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I will be blogging about this very topic at …..dpress.com down in the next couple of months but wanted to see if I can get some takes on my fellow TPEers. I have a family of a wife and three kids that are all under the age of 7 and also am an IT Manager. I have had issues dealing with poker volume and BR Management and I think it has something to do with my life roll vs. my poker roll.
I am curious how other players at TPE are doing with balancing this stuff out. I am not one that plays a lot of volume so grinding a $100 bankroll to get up in the stakes that I like to play is very difficult. I play normally about 3 to 4 hours a day but my family does come first. I play usually on my lunch breaks and grind out the micros. I put in less volume during the weekend due to being home with the family but occasionally play on Sundays to hit the grind. I hope as my BR bumpes to ship these Micros and eventually hit the Sunday majors on Merge.
The issue dealing with online poker in the US since black friday has taken a hit for low volume players because the fields are lower and the ITM shots are deeper and longer wait to get into sitngos. So the amount of time that I have to play, I can't put in the volume I used to.
I thought about trying to maybe stake some players so that I can raise the BR so I can have a good BR so I can comfortably play some of the games that I like to play and invest some of my BR to the volume players that I can play the games I want to play is where I am possibly leaning on it.
I was wondering what strategies that other married with kids a.k.a. MWK folks are doing to raise their bankrolls to get themselves up to levels of possibly play the games they want to play?
Great post, I'm very lucky that my wife understands my passion for poker and has in the past played herself. Balancing poker and family life along with a full time day job is hard. I do play almost every day and there have been many mornings of waking up after 2 hours sleep and trying to get to work dead tired because I had a deep run. One of the ways to put in more volume is to multi-table, I'm trying to do that more often. So far my results while multi-tabling are not very good, not sure if thats part of regular variance or a result of multi-tabling.
Z
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
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Balancing poker with a family and a full time job means giving up some sleep. Before black friday I'd start a session around 8pm 3-4 nights a week and play until around 1am or later depending on what kind of run I went on. Usually going to bed around 2am. Fortunately I didn't need to wake up until 8am so 6 hours was reasonable most nights for me. I just function that way. It's a lot tougher if you need 7+ hours.
Great post, I’m very lucky that my wife understands my passion for poker and has in the past played herself. Balancing poker and family life along with a full time day job is hard. I do play almost every day and there have been many mornings of waking up after 2 hours sleep and trying to get to work dead tired because I had a deep run. One of the ways to put in more volume is to multi-table, I’m trying to do that more often. So far my results while multi-tabling are not very good, not sure if thats part of regular variance or a result of multi-tabling.
Z
That’s awesome your wife is supportive. That is so important when playing. Nothing would be worse if wife isn’t supportive. It’s helpful when you win too. She likes it when I head out to the casino and play. I just want to make sure I am profitable and at the same time balancing my family and work.
A subject I'm very interested in too, as the poker wolrd is full of 20 year olds with very different issues to us older guys with families, so it's good to find other people in similar situations to myself. Overcoming the image of degenerate poker player was tough for me with both my wife and the rest of my family. Only way I could overcome it was buying them some nice stuff with the winnings 🙂 And yeh, giving up some sleep is about the only way to balance things. Where I live it's hard to put in volume at night, so I've swapped to giving up sleep at the other end and getting up at 4am. Only problem there obviously is deep run = late for work, so restricted to turbos.
I spent the first part of my poker career playing without a bankroll i.e. deposting a few hundred when I needed to. Not a great plan and until this year I was still in the habit of withdrawing/depositing/withdrawing etc. Not going to touch my roll at all this year. I found chilin_dude's PG&C thread on 2p2 to be really inspirational for grinding up a small roll (he ground $300 up to 100K in 1 year playing mainly 180 sngs). Definitely worth checking out here. I know in the US you can't put in that sort of volume, but here's hoping things change for you guys soon.
Similar situation in our house. We’ve two young lads (5 and 1) and playing poker while they are up and about is impossible, so I’m also limited to nocturnal play. My wife and I take it in turns to sleep in over the weekend, she has Saturday morns and I stink in bed on Sunday mornings. This gives me free reign to play as soon as the boys crash out on sat. These nights I usually fire up the big MTTs or on some occasions I’ll go to the casino. I also try and multiple-table turbos a few week nights, but usually in front of the idiot box, so my concentration is scattered.
Balancing my work is not a drama, although poker tends to screw with my productivity and chain of thought. Recently the governing IT dudes restricted “poker” as an internet search, so I’ve been unable to stray from my tasks at hand. I think my frequent TPE updates may have been responsible for the ban….
Gambling has been a massive issue in my family, with most of my family having a chequered degenerate history. Although my wife and I haven’t directly discussed it, I understand that the issue is sensitive, so being able to demonstrate responsible play, dedicated study and controlled BR management is the best way to display that poker is a serious hobby, rather than an addiction. That… and possibly the Tiffany bracelet purchased from an insane live run, is why my wife is so incredibly understanding. Come to think of it, I’m putting in the massive hours and undertaking the arduous grind to a major and she’s the one wearing a bracelet!!! I’ve been well and truly leveled!
