my biggest leak

I know I have a lot of poker technical leaks, but I can't even begin to plug any of them until I figure this bitch out. It seems like a personal psychological problem, so I figured I would come here, because this is probably the biggest collection of people I know (of) that deal with thinking and psychology on a daily basis.

Anyway, here is the big problem- I CAN'T FOCUS!!!

Whenever I sit down at a table, I find my mind wandering throughout every hand, much to the point where I know I am playing on the 0th level because I have no information on anyone to even think about anyone else's cards, although I have been sitting at the table for half an hour.

This comes out in my real life too. I find my mind constantly wandering when I am reading (so much so that it takes me about 2 weeks to read a book most normal people can read in 3 days), when I talk to people about something I find interesting and I want to focus on the issue at hand, I start thinking about something I have to do/something I've done/FTR/collegehumor.com/random songs/anything else. I try to read articles online, or even threads on here that delve in a really interesting subject, be it poker related or why guys like boobs so much, but I end up just skimming the words and not taking anything in. When I do homework I end up here. Right now. I should be writing a paper for my Utopia/Dystopia class, but I played a session of poker, went around the internet looking at stupid shit, then coming here and lurking around.

I know I have the capability to be good. I am smarter than most people I know (maybe I should hang out with smarter people?) When I am in the "zone" I can throw out long complicated and intricate relations or math processes or anything else, but the problem lies in getting there-most the time I just zone out and can't focus on what needs to be done.

If this was someone else's post I wouldn't even read it because it was too long. And if anyone has any insight for this it would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I am not writing this for pity. I want to know if anyone else is in this same frame of mind or has been here because it has been bugging me for a long time. And I don't really know where to put this because it is not essentially poker related, but I put it here because it is something I need to figure out as a beginner before I can become better at anything really, mods move it to wherever you think fits.

learn to breathe dude

I'm not a psychologist but I had a friend of mine who is read your post, and according to him those seem like typical ADD symptoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADHD_pr...ly_inattentive

Have you tried just hitting the previous hand button when you see a mid-large pot played and see what each player did with the hand he was holding, then type a little note on the players? You don''t have to focus on every moment of every hand when you are playing online.

Coco, I checked that link out and it does describe my situation pretty well, but I would have to go to a doctor or someone to actually be diagnosed with it, right? Anyway, does your friend have any suggestions as to what I can do to fix this? FWIW, I don't want to take any drugs like ridilan, I am skeptical about pills. Is there any excersizes I could do?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pankfish

Have you tried just hitting the previous hand button when you see a mid-large pot played and see what each player did with the hand he was holding, then type a little note on the players? You don''t have to focus on every moment of every hand when you are playing online.

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This is what I usually do. I end up multitabling about 4 tables without any reads on anyone and when there is a big pot I see what happened and make a note of it, but just watching one whole table for a while would get me better reads. I think this is why I still can't move past 10NL or 6.50 turbos, (well, this and the fact that I am not a good player).

When I read your post, the first thing that went through my mind also was ADHD. You mention that you are a college student. I am a college instructor, and I would suggest you find your campus's Disability Services office. They could give you a preliminary screening, possibly refer you to the counseling dept. It wouldn't mean you'd have to start on Ritalin or anything, necessarily. But at least you would know. There are some non-medical, behavioral techniques that can be applied. It sounds like it is affecting not only your poker, but other aspects of your life. And it's good you see it as a specific problem, so you can do something about it.

I would suggest getting more sleep and exercise and drinking more water and less energy-type drinks. I'm not writing this to be a crass asshat, but I need to take the above advice as I do many/most of the same things you are doing... well except I tend to play 12-16 tables....