Sorry if this has been mentioned - but does she put a limit on how much you play or just the amount you are allowed to play with? Make a $100 deposit online, follow strict BR management, study, learn improve, and build a bankroll. It may seem harsh, but until you proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a winning player and not a gambling addict she probably won't change her mind

^
Even if OP shows his wife he has won $50k she will think that OP can loose $75k next week. OPs wife seems to be the type of person that thinks that gambling is the devil incarnate.

OP is playing well within his limits and still gets heat.

glgl

To be fair, OP's wife is right about the Devil and poker since there's no poker in Heaven.

OP why u don't try kite surfing instead of poker as a hobby
Trips to the beach....
Obama did it u can do it too!

glgl

New chapter to the story for entertainment.

In December my wife's cousin and nephew were in town and wanted to go to the casino (Winstar in Oklahoma - awesome place). While we were there my wife released me from my promise for one night. I played 4/8LHE for about 90 minutes and won $70. She flipped out with enthusiasm and had me buy everybody expensive drinks .

My brother in law is in town now and also wanted to go to the casino. My wife let me play again. Played for 2 and a half hours and lost $100. On top of that my brother-in-law said that I'm a very predictable player. There were two hands where as soon as the flop came out he "knew I was going to win" and "Sure enough, I won". And if he, who has no clue, can see that, all of those old men around the table who have been playing for decades can see it too.

Sound familiar to anyone? . Ahhhhh what we poker players suffer at the hands of those who don't understand how it works .

My wife still thinks that if I go to the casino and lose at the poker tables it's the casino that gets my money, and if I *win* money, I won it from the casino *sigh*

"They know you're cheap and they're not going to let you win their hundreds of dollars"

LOL!

So you lost 30 bucks total and had a great time? That's less than a decent round of golf.

My brother-in-law lost $40 playing the slot machines. Then on the way home I treated him to a late dinner at IHOP. The check including tip was $32.

Why do you have to play for such large sums of money? If it's a hobby that you do for enjoyment, play for play money online. If it's the social aspect of live poker that you like, organise a home game with friends and play for pennies. There is simply no need to lose such large sums of money if you're only playing the game for enjoyment.

So my question is this: why do you need to waste money like this, when you have other low cost poker options available to you?

Secondly, with all due respect, why are you still so bad at the game? You've been playing for 5 years, 2600 posts on 2+2, had coaching, read books, presumably watched videos also. And yet you lose $50/hour at the game. $1/$2 NLHE/PLO, ~30 hands/hour at live poker, this is equivalent to approximately -75bb/100. This is a HUGE loss rate. Do you just not get the game? Are you mentally challenged in any way? I don't understand how someone puts this much effort into the game and has such a massive loss rate.

In fact, I don't believe you have such a big loss rate. I have more faith in you - I don't believe you can be THAT bad. You must play much higher stakes than you say (you said you play $4/$8 LHE, but I'm ignoring that because you say your loss rate on that is only $6/hour).

I would've said '(insert name of wife) has forbidden me to play poker so I'm not going to that den of Satan wherein temptation abounds. Best of luck to you and I hope she doesn't dump on you for losing good money by being foolish like she does to me.'

Thank you for that assessment and advice.

All I want to say about my live NLHE play is: 1. Yes, I really am that bad at it. 2. In order for me to truly put in the time to improve my live NLHE play, I would need a bankroll of at least 4K if not 6K, and that's just not going to happen.

So, I'm not really worried about fixing my live NLHE leaks (I'm nowhere near that bad at microstakes NLHE online), because they're just not relevant - I won't be playing it any more.

With regard to "large sums of money", I just don't consider $6 an hour a "large sum of money". In a game where about $150 an hour is taken off the table by the rake, BBJ and tips, I actually consider a -.75BB/hr loss rate perfectly respectable, especially taking into account that that's over the last five years and not just the time after actually learning how to play.

Then again, maybe I'm telling myself what I want to hear.

Your loss rate at LHE is totally respectable and probably just due to the fact the game is raked so heavily. What I'm trying to work out is how your loss rate for NLHE and PLO can be so huge. You must be making some glaringly bad mistakes. If you simply cut out those obvious mistakes, you could at least quadruple the playing time you get.

Like I said, I will *not* be returning to live NLHE play, but since the whole purpose of a message board is CONVERSATION, let's converse! .

Basically, everything I've learned goes out the window when I sit down to play $1/$2NL. I can't take more than one buyin to the casino - if I run KK into AA 7 hands into the session I'm done - that's it. So I play scared money, I get psyched out, I'm afraid to call when I think I'm being bluffed because if I'm wrong I'm done. I'm afraid to get maximum value for my hand because if I'm wrong I'm done. When I raise $10 before the flop, c-bet $30 and bet $50 or whatever on the turn and get raised by a player who would only raise a monster there, I'm afraid to fold because it's kissing half of my stack goodbye and then I have to play shortstacked for the rest of the session, I think you get the idea.

