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 :)