balance you out taking the edge of the darkness or hopelessness. My doctor have said i may have to be on meds for the rest of my life,because it may be too risky not to.

From what i can see you have symptoms of depression,wich is a dangerous beast for many reasons. The most dangerous is that depression can cloud your thoughts,feelings and judgement in a serious way. It makes you not enjoy what you normally enjoy anymore. It makes the steak filet dont taste good anymore or it can make you not enjoy watching shows you nornally loves. It makes your body feel like sirup and just going to the grocery store 3 min away can feel like an impossible task.
And it can make you truly believe you dont have anymore to live for even that is not true. Or it can make you believe people that care about you and want you here,that they want you gone or be better off without you.

This isnt really you:its the depression that is talking and messes with your mind. What others have said its correct,this doesent need to be forever. Even though you had several rough dark years,its possible to get better and having good times again. However the darkness/depression state you find yourself in now wont let you believe in it. Thats the dangerous part.

What i am trying to say is if you end this,you cant reverse that decision down the line. You rob yourself of the chance of getting help,getting better days. Ive had countless stretches with plans of ending things,because the cup just gets full and you cant deal with it anymore. I suggest do whatever you need to get through and cope,besides ending things. Sleep for 1 month,watch your fav shows for 2 weeks,try meds,take a long break from poker or whatever that can get you through one more day. Every option is literally a better one than doing something that you cant reverse in the future.

SABR, please listen to everyone in this thread. Talk to someone to get help. You're too good a dude to go down that road.

I am probably going to make a mess of what I am trying to say but...

I fervently hope that you reconsider what you are thinking and that you do try to talk to a professional again. I agree that you shouldn't be suffering for the sake of others. You deserve better and you should be seeking help for you, no one else. *YOU* deserve it. *YOU* have value. Depression is a muck that drags you down and makes you believe nothing will ever be better. Depression is also a ****ing liar and makes you believe what isn't true. Please don't give up on yourself.

i'm sure you're aware already, but you're not ending your suffering, you're just transferring it to everyone in this world that cares about you

SABR, don't do it. Sell all your belongings and move to Myanmar if you need a change.

Couldn’t have said this better myself.

SABR,

Please ask for help and talk to a professional. Asking for help is not a weakness, but instead a strength. Everybody needs help from time to time, it's what makes us human beings.

Please think of all the good things you've done in your life And please realize that you can continue to do even more.

I know this may seem small to you, but you are my all-time favorite poker poster in the history of TwoPlusTwo.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading every HH, every advice given, and have learned immensely from you over the years. Thank you for that my friend ♥

TY for the kind words.

I really do not wish to be here. Every day is just pain. Everything happening to me this year feels like the universe actively has it out for me.

I have had bad years in the past but nothing like this year. It's as if the laws of probability do not apply to me. The odds of anyone running badly to the degree that I have have to be astronomical.

If anyone else said they were the unluckiest player in the world you'd just call them delusional, but in my case I am smart enough to know just how truly absurd this run is. Between MTTs and cash I am somewhere between $60-80K below EV for the year, and it has been constant and never-ending no matter what or where I play.

I have had a worse year in terms of absolute results but that's when I started with a massive roll and was playing much higher stakes. In terms of buy ins and big blinds this year has been way, way worse. I've had to borrow money multiple times and each time I continue to run awful and go even deeper in debt.

And it's not as if I'm playing badly or forgot how to play poker. My friend plays very similarly to me and he's up close to $200K for the year and I'm up like one-tenth of that. That's how stupid this game is. It feels like actual torture to grind day after day and take loss after loss while being the most skilled player at the table almost always. It feels like black magic ****ery that the biggest punters will lose money to the entire table but show up with the nuts against me all the time.

I have won close to 1.5 million dollars from poker lifetime and had a massive roll 4 years ago, but none of that matters now. I have had 4 below average years in a row but this year has been far worse than any previous year and I have close to nothing left, despite continuing to put in hours and cutting my expenses to an absolute minimum.

