What’s up everyone! I’m new to this website and this would be my first time posting. The reason why I’m starting this thread is because I want to get some tips and advice from other players who have kids. How do you balance your poker life with your family life? I recently left my 9-5 to pursue my dream of playing poker for a living. Now that I’m home grinding online I’m starting to realize how hard it is play and deal with the kids ( 2yr & 3yr old). The only time I get to grind uninterrupted is during nap time and when everyone goes to sleep at night. I’m thinking I’m going to have to play during late night hours and sacrifice some sleep. Any out there in a similar situation?

You could just get a mobile data connection and grind at the library.
You won't have the luxury of using a desktop and using 3 screens.

You could play 6 tables instead of 20. Probably make you game better too.

If it is your job, treat it like a job. Set up boundaries, remove conflicts, and commit to playing during your set schedule. Make sure your partner and any other people involved in your life understand that this is now your job, and you are going to be committing at least 40 (closer to 60 or 80) hours a week to it, and that when you are playing, you are essentially 100% focused on that.

But also make sure you treat it like a job.

As an aside, I wouldn't recommend poker as your full time, primary employment with two small kids unless you have a very healthy life roll and bank roll, and are absolutely crushing the game

Just to gain a better understanding:

Is your job being a poker player and you work from home while the kids are around being supervised by another person? In that case, you need an office room with the door shut and potentially noise canceling headphones to avoid distractions.
Or is your job actually to be a stay at home dad and you would like to make some money by playing poker while doing that?

Those are two fundamentally different situations. I am a stay at home dad for a small child and don’t even bother getting serious work (poker or other) in while the kid is around. Online poker isn’t a job where you can take sudden breaks. If you are in a hand and the child needs immediate attention, you have a problem.

Welcome ... Some good posts so far. There is no secret method. As with your finances, you set up a time budget for work, kids, family, social and try to have some wiggle room in there for surprises.

For the most part, yes, you probably need to give up some sleep to pursue serious poker. How about napping with the kids so you can stretch the nighttime hours?

From experience I wouldn't try to play poker 'every' day. The lack of a set sleep schedule will weaken you mentally a bit. Even if you have someone else in the home I've heard that these 'things' called kids will seek and find you, looking for attention and not understanding that you are 'working'. GL

Thank you all for the responses! Online poker is basically my job. I have a BR set aside specifically for poker and all other expenses are covered (wife's income). What I'm having trouble with is balancing my poker life with my family life. I'm with my girls Mon-Fri till about 6pm. When everyone goes off to bed its usually around 9pm. It gives me a few hours to grind online but by the time I start to play I'm exhausted. To the point where I've caught myself dozing off while I'm on the clock (grind). I've tried to grind during the day but I quickly found out that is not happening lol. I've tried to get the kids settled down before I touch the laptop but something always pops up to were I have to sit out for a few mins. Its cost me money and tournament chips. I've realized I have to set up schedule to grind and set up boundaries (thanks Spewingismymove)! Is 4-6 hours a night enough or do I need to commit more? Also what would be the best way to build my BR? Thank you all again for taking the time to respond. Stay blessed!!!

This is solid advice!! Thanks for sharing. Not crushing it yet but will be soon!! How many games/tourneys do you usually have going at once?

My job is being a stay at home dad. My goal is to build a big enough BR so my wife doesn’t have to work anymore. This would allow her to stay at home with the kids and I can transition to live poker. As well as travel to compete in bigger tournaments. One step at time though lol.

Thanks for the idea! I’m going to try to squeeze in a nap during the day so that I’m not sleepy at night. I think that will be one of my biggest challenges. Not to play poker every chance I get. I think the reason why I can’t step away is because I haven’t reached my goal yet. Flawed thinking? ��

You need to have a heart-to-heart with your wife and be realistic about the direction you're going. From the tone of this thread, it sounds like you don't have the experience necessary nor realistic expectations about being a professional poker player, nor is your life setup to accommodate being one.

First, get rid of any thoughts about being a professional poker player. Once you're consistently winning as a hobby (serious recreational) player over a decent sample, you can start thinking about that again. What would you think if your friend Joe from the office quit his job to become a pro golfer because he had a few good rounds at the local mini golf course and went to the driving range once a month for a while? Ridiculous, right? And yet you think this is just "how it works" with poker???

Second, if your primary function now is to be a stay-at-home dad and take care of 2 young kids (absolutely no shame in that, btw), the only way to play a decent amount of poker during the day is to pick a format that's easy to start and stop. Something like cash, especially zoom (1 hand notice), hyper husngs (~5 mins notice), or turbo husngs, spins or 6 max hypers (~10 mins notice), would be the only reasonable formats to play.

Playing mtts or other (longer) sngs will wind up bleeding away enough chips over time that your winrate will be destroyed even if you're a decent player, and you can then only reasonably play during naptime or late at night. And playing any cash (except zoom? idk exactly how zoom blinds work) you'll probably get chewed up by posting too many blinds and sacrificing a good bunch of free hands.

