Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Gaining Acceptance (Permission) from that Significant Other
Over the past few years I've been playing an increasing amount of poker. By reading, discussing, practicing, and selecting the right game, I've learned how to be a winning player. My bankroll reflects this. With the influx of new players, many of them horrible, the number of "right games" has drastically increased. 24hrs a day there are numerous profitable tables waiting for you on Party Poker. When out for dinner with friends it's common for us to joke about how much money we are losing by not playing at that moment in time. This is truly the golden age of poker! The problem is all of these good games mean I NEED to play more. How to get away with this...and all the other activities I like to pursue? Here are a few tips I've learned when dealing with my wife. Hopefully some of them will be useful to those of you with Significant Others (SOs). If you've got other tips, please leave a comment or send me an email.
---Be Honest with your SO and Yourself---
This means tracking your poker bankroll. Are you winning or losing and by how much? This information should be shared with your SO whether good or bad. He or she should probably even have access to whatever records you keep. If you're going to be honest there is no sense in hiding anything.
I use Poker Tracker for analyzing limit play. In addition I keep an Excel log of all on-line transactions and local game results. This gives me a quick accurate snapshot of how the year is going. Did I win or lose money in a given month. I make a point of sharing this with my wife every now and then. It's really to the point now where she doesn't even desire to hear about it. Of course she cares whether I'm winning or losing, but more importantly she's comfortable that I'm not gambling the mortgage payment away. I've earned that respect by being open and honest with her.
---Keep Some Bankroll Around---
This really goes against every investment bone in my body. That is, not having money in the bank or invested elsewhere getting me extra free money. Even though the vast majority of my play is online I've found that having a little piece of my bankroll around the house is beneficial. My wife knows where it is and I make a point of showing her when I'm taking money out to go to a local game. This just gives her another level of security. Your SO can physically go look at your bankroll if they're concerned. After awhile they'll have no reason to check up on you.
Of course if you're worried about your SO stealing from you...then you probably have a few too many relationship issues for me to be of any help!
---Invite Your Significant Other to Watch or Play Poker With You---
The WPT does a good enough job with their coverage that I've found very few men or women who can't tolerate the show. Most people seem to even be genuinely interested in poker...aka Golden Age Baby! My wife and I enjoy watching poker together. She doesn't play very frequently, but watching once a week is okay with her. Plus I get points for spending quality time together! If you and your SO have a good relationship then you will automatically be somewhat interested in each other's hobbies. What could be better than sharing your favorite hobby with your favorite person?
If watching gets them interested then maybe they are ready for an invite to a local game. Now I wouldn't want to screw up "guy's night" or throw her to some assholes. However, we have a nice game with friends about once a month and my wife feels comfortable around those people. The limits are also low enough that they don't intimidate her. We have several wives / girl friends / female friends that play in this local game and it works great. Maybe you have a game like this in your area? There's also always getting your SO to play online.
It's also nice to be able to explain to my wife how I just got sucked out on by some dumbshit at the final table of the $200 NL Sunday Tournament when he calls your all-in over the top AK raise with his ATo and catches runner runner when you were the 2nd and 3rd highest chip counts at the table and winning this hand would have made you the chip leader and you only finished 7th instead of competing for the really really nice cash... AND she sympathetically says "that sucks" and truly understands what I just said.
Over the past few years I've been playing an increasing amount of poker. By reading, discussing, practicing, and selecting the right game, I've learned how to be a winning player. My bankroll reflects this. With the influx of new players, many of them horrible, the number of "right games" has drastically increased. 24hrs a day there are numerous profitable tables waiting for you on Party Poker. When out for dinner with friends it's common for us to joke about how much money we are losing by not playing at that moment in time. This is truly the golden age of poker! The problem is all of these good games mean I NEED to play more. How to get away with this...and all the other activities I like to pursue? Here are a few tips I've learned when dealing with my wife. Hopefully some of them will be useful to those of you with Significant Others (SOs). If you've got other tips, please leave a comment or send me an email.
---Be Honest with your SO and Yourself---
This means tracking your poker bankroll. Are you winning or losing and by how much? This information should be shared with your SO whether good or bad. He or she should probably even have access to whatever records you keep. If you're going to be honest there is no sense in hiding anything.
I use Poker Tracker for analyzing limit play. In addition I keep an Excel log of all on-line transactions and local game results. This gives me a quick accurate snapshot of how the year is going. Did I win or lose money in a given month. I make a point of sharing this with my wife every now and then. It's really to the point now where she doesn't even desire to hear about it. Of course she cares whether I'm winning or losing, but more importantly she's comfortable that I'm not gambling the mortgage payment away. I've earned that respect by being open and honest with her.
---Keep Some Bankroll Around---
This really goes against every investment bone in my body. That is, not having money in the bank or invested elsewhere getting me extra free money. Even though the vast majority of my play is online I've found that having a little piece of my bankroll around the house is beneficial. My wife knows where it is and I make a point of showing her when I'm taking money out to go to a local game. This just gives her another level of security. Your SO can physically go look at your bankroll if they're concerned. After awhile they'll have no reason to check up on you.