June 22, 2010
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I do not have kids, but I can give my two cents on BR managment. My BR is seperate from all my the expenses. A small percent of my paycheck goes into my BR- seperate account. If I score big I usually place about 60% back into the BR and 40% will go to my regular account. I treat my BR account like money in the pot, so I do not think twice about it. If I were to bust it does not effect my day to day expenses, bills or financial duties. With my job I am able to adjust the percentage I can put into each account, so this really helps. This has really helped me stay in control. I know other people who have families that have adopted my plan. Their wives' are usually cool with them having a seperate account where a small percentage of the paycheck can go to build a BR. If the wife has a job, she has a similiar account that she can use for herself. In the end, I basically have a seperate BR account that I can adjust based on my mundane financial needs.
"Your either in Sheen's Korner or your with the trolls."
I think my next blog is going to be about this but here is a preview. It is so important to communicate to your spouse when playing poker to get better at it. Look for my blog in the coming days about it. …..dpress.com. It has made my sessions play better with my wife totally sweating the poker playing and on board than being disgusted and resentful. It also make it cool to make her your backer too. That is +EV. Shopping money.
Hey man I think I'm pretty good for this question. Although I only have one wife and one child, its still family. I've always had a fulltime job as well. I must say, this is very hard to manage. It always has been. I have been playing poker online poker since 08. I read harrington on holdem, and started. I played tight cuz I didnt want to lose the $50 I deposited and have to deposit more. Well that was good enough to be a slightly winning player, and that year I paid for Xmas with about $1500 I had won. So that sold my wife. The most important thing!! Your wife has to be on board! And there has to be special days set aside for her, and your kid. Once black friday hit, luckily I only had about $1000 stuck on FT, and like $500 on PS which I got back. Not the ft money tho. I was devistated! Then I found out about the Merge network. I don't want to run on about this or brag or boast, about my little accomplishments! But I do want to tell you how I moved up the ladder, each time Ive ever made a deposit, I've never deposited more then $50 on a poker site. I don't believe in it. My goal when I joined Players Only was to turn $25 into $10,000. It's not easy, but with determination it can be done. As I am now there. The first few months my wife and I were near divorce, over a screw up of mine, so I barely played in April and in May. But once we got through it I was able to start playing a decent amount. This is how I did it, and my advice on games you should be playing. The first is the standard 9 or 10man sng. the $2 one you should be able to own. If you can't then maybe you can't do this lol. NO offense. But this game is the game that pays for your higher variance games. The other two are the $2-$5 45man Sng. This will allow you to 2-3x your bankroll when you win it a couple of times.. But you have to win them and finish top 3 a good portion of the time. Once this happens you can take your shot at the Dazzler and the $2-$3rebuys. Playing these tight, and with the mindset that they are freeze outs! It only takes one win of these to bust out! Keep in mind this whole time I'm watching videos with headphones on! To and from work! You have to study, and you have to put the things you learn into play.
Family and Poker is tough to manage, but It can be done! Good Luck and If I can help you in anyway, you can always private message me. Also I just opened a twitter account about a month ago and its geno127..Here is my ID if you want to check my sharkscope graph to see how I grinded the micros to 10k…It wasn't easy, and while doing it I wondered “am I ever gonna get out of these things”! It's NOT EASY. But I did, and you can too!! Good Luck bro. (1Uwant2bdaddy1) And I gotta give my shout out to TPE, and bigdogpckt5s, and HITTHEPANDA. As these two were the guys I watched the most initially. Now a days all of these pros ROCK. So thanks TPE again!!
p.s. or you can just call DaNtA5tIc up!l lol
geno
0lespaul3
1Uwant2bdaddy1
Thanks buddy for the post. It was very encouraging. I am on lock as swhitenutz. The past week of poker was bad. I had a positive game on Saturday but Sunday, lost what I won and then some. That's poker folks but learned something from your post. I am still playing above the roll a bit and so I have some “fold equity” in my bankroll so I am definately adjusting and slowing down a bit on MTT's. Beginning today, I AM going to take your advise and am going to the DoN's (low variance) and SitNGoes. I am a good DoN player but to me I would like to “stab my eye out” playing them but for me, I have to grind these until I can back myself into a good spot to afford MTT's in general. I am playing MTT's on the side of 1.00 only and 2.00 freezeouts but no more 11.00 ones until I can reach $50.00 buyins.
My wife and I had a long talk along with my kids and I have to really balance better my poker and my life in general. The goal is to seek the area in my poker life is to really just gravitate to learning the game and crushing every game I am in even if I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. It takes focus and constently learning. I have been ear budded every drive home from work, at work and any chance I get get som MTT strategy in me. I will take it down. It is a little slower to me.
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