Thursday, March 25, 2010

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.

5 comments:

  1. Been there.

    I gave up on the everyday thing a while back. the 15 medals aren't worth it. The freeroll definitely isn't worth it so now I actually quasi plan days off. That meaning when something comes up, I don't fret about losing a day or two.

    Also, these days, I find myself playing the 20 minutes or so that it takes me to get 200 pts and call it quits.

    It definitely goes in spurts. I also don't really call it a grind as I love it as well.

    Congrats on crushing the over in the over/under on how long your wife would put up with you. ;-)

    My wife and I are coming up on 10 years and it is only a gift from GOD that she has put up with me for that long. I think my self imposed over/under was like 18 months. ;-)

    Here's to 8+ more years. cheers!!

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  2. Well, your wife appreciates the night away...but it certainly was not any different than other nights--this time, you were asleep on the couch and I was working :)

    Needless to say, 8 years is great, let's keep 'em coming!

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  3. Sounds like a great way to celebrate your anniversary. Restaurant looks really cool. I was checking out the menu jonesing for greek food.

    It's good to take a break from poker once in a while. Even just a bit here and there helps clear your head.

    BTW. I noticed your ads are displaying PSAs. When you get a chance, check out my latest post. It has a couple different alternatives that are similar to adsense but work on poker sites.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the well-wishes. Even got the missus to comment :-).

    @MicroRoller - I've been taking a hard look at your post; it actually prompted to me to email a blogger or two about adverts. It also, by happenstance, coincided with me adding a contact email on my blog so that people with opportunities can contact me.

    The reality is that I'm making so little money with AdSense anyway, it probably doesn't matter - at some point I will get off my lazy butt to change it out. I don't blog to make money; I blog to get my thoughts out there and have someone besides myself criticize them. You're right, though - why should I let them have "free" advertising on my site? In the meantime, however, I am looking into bidvertiser / adbrite.

    ReplyDelete

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