Ironically, I also get impatient (a problem I for whatever reason don't have nearly as often at LHE). QTo on the button after a PFR and a call looks like a monster when I've folded the last 30 hands.

I don't have these problems at LHE. I know how to calculate pot odds, I pay enough attention to the table to know that if someone's raised 4 turns in 10 hands they're USUALLY raising without a monster and I can call them down more lightly because it's mathematically correct and has minimal if any impact on my bankroll if I'm wrong.

Hope that helped. Thanks again.

Maybe this is why I'm not in relationships, but if I were you I would just stick to the yearly bankroll. IE, tell the wife that you have $1k or $2k allocated to poker this year. This is money set aside for entertainment purposes. She should never expect to see this money ever again. If you finish the year up or with any money at all then that is all gravy because the expectation is that this bankroll is an expense. Perhaps you could use the remaining money to give her a gift though (don't tell her until you do it..she should not expect a gift). If you lose your entire bankroll in March then that's on you and you are done for the year. PERIOD.

I don't understand what sharing that you lost money in a particular session accomplishes. You should be able to tell her that you didn't win but you are still within your bankroll and she should expect it all to be gone by the end of the year. You should not be going back to her begging for a larger bankroll or wanting to go on poker cruises though. That's the type of behavior that is worrisome, IMO.

Also, maybe remind her that you are playing the smallest game in the casino. You have a higher income than the vast majority of players in the next 2 levels (1/2 and 1/3). You more fit the profile of a 2/5 recreational player. While rare, there are problem gamblers at the 5/T and T/20 levels with lower incomes than you (in my opinion, I don't ask to see tax returns)....we're talking about people that lose tens of thousands of dollars.

Takeaway from this thread for you single people: Straighten this out in advance.

Cross your fingers for me everybody.

The wife and I had one more conversation and I think she finally "gets it". She still doesn't LIKE my poker habit, but she now understands just how little my hobby costs me and trusts me not to let it get out of control.

Honestly, I think 90% of the problem is that she's bad at math. She didn't understand that if I lose $30 in 4 hours that's FAR less than what it costs us to do dinner and a movie. I think she's getting it now. The other 10% of the problem was she also didn't understand (even though I'd explained it to her at least 3 times) that it's not the casino that gets my money (outside of the rake) - she thought the casino was rigging the games so that I'd lose (when you consider how heavily raked $4/$8LHE is she's not wrong!!!!). I think she gets it now that it's me against the players, not against the casino.

So, hopefully from now on I'll be able to sit at the table without "if I lose my wife is going to flip out" hanging over my head!

Further bulletins as events warrant.

GL to you and am looking forward to a PGC type thread going forward.

This.

Also, I posted a link for you in the small stakes limit holdem no content thread Dal. It's a clip from one of my favorite movies. Enjoy.

----

Interestingly, I've had the opposite experience with friends and relatives regarding poker. They are quite supportive. However, 2015 was my first and only losing year ever as a poker player. They seemed to forget about the free rides, beer, and steak parties that were funded by poker in an all too convenient sort of "what has poker done for me lately?" kind of way. It was frustrating to the point that now I don't talk much about my swings whether they're good or bad swings.

This is great news! You should have been playing in the 2/5 game this morning. It's always a good sign when someone comes to the table holding a rack with $40k+ in purple chips. He liked to make it $75 to $100 every hand and would call shoves of any amount blind.

As for relatives, mine certainly didn't support me playing poker. For some reason they couldn't grasp that I'm guaranteed to make money overall in the games I play. Also, I think non-players in general focus too much on the individual sessions. Because of that I instituted a policy that I don't talk about results of individual sessions with people that don't understand the swingy nature of the game.

Ah I see, this thread is just trying to get the whale (i.e. DalTXColtsFan) to keeping punting away his money. The first paragraph of the post above mine couldn't have made it any more obvious, lol.

Just stay single.

Yeah, that too.

This is why I'm not married.

I have a 6 figure job and no debt or children (True story). I make money and do what I want with it. It's nice. Good luck OP.

Was this a serious comment? Sarcasm can be hard to hear on a forum, but in all seriousness, I will be back on the felt as regularly as possible in about 3 weeks and I think it would be fun to track not only the progress with my play but with the relationship.

Ofc it's serious: I wish you the best of luck and I hope you crush the game, buy your wife a real nice (insert her particular favorite: handbag, shoes, jewelry) w/ the $$$$$ you win and then have her encourage you to play more!