Of course if you're worried about your SO stealing from you...then you probably have a few too many relationship issues for me to be of any help!
---Invite Your Significant Other to Watch or Play Poker With You---
The WPT does a good enough job with their coverage that I've found very few men or women who can't tolerate the show. Most people seem to even be genuinely interested in poker...aka Golden Age Baby! My wife and I enjoy watching poker together. She doesn't play very frequently, but watching once a week is okay with her. Plus I get points for spending quality time together! If you and your SO have a good relationship then you will automatically be somewhat interested in each other's hobbies. What could be better than sharing your favorite hobby with your favorite person?
If watching gets them interested then maybe they are ready for an invite to a local game. Now I wouldn't want to screw up "guy's night" or throw her to some assholes. However, we have a nice game with friends about once a month and my wife feels comfortable around those people. The limits are also low enough that they don't intimidate her. We have several wives / girl friends / female friends that play in this local game and it works great. Maybe you have a game like this in your area? There's also always getting your SO to play online.
It's also nice to be able to explain to my wife how I just got sucked out on by some dumbshit at the final table of the $200 NL Sunday Tournament when he calls your all-in over the top AK raise with his ATo and catches runner runner when you were the 2nd and 3rd highest chip counts at the table and winning this hand would have made you the chip leader and you only finished 7th instead of competing for the really really nice cash... AND she sympathetically says "that sucks" and truly understands what I just said.
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Background
To help you understand where I’m coming from in the future I believe a little background information is in order. Since I plan to focus this blog on how poker affects my real life it makes sense to pass along some framing details.
I’ve been married for five years and as mentioned before we have one daughter who is just over a month old. We’ve got a mortgage, car payment, and two dogs to help round out our version of Americana.
My wife and I are both engineers and work fulltime for the same corporation. Our manufacturing facility is quite large and it is rare for our paths to unintentionally cross at work. We’re both basically on call 24-7, but it isn’t normally too much of a bother. I’ll go weeks without being bothered at night and then I’ll get several 3AM wakeup calls in the same week. I guess it is something you get used to. In addition to being on call, my job is usually very demanding. 11 hour days are much more common than 8 hour ones. I have continued to receive more responsibility the past few years and that has definitely increased the amount of time I spend at work or at home working on work stuff.
Other Interests (time sucks)
-Softball (typically two nights a week in the Summer)
-Basketball (one or two nights a week year round)
-Magic the Gathering (mostly online now --- still lots of good friends who play this though)
-Friends (dinner, movies, drinking, etc.)
-and Poker
Now this was all before the arrival of my daughter. Obviously she takes precedence over most anything else…
Fortunately I’m blessed in two ways:
-My wife is fantastic and she allows me to get away with doing all these things I love.
-I don’t need to sleep much.
More tomorrow...
To help you understand where I’m coming from in the future I believe a little background information is in order. Since I plan to focus this blog on how poker affects my real life it makes sense to pass along some framing details.
I’ve been married for five years and as mentioned before we have one daughter who is just over a month old. We’ve got a mortgage, car payment, and two dogs to help round out our version of Americana.
My wife and I are both engineers and work fulltime for the same corporation. Our manufacturing facility is quite large and it is rare for our paths to unintentionally cross at work. We’re both basically on call 24-7, but it isn’t normally too much of a bother. I’ll go weeks without being bothered at night and then I’ll get several 3AM wakeup calls in the same week. I guess it is something you get used to. In addition to being on call, my job is usually very demanding. 11 hour days are much more common than 8 hour ones. I have continued to receive more responsibility the past few years and that has definitely increased the amount of time I spend at work or at home working on work stuff.
Other Interests (time sucks)
-Softball (typically two nights a week in the Summer)
-Basketball (one or two nights a week year round)
-Magic the Gathering (mostly online now --- still lots of good friends who play this though)
-Friends (dinner, movies, drinking, etc.)
-and Poker
Now this was all before the arrival of my daughter. Obviously she takes precedence over most anything else…
Fortunately I’m blessed in two ways:
-My wife is fantastic and she allows me to get away with doing all these things I love.
-I don’t need to sleep much.
More tomorrow...
Saturday, December 27, 2003
The Beginning
--
This Blog is really motivated by my friend Iggy and his fantastic Party Poker Blog.
In addition to Iggy's prompting I've recently had a huge change in my life with the birth of my first child, a little girl.
In the past I have always been able to successfully balance my marriage with poker and the numerous other activities I'm involved in. Now everything changes!
I intend to share my experiences in dealing with the other issues surrounding poker. Mainly, what happens when life gets in the way? Hopefully my life and corresponding issues might benefit others in the pursuit of poker balance.
-Royal
--
This Blog is really motivated by my friend Iggy and his fantastic Party Poker Blog.
In addition to Iggy's prompting I've recently had a huge change in my life with the birth of my first child, a little girl.
In the past I have always been able to successfully balance my marriage with poker and the numerous other activities I'm involved in. Now everything changes!
I intend to share my experiences in dealing with the other issues surrounding poker. Mainly, what happens when life gets in the way? Hopefully my life and corresponding issues might benefit others in the pursuit of poker balance.
-Royal
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