So, realizing this, you need to figure things out with your wife. You simply can't grind online poker while being there for your kids whenever you need it. Maybe consider other online work (online marketing, reselling, copywriting, editing, transcription, or whatever) that allows you to start and stop more flexibly. Consider options like daycare to give you time to grind. But thinking you'll go from zero to hero to support your wife when you have 1) minimal experience and 2) are juggling 2 young kids at home is just so unrealistic as to be laughable. And setting up your life so you can grind from 9p-3a while waking up at 8a everyday to take care of the kids will just leave you playing zombie-like C-game by the time you finally do get to grind.

Now I'm worried. You left your job to become a ppp and you don't crush your games already/have doubts about how many tables to play at once?

You bring up very valid points. I definitely don’t have this figured out but I’m working on it. I don’t feel like I have unrealistic expectations but maybe I haven’t set the right ones. I like your idea of a start and stop format. I think something like Zoom cash games would be great for me given my situation. How many hands do you consider a decent sample? 10k? I definitely have expectations of going from zero to hero. I know this will take time and I’m open to that. Thanks for your response. It’s food to see things from a different perspective.

I guess it does sounds a bit silly when it’s worded like that lol. Don’t be worried though! My family is everything.

I forgot to mention I also have to include some study time in my schedule. How do you guys study to improve your game? Forums? Videos? Poker tracker analysis? Play a **** ton of poker?

So, let's just do a sanity check. We will leave out MTT's right now, because those are harder to make money at. The game starts to get more difficult at probably around NL10. Let's say that your end goal is to be a winning player at NL25, and you want to be able to sustain a decent win rate of 10bb/100 hands while 6 tabling. And you want to play no more than 50 hours a week. These are all reasonable goals, and by no means easy goals to achieve. At that rate, you would be earning about 750 a week, or $37,500 a year. Without benefits. And you would need to pour some of that back in to your bankroll to be able to withstand variance.

If you build up a big enough bankroll to play 2-5 at the local casino, it becomes a little bit more realistic. You might be able to win a bit more (live players tend to be a bit softer), but you will see fewer hands. So even if you were winning 4 bb/hour at 2/5, you would still only be making in the neighborhood of $40K a year, without benefits, and with expenses. If you are close to a couple of casino's that attract a lot of loose, recreational players, it is possible to make money playing poker. but remember, you have grind, even when the game isn't fun, you have to play when the action is good, which means working nights, weekends, and holidays. You get locked in (big gap in resume can be hard to explain, plus any marketable skills you have get rusty), and things like credit and mortgages can be challenging. And always, always, always be mindful of the evil witch named variance. She is always lurking around the corner to smack you with a 20 buy in downswing.

Yes, plus training websites, simulations and models, and lots of hand review. Plan as much time off the table as on the table.

You nailed it!! That sounds like a very realistic goal for me. I was thinking of grinding up to $20k online and transition to live 1/2 play and working my way up from there. I can play multiple tables at once but I can’t say I’m a consistent winner when I do so. I Feel like the more tables I have opened up at once the more likely I am to make a mistake because I’m focusing on to many things at once. I would love to multi table but I don’t think I’m ready yet. Are you basically playing ABC strategy when you multi table?? Also do you have other people review your game or is it just you? I’ve never tried training websites cause I wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

I’m going to start posting my results online to hold my self accountable. I would love to hear other people’s perspective.

There is a forum for just such a purpose

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...mp-challenges/

Thanks for the info!

Is it too late to ask to get your job back?

serious question here - cuz your chances of success are very low based on these questions

Poker is not your job. Your job is to watch your daughters while your wife works. Poker is your hobby that you try to fit into your regular schedule.

If you want to make poker your profession, you have to be able to treat it like a job. That means you need to have someone come in to watch kids during the day or get them into daycare/preschool or whatever is age appropriate.

Giving up sleep to work is a crappy last resort option, especially when it’s a challenging job like poker. If you want to make serious money playing online poker, you need to play on a level field with other professionals. It’s not like LeBron watches his kids during the day and then goes to training at 1AM instead of getting a good nights sleep.

I would say that the consensus is

1. Play as a hobby until your winrate justfifies dedicating more time
2. Don't play tired-reduce the amount of time you play to improve the quality of time you play
3. Don't think of it as a job yet. When it is time for it to be a job, treat it as such and get alternative child care
4. Work on your game off the table. this is something you can do while the kids nap, as you can start and stop studying easier than you can start and stop a session or MTT
5. Be realistic in your expectations. Very few people are successful enough to support a family of four on a poker players income.

Someone on this forum (I can't remember who, so i apologize to them) stated that the time to go pro is when you are winning so much and so consistently that you are losing money doing anything else.

Going to get a job before I’ve even tried to make this work is quitting. I’m not a quitter. Sure I chose the most unconventional way to live out my dream but that’s ok. I’m young and I can afford to take the risk. At the end of the day my family will be taken care of. I matter what. I appreciate the concern! Stay blessed!!

I appreciate the knowledge your sharing. I guess I never thought of it that way. One of my goals now should be to get my girls into daycare so I can grind during the day. For now I’ll have to grind during the night. Maaaaan Lebron is the man! I wish I could play poker as well as he plays basketball.

Thanks for keepin it real Madlex!