Unless something very strange happens in the next 12 hours, we’ll be signing the contract tomorrow for our house-to-be. It’s due to be ready early April so we still have a good six months before moving in, which sucks. It sucks because now that I’ve bought it (or will have shortly) I feel like I should be able to move in immediately. I’m an impatient man.

In an earlier blog post Chuck commented “Who knows, maybe you’ll be pro by next year” and although there was a winking smiley next to it, I’ve been asked that before in various shapes or forms so I figured I’d say something about it: There’s no way in hell I’m making poker my primary income. Ever.

I don’t actually play a lot of poker. I do spend quite a lot of time discussing it, thinking about it and reading about it, but I don’t play it that much. October was a month when I played more than usual, and I still only got around to playing 63.5 hours (thanks, PokerTracker!) throughout it. After that - about 15 hours a week - I felt like I was playing too much. I feel like a slob while I’m in front of the computer, and I don’t like that feeling. I want to exercise more. I want to hang out with friends more. And I want to work more.

I’m much too fond of my job to give it up in order to feel like a slob for 8 hours every day. I’m a social creature, and I like being active. Being an online poker pro, even if it did somehow match my current level of income, is simply not an option for me.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I look down on people who do play online for a living. I’m not trying to insinuate that they’re slobs. I’m not claiming that they’re anti-social lazy-bums who do what they do simply because they can’t find a “real” job. To anyone who is pursuing a life as a professional poker player, I wish them nothing but the best of luck. I’m a firm believer of to-each-their-own, and when it comes to me, a life in poker isn’t something that appeals to me. It’s a great hobby, though. It’s intellectually stimulating, it can be thrilling at times and it even pays off enough that I can buy some toys now and then. Although my toy-shopping is likely to decline a little bit when I’m faced with a $350k mortgage, heh.

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I’m currently working harder-than-usual on improving my game. I usually play three tables simultaneously, but I’ve dropped down to two in order to be able to think every decision through a little bit more carefully. Maybe I should play just one? Hmm. I’ve turned off my auto-pilot completely. Well, almost completely, but the ambition is to dismantle it entirely for the month of November. I’ve become too passive in some situations, too loose in others and too tight in yet others. I think I’ve said it before, but my game moves a lot like a pendulum, swinging past optimum play from one side to another. Unfortunately, much like a pendulum, it seems to have the highest speed right past the zero-point so I swing up the other side too far. I’m trying to be mindful of that and making only tiny adjustments.

Who knows where I’ll end up.

Hopefully in my new house, come April.