thank you sir appreciate the insight

I like how you instantly gravitated towards the answer you were wanting to hear.

It's about your goals in life, so if you were looking just to play once a week and possibly make a bit of money but have some fun either way, then why even ask?

I agree that it's not optimal for your immediate happiness to sacrifice social/family life, but thats the same reality for people who work multiple jobs. If you want to accelerate your financial situation then its what you have to do, if you don't care about that and are content where you are, then this obviously isn't an issue.

My goal is to work my ass off and be miserable for a few years so that I can be way happier in the long-run. To each their own.

To each his own, but this is much more complicated when you have a family. In particular, no matter how good you are at poker, it's unlikely that your significant other is going to view it the same as a second job.

In most relationships, you make implicit or explicit compromises about how you spend your time. You're going to have work time, shared time and "me" time. Your SO is likely to give you much more leeway for work time than "me" time, and it likely that their going to put poker in the "me" time bucket, not the work time bucket. That can be addressed, but it's difficult. I've made good money playing poker, but in the context of my relationship it's still clearly "me" time, which means I have to fit it in among work, family etc.

Note that poker isn't the only thing that is hard to characterize here. I take a client out to a Yankees game and will view that as work time. My wife sees me going out to a baseball game, eating, getting drinks, getting home late, etc., and characterize it more as "me" time. That's not crazy. I see her volunteer at something for the kids' school, and see that as something she doesn't need to do but chooses to do, and think of it as "me" time. She'll see it as an integral part of raising the kids and think of it as work. These things need to be navigated, but it's not very easy to get someone else to view something that had been a hobby as becoming work, especially when the financial rewards are not immediately apparent and may never come.

I'm with MIB all the way on this one.

"Happy wife, happy life" is a pretty good way of looking at things (even from a purely selfish point of view), so you'll probably want to fit poker into your life accordingly if you value the relationship (and even moreso if you have kids).

My wife doesn't even care if I win money playing poker (ok, I guess she might care if I lost *a lot* of money to the point it interfered with our finances). The argument that you could perhaps make 2x or 5x or 10x the amount of $$$ (i.e. to bring it back to this thread: increase your winrate by playing at peak times, etc.) is pretty much a moot point, especially if it interferes with the family.

GgoodluckG

As a married man and father with a nonpoker playing wife, I completely agree with this.

I was disagreeing with your post until this part, now I'm on board. I suppose I was having trouble objectively viewing the argument from my own perspective as opposed to all of you. That's a very fair point.

And thanks to everyone, not just MIB on helping me with this. I definitely agree that it's about finding that balance between work/family/me time and as of now I think once a week is about right. Twice a week occasionally.

Also - since I'm not relying on this professionally, as much as I would love to play 4 times on the week and grind Fri & Sat nights, I think it's just too difficult to make it happen.

What I can do is put in as much time away from the tables so I maximize the times when I do.

@TPTK77 - 1. Separate your poker bankroll from other monies. 2. Share some of your winnings with wife and family eg, jewellery for the wife, upgraded TV for all, theme park trips for the kids etc.

If everybody is getting something out of your hobby, you could turn resentment (or future resentment) into encouragement.

First month in Vegas: 120 hours. Up $3,565. Including about a $1,600 downswing the second week.

Will hope to play more hours in November. It’s oddly more difficult to put in an 8 hour session. I am sure I will adjust as time goes on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1/2?

Yes


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice.

Nice results Chip, glad to hear youre enjoying Vegas and got off to a good start resultswise.

I am coming out to Vegas during next week, so i like to hear that its value in the games

Not sure I agree with this. It might be setting a difficult precedence to upkeep, and in the end it should mostly just be looked at as a "me time" hobby (not necessarily an expected bread winner in order to be justified).

GimoG

in a shocker, this is another example of how GG plays in the toughest poker market in the world.

Last session, I guy makes it lol $10 after a limper. For some weird reason it folds to me UTG and I limp/reraise to lol $60 with AA with < $300 effective stacks.

I get called in two spots.

Gtoughestpokermarketintheworldmightbeexaggeratingt hingsabitG

(whoops, wrong thread)

So I would classify my self as better than your average amateur player and looking/working on improving my game. I'd like to get good enough (like anyone) be able to use it as like a second part time job. However my bank roll has been taking a beating with multiple bad beats (some which could have been avoided if I bet better). I've been on quite a cold streak as of lately like busting the last 4-5 times I've played. Is this normal or am I just not as good as I think haha. I mean statistaclly I'm losing to 4-6 outters on the river. Should I be better more on turn (without a made hand to protect mine)to discourage people from chasing. Or am I just dealing with a cold streak. Thanks

Impossible to tell, really, from what you have posted. Don't bet bigger to discourage people from chasing, bet enough that if they chase, they are making a mistake and you are getting value.

As for 4-5 times busting, do you mean one stack? If so, super common. If you mean, everything you brought with you, how much do you bring? What is your bankroll? How do you not know exactly how often you've busted? Are you not keeping records?

In other words, it's not at all impossible to tell from what you have posted; no, you are probably not as good as you think.

Thank you for reply. Yes everything I brought to play that day. I started with with $1k bank roll. Was Up to about $3k before this bad streak. But I usually bring $400 for 2 buy ins at 1-2. As far as discouraging chasers, that's what I have Ben doing is betting for value. But it's seems that's people are catching 2-4 outters on the river. And this has been a continuous trend for me. I see ALOT of guys playing that are definitely decent players that have huge bankrolls but sometimes play extremely poorly at times and just throw away money and buying in multiple times each session. I obviously don't want to do this.

Two buy-ins is not a lot. I usually bring three. It's not unusual to lose two buy-ins in a session, but doing that 4-5 times in a row is uncommon, though not even close to unheard of for a solid player. No offense, but based on your posting I think you have some leaks that would make it less uncommon.

General rule of thumb is that it takes 20 buy-ins in your bankroll to make your risk of going on a downswing bad enough to bust it all very unlikely. You started with a very small bankroll and are lucky this downswing didn't happen until you had a bigger (but still 25% too small) cushion.

As for folks catching 3-4 outers, it happens. The important thing is to make enough money off of all the times they chase and miss to make up for the times they chase and hit. The other important thing is to not pay them off on the river when they hit. When passive players bet on the river after the draw came in, it usually means they hit it, even if they never should have payed as much as they did to try. Don't pay them off.

Also, if you are serious about getting better, your #1 change that you need to make is to keep meticulous records, and never fail to record a session because "well, that one wasn't normal." You need to hold yourself accountable.

I appreciate the advice. I know I have a lot of work/practice ahead of me. I think it's a good sign when I know I make a mistake and I'm trying to learn from it, not just chalking it up to a bad beat. I know my sequence of betting can drastically improve. I find myself player better against tougher players. playing against rec players that stroll in from the casino and "saw it on tv" and want to play is difficult for me at this point. One reason being they don't understand the concept of bluffing. They don't think of what you have, they are just consumed with theirs and hoping they catch and if they do say "well that's poker". Usually I find those people who say that are playing to gamble not play the game properly.

To be fair to him, he said "better than your average amateur player", and an average amateur player is probably a loser of a descent # of BBs/hour.

Honestly i can understand the need to rant, especially because most of "newer winner" do not have someone to talk poker to irl. You arent entitled to any pots and you should be thankful for these people who want to gamble it up, because if they didnt exist you would go broke. I think poker is all about survival between heaters and very few survive.