The Balancing Act... Family, Work, Hobbies, Poker.
Posted by sleepyguy
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sleepyguy
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The Balancing Act... Family, Work, Hobbies, Poker.
Hello RIO members, I'm a newbie here (soon to be essentials member).
Little bit of background about myself before my question.
- 35, and live in Toronto (yay online poker!)
- Amazing GF and 2 great kids.
- Been working FT as a LAN Admin for over 10yrs now, easy zero stress work, ok pay and good benefits.
- Before the house/kids was actually somewhat regular at live 200nl (which doesn't take much to be honest).
So the question is how difficult or even possible is it to balance in poker for those with family/jobs/gf? Live poker I know is out of the question because of the commute/wait times/etc. I'm going to be probably dabbling in Zoom as it would fit my schedule and time constraints. I'd probably start by playing maybe 1-2hrs a few days/week in Zoom.
If you're wondering why poker? Well I'm a competitive guy by nature, with bad knees now from years of playing basketball, I've had to give up volleyball and basketball. I do still play tennis about twice a week. Online poker is something I definitely see myself doing for a long time, I enjoy the game and being online I like the 'geeky' setups and technical crap behind it as well, lol. RIO community seems like a great place to foster and build those skills up.
Also we both plan to semi-retire pretty early (45 or earlier), that would leave more time to enjoy spend time with kids and work on side projects/hobbies.
So any Family/Full-Time RIO members got some tips or pros/cons? What worked, didn't work out? In case you're wondering GF is super cool with it.
I envision maybe 5-7yrs down the road, I'll be an IT contractor taking projects here and there. Play poker 2-3hrs/day for bit of side income. Coach my kids sports teams. Chill on a lakefront home as the days wind down :)
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It's very tough to balance all of these things while taking poker seriously, but it's possible. I balance a full time job, playing poker full time, and friends/ family and I struggle with it sometimes, but what helps me the most is scheduling my life out. If on Tuesday evenings for example I want to devote time playing poker or studying I make sure everything else is done and everyone in my life is aware of it. Obviously you can change your schedule if need be, but the best thing for you to do is set out to devote X amount of hours to poker and studying per week and let your GF know that during this time you will essentially be working and off limits. Include her in the scheduling so she doesn't feel neglected. If you're upfront about your goals and the work it takes and the time commitment it will save a lot of headaches. There is nothing worse for you than her being upset about you spending your evening playing and constantly bugging you and nothing worse for her than you being the guy who says he's playing for 4 hours and then plays 7. Separate poker and the rest of your life just like you do work and the rest of your life. Always be sure to keep what's important in perspective. It's easy to fall into the trap of spending all of your mental energy focusing on poker, but the other things in your life are much more important. Just figure out a realistic amount of time you can spend on poker, plan accordingly, and make sure to incorporate study time in when you calculate poker time. For someone new (or newer) to online play I'd suggest spending 70% of your time playing and 30% of your time studying. Once you have been playing longer and are putting up some results you can adjust that scale. Good luck to you! You came to the right place to succeed.
Cool thanks for the tips! Well my work is so easy and flexible it's actually "blended" in with my family life. I think keeping poker separate should be quite doable considering I actually don't plan to put in too much volume (also with 2 little ones running around that make it pretty much IMPOSSIBLE :)). 70/30 sounds good advice and I'll take that to heart. Now the other question is should I just learn and dive into PLO instead of NLHE :)
I also read Midori's post and will take his bankroll approach of 50bi (if NLHE, 100bi of PLO). I assume everyone loves HEM2 over PT4 it seems. I'll have to mess with that as well.
Fun times ahead :)
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