B&M stands for 'brick and mortar', an actual casino/poker room often referred to as 'playing live.'

The main (and very important) difference between a pro B&M player and a pro online player is that the online player will be at home and can log-off at once when his family needs him and re-sit when convenient.

That last part should have an asterick bec there are prime online playing hours also and will vary depending on where in the world the player lives.

@ poker2wife2

I'm very sorry. I've been there (as far as ending a marriage) and it's sad when you realize you dont have anything more to give. But believe me, everything will be alright. And eventually, youll be happier. You sound like a nice person. Wish you the best.

sth

I'm confused.....
He is saying he makes $100/hr
Is this true? If not what is his av winrate?

It seems to me your husband isn't good at financial planning. If you have a family with kids and no money in the bank nor poker bankroll and you are 40 then you are a degenerate. With a family and kids the #1 goal would be to support them and #2 is everything else. I'm currently 22 and building up a bankroll to play professionally. I have a projected plan and by the time I get around to having a family I will have money in savings, property and a steady income from
Poker+ investments. You can easily be a good father/husband and play poker for a living. You just need good planning. It sucks that you got the more unprofessional end of the stick when it comes to having a pro poker player as your significant other. Poker is just another job, and it's up to the personality of the player to handle it their own way. Skill is my the only factor to being a winning player. Poker needs to be treated as a business and many different factors apply such as money management ( having savings which are separate from bankroll for example), time management( set hours and times to play do you can balance your family life and job), self control, goals, projections, ect. Have your husband make an excellent sheet to see what his hourly rate is after a month if play and see if that's an income you can support your family on ( I assume it isn't). After that he should get a normal job with benefits and suck it up. You can't be selfish in his position unless you're a scumbag plain and simple. With a family and kids to feed you're not your first priority, they are.

Skill is not the only factor***

In his original post he states:

"My thinking - in summary - is 1. I love this, 2. I'm good at it(its profitable to the tune of $100/hr) and 3. if its the amount of time that I'm putting in which is her concern, we can negotiate it. Now that online poker is not available anymore, it would be restricted to the occasional live tourney anyways."

So the responses from people are all assuming that #2 is correct and he is bringing in lots of cash.
If this is not the case then you would not have those replys that struck a nerve with you.

What if he started a thread saying that he loves poker and quit his 100K job to play more, well it turns out he's not so great and is making $10-20/ hr and is never home with his family.
Everybody would tell him he is an idiot and to go get his job back and support his family.

I think that you're mixing up this thread w/ the linked one that OP posted.

How so?

I thought this thread was her being pissed that he got support for his crazy actions in previous thread (poker vs wife).

Not saying she is wrong in any of her complaints, just pointing out that her husband maybe wasn't %100 truthful in HIS OP and hence got a skewed reaction from 2+2.

Is there a pokerwife forum somewhere?
I'm mid-thirties, married, have a 3 year old, work full time, and play live poker too much too sometimes, my wife is always pissed when I come home at 3am when I said I would be home at 10pm ect ect
There's gotz to be millions of them out there...frustrated, angry, feeling rejected and hates the game that took their husband away.
Worst of all they never really know where we are, which is why she jokes that I am going to POKE-HER.

your husband sounds like an addicted fish. your situation does not seem to be much different from a ton of other wives that have a husband with a gambling problem.

therefore, have you tried getting help from people who have experiences with gamblers? If you have, what did they say? did you do a therapy yourself about if you are co-addicted?

Unfourtunately he probably won't change. It's very hard to break a gambling problem. I used to play a lot of scratch tickets, blackjack, and craps. The only thing that changed my mind was learning the math behind the house's edge. Now the only games I play are poker or rotating deal blackjack.

I don't see much chance of him solving this problem, even with all the love and support you seem to be providing. I estimate a less than 5% chance of him changing. There is a way to give him a 40-60% chance of recovery. You should study one of the games he claims to be good at. Then challenge him to a heads up match. You win, he quits. He wins, he's free to ruin his life if he wants. If he's any good he'll realize that he has at best a 60% chance of winning, but he'll also realize that he's going to lose you if he declines. If he values his family(which is your only hope) he may accept. If he thinks he's unbeatable he'll probably accept. Of course there are pitfalls here that may be unavoidable, but I don't see any other way to increase his chances of recovery.

Call me a troll if you want but I'd be surprised if any other advice can give a better than 5% chance of recovery. Good luck.

What the ladies don't understand here is:

'Poker is for life, not just for Christmas'

Silentweed,

Really???


Well, this past week I had to bring my 11 year old daughter to my husband's counselor. He had to explain to her that her Daddy was ill and his gambling meant more to him than her. Believe me, she feels this already so it was just validation of what she already knew. But holy ****, what child deserves that?

So now she is at risk for failing out of school, having an addiction herself, or even worse perhaps, marrying somone like our dear Silentweed. Maybe when she's a little older she'll find herself seeking out a father figure in a mate. Is that what you would want for your daughter? All because he "loves" poker?

So, Silentweed and The1kid you'll have to excuse me for not having the same perspecive as you. I see poker as more than just a game for sure because a game wouldn't have this effect on an innocent 11 year old girl.

Next week is my 12 year old son's turn.

Press gang, I have sought therapy for myself and my children for a long time now. I go to GamAnon whenever possible. Read every known book about gambling addictions. This isn't coming from a lack of knowledge nor action to improve our lives regardless of his choices. I'm just utterly disgusted in the selfishness that ensues with this lifestyle.

I do not have the typical co-dependent history. This started out as innocently as anyone else's poker story.

I am devastated by what he will have to reflect upon at the end of his life. Which, by the way, the counselors see as being sooner than later. I am told when your addiction has progressed this much, suicide is fairly common.

And if any of you know him, I am sure you think he's a great guy. I am sure you'd want to hang out with him. And I'm sure you'd believe his lies that he is taking care of his family. He really is that charming. You'd see his rolex that he took for payment instead of cash that his family needed, and buy into the facade of success. You'd probably say he is a really good player, and is definitely not an addict because he only plays poker (as if a heroin addict isn't one because they don't do cocaine).

All smoke and mirrors while his children suffer. And some of you folks like to say that we wives don't understand. Yeah. You've got that right at least.

He had to explain to his daughter gambling meant more to him then her???

what kind of counseling is that? How could that ever be functional to improving anything about this situation..

this just sounds more and more like a troll to me.

Surely if you are a professional poker player, but not earning enough to pay your own bills, and nowhere near being able to support your family, then you aren't really a professional poker player? It looks like your husband is just posing as a professional poker player while he does what he wants. I would think 99% of the pros on this forum have very little in common with him.

Good luck; I hope you can both sort out your issues.

My children have lots of questions why their father isn't living at home. His behavior and abandonment have left them very confused. The therapist tried to get them to understand that he was ill and it wasn't their fault and nothing they did could have changed him leaving us the way he did. In the process of getting them to understand it isn't their fault and how his illness has progressed, he explained to them that for their father, if there isn't a wager involved, it holds no interest to him. Things that used to be important to him are no longer important. When he scheduled a poker trip on her 11th birthday, she needed the therapist to explain that it wasn't so much that he didn't love her, just that poker meant everything to him. He sees the world differently now that gambling has changed him so much.

So yes, I think it was helpful because she doesn't have to feel responsible for his leaving us.

I am sure you have heard that children personalize things of this nature and that is why they need help understanding it isn't their fault.

I found his counseling to be very helpful, very much in line with GamAnon and GA's guidelines. So call me what you will if it makes you feel better.