O.M.G. YOu should feel awful!

Good thinking I might try that.

My man and I are both gamblers... we met at a casino and have been together for over four years now... funny thing though, I moved in with him and changed my lifestyle... started staying home 24/7 ... he has a job at a mine and works all kinds of crazy hours and shifts..(I was a party animal to that point...lol)
Anyways, I've always been online since 97 but was doing alot of research before this time. Once I moved in with him and was home all day and night every d and n...I had too much time on my hands and I started checking out the casinos online and wandered into the no deposit bonus stuff.... long story short, I ended up signing up for a nd poker bonus and fell in love with poker. That was two years ago and I can't even imagine life without poker. Problem is, HE thinks I'm an idiot for playing so much and has no interest in poker at all.... The more I love it, the more he seems to hate it! lol... We don't really fight over it, because I limit my $$$ play... But I study and try to improve my game every day. He say's I'll never get anywhere with it, I say I will! lol If I start talking about it he walks away like I am not even there... anyways... to the OP... yes... it's just as possible for the man to be non-understanding.... (Man, I wish I would have poker BEFORE I found him....lol)

I don't really know where to begin, but my goal is to get good feedback from the player and the spouse of the player. Please post a reply if any of this sounds familiar... I have played poker professionally(80% online) for over 8 years. The early part of my career was a grind, with much to learn of bankroll management. My knowledge of the game continued to grow, as did my ability to manage funds. There were times when I knew i could not cashout until my roll was large enough to comfortably do so, leaving room for downswings and variance(inevitable). So I got better, and my roll grew, and i spent/invested accordingly.

So, I'm at the height of my poker career, money is no issue, and i begin to re-enter the world outside of poker(my life was spent in front of a computer or in a casino), and I was enjoying life. I met my wife, we made plans for a future together with a family... All was planned and I thought life could not have been any better. We had our daughter in July of 2009, and life DID get better. We made plans for another and found out that we were pregnant in Feb of 2011! What could possibly rain on our parade? We would always be this happy, right? The DOJ and US government had other plans... Black friday was the most devastating thing to happen in my life. Whilst the majority of my roll was on FTP(still waiting to see if I will ever get that), life went from being "acuna matada" to "desperation mode". It took until just recently to rebound from this whole debacle, and selling my house to have a bankroll was my only saving grace.

We are now moved into a new home, and it appears life will soon be as it was prior to BF, but there are so many concerns I have that my wife does not share. I try to remind her of all the struggles we just went through, so history does not repeat itself. I want to enjoy the spoils and "make it rain" on my family. I did before and I will again, but I want to be more conservative going forward. It seems as though we live broke, and I make enough money to never be. I do not want to be dishonest about cashouts or have a "secret" bank account that my wife knows nothing of, but I feel strongly that I must be in control of how the money gets spent to ensure it lasts. I'm sure every woman wants a card that can be used any time there is something they "gotta have", but shouldn't I be able to ask for frugality without expecting anger and attitude? If my wife were a poker player, she would understand bankroll management, and I would probably trust her more because of it. She is not, and understands little of br management/balancing a budget. She does not understand the extra tension and pressure that I feel going into a session each time when I just get the report of what the bank balance is or what was a "deal" and "had to" be purchased.

How do I know that there isn't another BF/sky is falling scenario waiting in the near future? What can I do to provide financial security for my family apart from spending less and saving more? Am I doing it right? Should I always leave enough money in a "secret" account to battle back with, if life throws another curveball? There are so many other issues with poker and relationships that we could discuss and learn about, but this seems to be most urgent for me. Is there a "rule of thumb" on life bankroll management? Like, "Only buy a pair of shoes if it represents 1% or less of my bank balance"??? Please post thoughts, ideas, and experiences on this matter. Thanks, Jamin

Eat! Drink! Be merry! Black Friday will never happen again, right?

Did I post this in the wrong place? Was really looking for some female perspective, but unsure if my title is bad or i didn't find the proper forum. Anyone? Mod?

This forum is fine. I merged your post into a longer thread on the subject that might contain some of the answers you are looking for.

It isn't the highest traffic forum, so the quest for responses may require patience.

+1, ty mod

I think that it can be easier to understand if put in a context that the other person can identify with.

