Most every time I play poker, I have to balance three things:

1. Having fun, with
2. Profit and
3. Other things I need to do.

The category of “other things” includes everything that is not poker. I.e. fiancée, food, sleep, day job, etc. I find this to be a tricky balance, and I think the reason it’s tricky to me is because I’m still struggling with what I want out of poker. I need to sort this all out, and it would be good to get it done soon.

So what are my options?

* I can play strictly for fun. Hang around with buddies from CC at the small stakes and “drag the occasional pot.”
* I can push to go as far as I possibly can, aiming for the high stakes games, quitting my day job and becoming a professional high roller.
* I can find a way to properly balance my needs for both of these and find the happy medium.

Anyone who knows me and/or has been reading this blog for awhile knows that “high stakes pro” has never been a realistic ambition for me. I like my job too much. I mean, I don’t like it enough to keep it if I made $100k a month playing poker on the side, but if I would make exactly the same amount of money playing poker 40h/week as I do coming to work 40h/week, I’d still keep my day job. I like this job more than I like playing poker, is what I’m saying.

As for playing strictly for fun… That unfortunately doesn’t quite cut it, either. I’m too competitive. I want to advance, I want to see my bankroll grow. I got stuck at EverQuest for four years precisely because I enjoy seeing numbers go up. I have friends who comfortably sit at a constant bankroll size and simply cash out whenever it grows above that. I wouldn’t want to do that, because I’m set on moving up when I can afford to.

So I’m somewhere in the middle. I have been somewhere in the middle for my entire poker career. The problem I’m facing now is that I need to more clearly define what it is I want because the line is getting very blurry. I need to balance “I don’t feel like playing this week” with “I want to play $20/$40 by the end of the year.” I can’t have both, so I need to choose. The former option sounds a lot better to me, but at the same time, I do really want to move up in time - so I can’t be too slack.

I need to balance volume with quality as well. Playing my A-game is all fine and dandy, but if I sit there and play one table of 5/10 I might show a monster profit in BB/100, but hardly in BB/hour. Perhaps my B-game is good enough while playing 3-4 tables.

It all comes down to figuring out exactly what I want and setting appropriate goals for it. Right now, I’m mixing limit games with no-limit, tournaments with cash games. That’s fine, because it’s fun. But the lack of focus frustrates me, and that’s what I need to get sorted out.