I’ve got a confession to make…. I was sick of slot99.

I hadn’t been playing much, and when I did play I was just throwing money away. Chasing pots, making stupid bluffs – I had gone back to being a little fish in a big pond.

It kind of snuck up on me. I’d loved poker for so many years, I couldn’t imagine not liking or playing anymore.

It wasn’t just online poker either, but with everything to do with the game. I wasn’t reading my poker magazines -they still arrived every month, but sat in a pile, their envelopes unopened. I flicked through the cable TV guide, skipping over the poker show listings I once salivated over.

I ignored the emails and text messages from my regular live games. My own table was folded up in the garage gathering dust.

Was it because nothing was new and exciting in poker any more? Had I just gotten bored with it? Why didn’t I love poker anymore!

The day I noticed I had been neglecting poker, I had a good think about how it happened. I came to the realization that it was because poker had become a chore rather …