My daughter  (a poker player too)  and I were talking earlier today.  She said that she'd played a tournament the night before with a few friends.  "How’d you do?"  I asked.

"I finished second,"  she said.

"Second?"  I asked,  knowing that she was highly skilled and usually beat her friends.   "I had poker ADD,  Daddy.  And the winner didn’t,"  she added.

Poker ADD.  That’s  "Attention Deficit Disorder"  for those of you not familiar with the popular buzz phrase from child psychology.  It’s a rampant problem among today’s youth,  especially young boys.  It makes them unable to focus,  constantly agitated and hyperactive.  It’s probably the number one reason for children being put into Special Education classes today.  It’s an epidemic in our country.  And when I was a child,  30 years ago,  it was unheard of,  either nonexistent or undiagnosed.  Who knew?

But Poker ADD is very real and always has been.  It’s a symptom that affects many players,  young and old alike.  And it’s something that the good player wants to find in his opponents,  because it induces good players to play poorly.  And if you find it in your own behavior you need to get treatment right away.

Here’s what happens.  Players who are otherwise good get impatient.  They know how to play correctly.  They know that they should fold 9-6 suited in a tournament.  They know that they should fold their pair of 4s for a preflop raise.  But they shove their better judgment aside because they have lost the internal discipline that is necessary for winning poker.  They’re impatient and they can’t resist playing yet another hand.

I’ve suffered from it from time to time.  Sometimes, in Texas Holdem poker,  you just get tired of not having decent hands when you’re in early position,  or getting absolute garbage when you’re in late position.  So you lower your starting requirements,  saying to yourself that the game is looser than it really is,  or convincing yourself that an early position raise with J-9 suited is an excellent semi-bluff.  Or you decide your all-in raise when you’re on the button makes sense because the raiser often has nothing.  So you play too loosely and too aggressively,  refusing to employ the careful,  selectively aggressive behavior that you know to be effective and that you have consistently won with in the past:

You start calling hands you know you should fold.  Or perhaps you start raising with hands that you really shouldn’t be playing at all.  In any event,  you act not because you have the cards to do so but because you just want to have action.  And that’s a recipe for disaster.

The treatment for ADD these days is generally a drug called Ritalin.  It’s a drug that acts on the central nervous system of the sufferer,  chemically calming him down.  It helps him concentrate,  quiets his nerves and keeps them from becoming hyperactive.

In poker there are a number of things you can do if you suffer from poker ADD.  None of them involve taking drugs.  Here are my suggestions.

First of all,  if you’re feeling anxious or otherwise impatient because of any personal problems or distractions,  then don’t play poker.  Stay away from the game.  You have complete control over your poker schedule.  No one can dictate when and whether you play.  It’s very different from just about any other sport in that regard.  If you don’t feel that you’re at your best,  there’s no game scheduled that you can’t back out of;  no teammates to be let down.  Just don’t play.  That’s the safest route.

If,  on the other hand,  you’re in a game and you feel the onset of poker ADD,  then you have a few treatment options,  none of them chemical.  You can quit for the night.  Or what I generally do is just take a break.  Give yourself some time to think about what’s going on.  Get a bite to eat,  go for a walk,  but get away from the poker table.  The nice thing about suffering from poker ADD as opposed to the regular variety of the illness is that once you leave the poker table the malady ceases to be a problem.

If you can’t actually leave the table,  then I recommend that you just decide to fold the next 10 hands.  Be out of the pot from the very start,  as you think about what you’ve been doing.  This is a rare cure,  usually only necessary if you find the onset of poker ADD in the middle of a tournament or something.  But if it happens in the middle of a tournament,  take yourself out of the action entirely for at least a short spell,  declining to play until you have regained your poker equilibrium.

Treating poker ADD is never easy.  But if you fail to recognize the symptoms or otherwise fail to take remediating action immediately the risks are very real.  Players have been known to be publicly humiliated,  lose their self-respect,  and lose their entire bankrolls with the symptoms left untreated.  So a word to the wise:  If you find yourself suffering the symptoms of poker ADD,  leave the playing area immediately and seek professional assistance right away.  Just remember that the poker career you save may be your own.