In my case, both my spouse and her brother had done a lot of stock trading, so it was easy for me to get them to understand in terms of operating capital, ROI, risk of ruin, etc. if someone is more familiar with retail, perhaps it would be more facile to explain about inventory (your bankroll), sales and returns.

I will admit that despite my spouse being very open minded, it was a bit of a struggle in the beginning. What helped a lot was providing tangible benefits; going on the Party Poker cruise because I won a satellite, a full ride to the WSOP with a comped room, etc.

Still, there are always wants and expectations that always seem to expand to fit whatever current funds are available. My situation may be different than most in that my wife is adamant about not dipping into my operating bankroll, she would actually rather take cash out of savings rather than dip into my operating funds.

Recently we recognized that we were short most months and I started cutting back on some personal care items and my hobby (pool) and I committed to putting more hours into live poker. Hopefully we can bring this month in at break even and not take any money from either savings or bankroll.

Sometimes this does lead to interesting conversations. During a recent visit with my brother in law, he discussed how he had tried to time a buy of Apple stock in anticipation of their new iPhone announcement. My wife Denise responded with some discussion of an option that she had tried on Ford motor due to some circumstances she thought indicated could foreshadow a bit of volatility in the market.

Naturally I chimed I with a rather shrewd investment I made the prior week in a pair if Tens. I felt that I got them at a good price when considering the implied odds, and that my equity improved considerably when another Ten appeared on the flop. They heartily approved. ;-)

My best advice is to find what context makes your audience feel comfortable and work with that. Hope it helps

Shauna

I would love to have a gf who plays poker and does well at it

I def think the intelligent conversation that results from it and the understanding of how intricate the game is could make for a deeper, more understanding relationship

That being said I would be incredibly jealous whenever we broke up and I wouldn't be able to stand it if I ever saw her with another guy

Jealousy issues in this post

I used to want to date a guy that played poker and then yesterday happened. I went to go play with a guy that im interested in and once i saw him play and saw how he behaved at the table i am no longer considering him. Everyone is different i know but its a sucky first experience.

Playing professionally and dating someone definitely can workout well. Even with BF and having to travel a lot, my boyfriend and I have been together over 2 years.

I think it's just like any other profession that is high stress/requires travel. A lot of people may not be able to handle playing full time and handling a relationship, and a lot of SO's might not be able to deal with it. But if you care about each other enough you are willing to make sacrifices to make things work.

That's part of dating. You meet someone (probably online) and think they're great, you have a couple good dates, and then you're "in a relationship." (I hate the imprecision of that phrase.) Eventually you meet his family, and find out that his parents live nearby. You also find out that it's the first time he's seen them in six months because "he's been too busy."

I don't care what anyone says about meeting their soulmate online. You don't really know someone until you see how they act around different people and in different situations.

I've found if you take poker out of the equation, it really just boils down to whether you are a good fit romantically with that person or not. Dont let poker ruin a good thing.

I belong with you you belong with me you're my sweetheart.

So how do non poker playing couples decide who is buying / making dinner!!

Can't imagine not settling it over a last longer :P

I can only respond to your thoughts in my context - it's not my spouse I've ever had these issues with but my two children (both teenagers now) - much of what you posted resonates with me because the three of us are a very tight unit. Both of them support my poker life, but neither of them understand bankroll management etc. Over the years I worked out that only I can protect the source of our income, my bankroll, and since they don't understand what's required to keep and build a bankroll, they go by my assessment of whether or not we can afford things.

It's not so much that I keep it secret from them, but the bankroll is a completely separate issue from our working capital. As in, if I have a good score in a tournament, I work out what % of it is correct to be added to the bankroll, and only then consider extra family expenses etc.
Basically, we make spending decisions together on any dividends coming in (my son gets that gaming computer he really wanted/ my daughter gets that trip with her friends), but the nut investment (my bankroll) is never considered 'spending money'.

Of course, any financial emergencies are an exception to that rule, but then they know that we'll have to tighten our belts until the BR is built back up again. They trust me that I will make all the best decisions I can for our welfare and when there are surplus dividends they will get surplus 'goodies'.

