All work and no play makes Poker Meister a dull boy

Wow. It has been a *LONG* time since I refrained from hitting the tables over a 24 hour period. However, for the first time since [I think] January, I received ZERO (0) points yesterday (March 24) because I did not play from 12:00AM to 11:59PM. The background of it is that it was my wife and my 8th anniversary, so the in-laws offered to take care of the kids. Wifey and I went out to a nice local tapas restaurant and enjoyed dinner for two. By the time we got home, it had been a long day at work, I hadn't yet seen the kids, and I was flat exhausted. In other words, it was a typical weekday, minus seeing the kids. Could I have mustered up the energy to grind for an hour or two as I usually do? Yes. Did I want to? No.

It is definitely a weird feeling; sometimes I feel like a slave to the grind - knowing that I want to at least hit my 200 FTPs per day for the Iron Man bonus & one-a-day bonus. Moreover, lately, since I moved up to $100NL (and Rush), I feel like I should be at least hitting 500 points - if not 1K per night. The thing is: I don't know why I feel compelled to do play each & every day.

The truth of it is that it is not coming at the detriment of my family life; I play when the kids go to bed and my wife and I are watching TV / relaxing from the day's events (with 3 kids, the two of us are usually exhausted). My overall thoughts with regard to TV is it is a net negative event - it actually makes you dumber (from most of the shows we watch at least: 24, Nurse Jackie, The Office, Big Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc.), so why not make my down time productive by earning money at the tables?

I am certainly not burnt out on poker. As I sit here writing this blog entry, I can't wait to get back to hit the tables and grind out a few hours. I still very much love the game - particularly NLHE - and find the hours I spend most enjoyable.

I am not a workaholic at my day job. So I can't blame being a workaholic as the magnetic pull to bring me to play 2-3 hours / night. I am normally a 9-6 kinda guy; put in my hours and leave the blackberry on the counter until the next day of work.

I don't know what it is - but I was expecting to feel like I let myself down by not playing last night, and in fact, I had the opposite feeling - relief. I slept well last night, didn't replay the hands in my head until I fell asleep, didn't think about the state of my bankroll - I wasn't worried or concerned about anything. Maybe I need to start taking more time away from the virtual felt. Nah. Perhaps last night was just the break I needed.