Quote:
Originally Posted by pokerarb
Well. I wanna grind 30ish hrs on top of a 9-5... just had to break it off with a chick bc she was the opposite of supportive
Quote:
Originally Posted by PlasticElephant
I'm going to be more of a dick than Ben here and tell you that you will not find a worthwhile girlfriend living this kind of life. Showed my gf this post earlier and she just straight up laughed at you sounding confused about her not being supportive. Poker isn't the same as a fulltime job in the stresses it puts on a relationship;
a) an hour playing consumes much more energy than an hour real world working,
b) the hours of peak games are generally unconducive to being sociable
c) unless you're a mental game god it will effect your external mood more than real world hours.
d) minor but still not to be overlooked, it puts some strain on your other etc too when she has to explain to friends and relatives what you do without implying your some kind of degenerate
.
Having done all three, i.e. playing full time, working full time, and working full time with heavy poker volume, I feel qualified to comment here.
PlasticElephant makes some good points that I agree with, and some I don't.
I'll start with the points I agree with, which are b) and d).
Poker hours are unsociable for the most part, especially if you're playing MTTs, and generally they won't coincide with a significant other working a job with regular hours. I used to justify it to myself that as we were still in the same room in the evenings, that was still time being spent together, but this isn't true. It's not conducive to either your poker playing, or your relationship, to try and multi-task both. Your bankroll and your relationship would be much healthier if you gave each your full attention in any one evening.
Explaining to your own family that you're playing poker for a living is stressful enough, I'm sure many of us understand that, but it is much harder for your partner to explain that to their family, and have them be understanding about it. It's even harder if your deep in the relationship and you're in some way financially linked. I didn't have my partners family's full support when I was playing full time, but I don't think they begrudged me for it. (Unlike her colleagues who repeatedly encouraged her to break it off with me!)
To the points I somewhat disagree with.
Firstly, poker 100% effects your mood, no matter how skilled your mental game is, but in the same sense that a bad day at work will. The problem is with poker, is that it's still there in front of you, whereas to a degree you can leave work problems at the office. However, with work issues, the majority of problems are somewhat out of your control, whereas poker you can mitigate through playing less, studying more etc. If you're boss is a douche, there's little you can do about it. So personally, in general I wouldn't say Poker affects your mood more adversely than a real job.
And with point a), which is a bit off topic anyway in my opinion, no way does an hour of poker consume more energy than an hour of work, and if you believe that then you haven't worked hard enough. I put as much effort and energy into my job as I did with my poker playing.
Overall, although I agree and disagree with some of your points, I agree with your summary that Poker does affect a relationship differently than a real job does, but the keyword there is "differently", not any more or any less. I certainly wouldn't, and have learnt not to, compound the two by trying to combine both a full time job and full time playing schedule with a relationship. I'd say to pokerarb, if you want to work and play, then that's fine, the best of luck to you, but accept that you aren't leaving time for a healthy relationship.