Hope this helps in some way.

in my experience, none of my friends in the poker world ever talks poker with their girlfriends. the intimacy for me was like, yes, I slept a little longer, and when I got up and headed for the gym, she'd been at work for 4 hours, and I head home, cook/baked something nice, and then hang out when she comes home from work, and in the evening after intimacy she'd go to sleep to get up to work in the morning and thats when the grinder logs in on the computer.

summarywise I think it's a little bit different dating a poker player but not negative

FWIW, this is how my wife and I handled it:

I played part time for a while. and occasionally I would give my wife $100 or whatever when I did well in a micro tournament. I always wished that I could build a bankroll and make something of poker, but she said that we needed the money now. Since poker wasn't my "real job", I didn't push back.

Later, a series of things happened over a few years, including a car accident followed by my employer closing. Since I couldn't work for some time after the accident, I started playing more, about 20 hours a week. After a while, I told my wife that I would like to make poker my full-time job.

She had already seen me win some money, so she knew it wasn't a completely crazy idea for me to make that change at my age (55.) My wife makes more than I do. She has a good job at a hospital, with great benefits: 401K, health savings account, medical, dental, optical, perscription, the whole bit. So I didn't have to have a "real job" to get a benefit package.

We talked about it, and this is the deal we made:

My wife was already writing the checks, so she could keep control of the finances, pay the bills, and give me an allowance while I took some time to build a bankroll. (It was tight, but she made enough to keep us going.) She has complete control over how her income is spent. I have input, but she makes the call. We are both frugal and working toward being completely debt-free, so that's not an issue with us.

She understood the concept of poker bankroll management, but she couldn't get her head around how large my bankroll needed to be to produce a good income.

Since I understand poker bankroll management, and need to live with it every day at the tables, I control all of the poker money. I use some for myself (so that she doesn't have to dole out money to me anymore), and the rest goes four places:

1. Family checking account and to improve our situation.
2. Growing the bankroll.
3. Investing in the business (software, hardware, books, office supplies, etc.)
4. Quarterly estimated income tax payments.

I make all decisions about how much money goes into which category. She has input, but it's my call. I might never make more than my wife, or I might eventually make several times what she does. Since I'm an MTT specialist, and given the variance that goes with that, it's possible that some years my income will be larger, and other years hers will.

In his book, Treat Your Poker Like a Business, Dusty Schmidt addressed the bankroll issue. I wish that I could quote him, but my Kindle battery just died, and I'm charging it.

Before poker, Schmidt managed his parent's toy store, and he was continually frustrated by inventory problems. His father liked to keep inventory cost down, and the store didn't stock many of each item. Often they would get an order for something like 100 dolls when they had only 20. They lost a lot of orders that way, and Dusty couldn't convince his father that if he wanted the business to grow, they had to carry move inventory.

Schmidt's point was that for a poker player, cash is your inventory. Without it, your business can't grow.

You and your wife aren't on the same page at all. You know that you need a bankroll, and she wants to get her hands on that money. You're a saver, and your wife is a spender. I think that the only solution is an intermediary that you both trust. Whether it's a married salesman (or spouse of a salesman) who understands your situation, a marriage counselor, or a pastor, you guys need to resolve this.

In the give and take of negotiation or counseling, there is one thing that you can't bargain away. You can disagree about total spending, how fast to get debt under control, or how to spend your money. That can be worked out. But you MUST control your bankroll. Your wife MUST understand (or at least agree) that you can only spend part of what you make playing poker. Look again at my 4-point list. All of those things MUST be covered. You can negotiate on how much money she can spend (as a percentage of your monthly winnings or whatever), but you MUST protect your business and your bankroll.

Don't make it complicated, to the point where you're talking about the bankroll implications of buying a pair of shoes. You're a lot like a salesman on commission. You don't know how much you're going to make each month

A salesman doesn't just hand over money to his wife (or her husband) to do whatever she wants. A salesman has to have a reliable car to go to his appointments. He needs good clothes, and a laptop to track his appointments and expenses. He has to keep his business going. So do you.

I suggest that you give her either a percentage of what you make each month, or a fixed amount each month (to be increased if your income increases.) Don't have a secret account. Be honest. Tell her that there will be good and bad months, just as there are for someone who sells cars. Show her the graph. Tell her whatever she wants to know. She might not care, but giving her a better understanding of what you do certainly can't hurt.

I'm going to be blunt here. Ultimately, if none of this works, you might have to make a choice between your wife and your career. You're a poker player. You made a good income before black Friday, and you found a way to keep doing that after Black Friday. You can't just quit and get a similar job at another company.

