Doyle Brunson has played poker professionally for over 50 years and still is very enthusiastic about the game. In fact, at the age of 78 he still lives and breathes poker around the clock.
In his latest blog, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm", he writes that nothing else matters when he's playing poker and that he's thinking about how he can improve his game when he's not playing. But even though Doyle's enthusiasm and knowledge about the game has made him extremly wealthy, he admits that it has its downsides as well...
"I can't believe the difference in my life when I'm not playing poker. It's almost another world. When I play poker every day I'm so focused on what I'm doing at the poker table nothing else seems to matter. I wonder if my fellow pro poker players approach the game with the same intensity that I do. Even After playing a long session I come home and think of questionable plays I made at the game and review my options at the time.
I'm not sure if that is a healthy approach to poker and life. Not only is it difficult on your family and the people around you but I actually have physical and mental withdrawal pains when I stop playing. That is when I get lots of tweets from my twitter followers about what a cranky old man I've become. But playing poker is the life I chose and I want to do my best, but you forfeit a lot when you go to that extreme. I guess you just have to live with the ups and downs." writes Doyle Brunson in his blog