None of this is fair, but I realize that fairness just isn't a thing that exists. Some people run good their whole lives and some people just don't. When I had a massive roll I spent money carelessly and wasted a lot of it. Now that I am conservative and dilligent with money, the poker gods punish me by never letting me win instead. It's really just a sick joke and I don't wish to be a part of it anymore.

Could you not just find a job? It seems like if all the depression is caused by poker, there’s a logical path to less depression?

OK but what relatively high-paying job can I get after basically never having had a job?

At nearly 40 I'm not really willing to live like a bum and split rent with a roommate anymore.

Maybe that sounds spoiled but I'd rather shoot myself.

Living a humble life would be better than not living IMO.

Wouldn’t you rather try it first - you might enjoy it far more than what you do now

If I can't afford to have my own place to take care of my cats, then no I really don't think I want to try that first.

Playing poker to pay the bills and also running bad is legitimately depression inducing, I'm not sure I'd want to eat a gun over it, but it would be horrible for sure. You'd be a highly unusual individual to be capable of playing poker professionally but also not have the required skillset to get some sort of decent normie job, maybe not overnight but in a reasonable timeframe. I'd prefer to do an entry level job than get my face kicked in at the tables all day every day, that's for sure. At least your employer has to pay you after a *****ty frustrating day, rather than taking your money.

Of course I have the intelligence to do almost anything, but I lack the experience and qualifications. And I don't have time.

And I was extremely successful in the past so lifestyle creep is real. I live in an expensive area and my rent is $3400.

None of this would be an issue if I could just run "normal," but life has a funny way of being unfair like that.

Well then you’re a ****ing idiot. Sorry but it’s true.

Given you can afford a place for your cats right now and you still want to neck yourself, maybe, just maybe they’re not the secret to a happy life

You're better than a card game.

The Abyss is real, and it is awful. It is a large part of why so many people consider the grind toxic. But you definitely have options. Sure, your lack of direct experience will be a barrier, but there are also employers out there who will be impressed by you living on your own analytics.

Choose something you want to do, and start transitioning out of poker ASAP, imo. Poker as a hobby is something I still love, but I can't even imagine the stress and burn-out of grinding full time for as long as you have.

That's not what I said?

I said that if my results matched my EV, I'd have no problem supporting myself and my cats.

It is only because I am SO FAR below EV that I've had to borrow money more than once just to pay rent.

It is one thing to be depressed about a downswing when it's just some numbers that have no bearing on your quality of life.

It's a whole different level of depression when you need to scramble to borrow money because rent is due in two weeks and you're still losing every single flip and haven't been in the black for 3 months because the deck ****s you over non-stop. And then you have to force yourself to sit there and make perfect decisions anyway hoping that today is the day you stop running like ****.

Sabr

Lean into database analysis, take some cousera AI courses online and take up data modeling / analytics. This is a highly sought out skill set in my experience as every company is in a rush to automate. This takes critical thinking (you have) and experience working with large data (you have).

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Ultimately, suffering is caused by a failure to meet expectations. We believe (for good reasons or not) that we deserve certain things, and when we cannot have or achieve those things, we suffer.

Of course I believe that someone with my level of knowledge and intelligence, who also works hard, does not deserve to be in the position that I am in. When I see people with considerably less talent than me achieve much better results than me, it also causes me to suffer. Not necessarily out of jealousy (I am happy if my friends succeed), but because we have an innate sense of justice, and the suffering is due to the realization that the world doesn't give a **** about justice. Some people really do have all the luck, and some people never will.

I also recognize that although I may have been extremely unlucky at poker over the last 4 years, I have also been fortunate in other ways. For example, just the fact that I was born so intelligent in the first place, that was luck, because I had no control over that either. Ultimately, the suffering that I go through can be said to be self-inflicted to a large degree, because I put pressure on myself to make a certain amount of money, live a certain way, etc...

I understand why I suffer, but ultimately it doesn't make me feel better.

Take the first step of seeking professional help. Everything else will eventually fall into place one way or another, but that first important step of seeking professional help really needs to be taken first. Make it your first and only priority (do it today!), and then go from there one step at a time.

GgoodluckSABRG