I'll say it one more time. GROWING YOUR BANKROLL IS NOT NEGOTIABLE. If that's a deal breaker, you have some decisions to make.

+1 poker clif... we are working on it together, and she has a much better understanding of br management now... definitely glad to hear from some1 with a couple decades more life experience... tyty

I'm really glad to hear that.

About two years ago i read some local girls blog about, poker and life in general. I left likable comment. About two months later i met her in underground poker club, we didnt talk cuz i didnt realized who she was. She busted me out of tournament and later came up to me and introduced herself. We played some cash together, and i was winning every hand that we played HU. We started to play a lot together(live, just cuz we wanted to see each other) and then she invited me over to "play sunday million" (we actually did, none of us played tournaments and she actually busted in first hand cuz i told: "WTF dont fold you have a set 678r or something like that was the board, i busted in first hour. That was the big 10M GTD sunday million...havnt played SM since.) We bassicly hooked up in weeks time from meeting. She played much better than me but i was running good(thats prolly the best i ve runned in my entire life just cuz it helped me to meet her) We are together for about 1.5 years. She's not playing for about 9months and feels good about it. We could not discuss poker in any time of our relationship and still cannot. But still poker is a huge influence in both of our lifes and i couldnt imagine dating anyone who doesnt know what is merged range or w/e. Sorry for rant and for my poor english.
Poker players are the best ppls ever.

poker generally bad for families.

IF the two of you can leave the game at the table or discuss it objectively I think it would be great.

For any poker player, single or otherwise, especially single (which means you could only move in one direction on the relationship front: dating), I recommend the book "Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of all Relationships" by Osho. You can find it in any bookstore in the philosophy section or online. It has a 4.9/5.0 rating.

Poker is a game that creates a lot of space in the togetherness of a relationship. One of the things that could hurt two people who care about each other immensely is a game that is selfishly centered in its making, and very independent from the devices of the World. Any exploitation of personal weakness or ineptitude will be unrealized by a poker player who is very focused on the tasks at hand, no matter what skill level they have.

It is not how the relationship will exist, but how are we "relating". Why are we even relating with each other at all? People date and get all close and forget about themselves, who they are, what defines them, and then reflecting that back to their partner to absorb. If we intentionally looked into ourselves more, saw who we are in our flesh and then looked at the types of people we have dated over the discourse of our lives, we would be changed for the better in our recognition of self as being more important than a relationship with someone who has to understand that we will change dramatically at every turn of the corner in our lives and for a poker player, these emotional and mental swings can be even greater.

Poker is not bad for families, for relationships, for anything...we all have to make daily decisions to look at what is important and how to love someone more each day and in a healthy way that the World truly might not even understand. Poker players are great thinkers and we can all solve this one too...but I don't think the problem is poker.

I would love if my bf played poker, I think he's really intelligent so he could pick up the game easily, but he'd rather play xbox for fun.

I think poker does affect our relationship at times tho, my sleeping pattern is really messed up, so when he stays over its like I'm jet lagged. Also coz he is studying, he comes over at the weekend mostly, which is the best time to grind with all the recreational players online then.

I think it can sometimes be hard balancing real life and poker.

Sometimes I talk to my bf about poker, but it all goes over his head, he is understanding though. I am never goin to talk to my family about poker again though, they think I'm a degen or something, just coz I have been losing for a few months. So frustrating!

GAH! If you're in a relationship with a poker player and would like to remain in the same relationship, never, EVER, play at the same live cash table again.

Bf: Look, I don't wanna battle it out with you anymore, so when it gets HU, just check it down. And we'll stop messing around with each other. It's not collusion if it's a cash game because it doesn't affect anyone else.

Me: You're screwing up my game...that means you're just forcing me to contribute a whole bunch of dead money to the pot if I'm not allowed to float or bluff raise you anymore. You play way looser than I do, so every time you raise and I call because I wanna play the fish in the game, you get to cbet and win the pot whenever we both get nothing. So that's like forcing me to dump a whole bunch of dead money to the pot whenever you raise. Effectively, calling your raises with anything but top 5% becomes -EV

Sometimes he doesn't get it...

Good thing I'm moving permanently in a couple months and not taking him with me, so this won't be an issue anymore.

Rant finished