Doping and stimulants in poker

It’s a matter of common knowledge that cases of dope taking are detected in every sport. There’s hardly any huge competition that doesn’t from time to time witness scandals around the usage of the forbidden medicines that boost productivity and bring the muscles in tone. Despite the fact that there’s no single opinion among countries whether to consider poker a sport or not, the notion of dope in poker already exists.

The thing is that grand MTT-tournaments that may last for dozens of hours and several days even make it very hard for the players to stay alert and concentrated. Therefore many turn to medications that improve mental activity, attention and assertiveness. Most of the medications may be found din the drugstore and acquired freely with no recipe. However, some players even use party drugs, like A.M.T.

Some of the drugs may have side effects, but professional players are not so easy to get scared. When the victory in a huge tournament and an immense prize pool are at stake the players will go any lengths. It’s important to mention that such enhancements will be beneficial for advanced players only.

Remember: if you’re not a prominent poker player, no pills will resolve that.

And yet even some experienced poker players may not benefit from taking drugs. Take Mike Matusov for example: during one of the tournaments, he managed to build up a substantial stack but in the end took 64^th place only. The reason was that his doctor had prescribed him wrong pills and as a result Mike started dropping attention and breaking up.

We may also recall the bitter experience of Paul Phillips who had been playing in poker tournaments under stimulators for a long time and built up more that $2 million in total. Finally Paul ended up with the addiction to the pills and could not make without them away from the poker table any longer.

Unless poker is regarded to as sport, there’ll be no doping tests before important tournaments. Moreover, once during WSOP 2008 one of the stimulators was advertised on the website of the series.

Even though many professional players still take drugs we’re strongly advising you against it. There’s hardly any benefit for your health, but all medicines bring contagion for sure together with building a tolerance.