Wife and kids gone / I loose control

July 15th 5:30am Sunday: Car service pulls up and drives my wife and two boys (who didn't want to go but had to) to airport for flight to California to celebrate big in-law family celebration. They also will stay there for 2 full weeks. Don't get me wrong here, I love my family, but I couldn't even sleep the night before knowing they were leaving. I got up early and even made everyone breakfast while the wife was darting around the house. Two full weeks of complete peace and solitude. I even took two days off next week on Thursday and Friday to finish off what I call my personal vacation.

When they pulled out, maybe 30 seconds or whatever it takes my computer to boot up, I'm at pokerstars trying to win a seat into million, with one maybe two sng's going at all times. Nothing is working out. 11am rolls around, I have no seat to million and am down already $867.00. Okay, no problem, and decide to give ring games a shot. Go to 1/2 nl. 3:30pm total down $1201.00 bankroll empty. 3:31pm reload account with $1,000.00. Grab a bite to eat and at 4:30pm buy into million $215.00. 6:30 pm knocked out and now down $1413.00 in just 12 hours into my freedom vacation. Talking to my buddy who knew all about what was going on with my freedom vacation, and puff 9:00pm I hit the safe and we're both off with him driving to Atlantic City. He's a serious gambler and of course he gets me comp for RFB at the Taj. On the way I make a call making sure everything is covered and take off Monday. 12:30 am July 16th check in to Taj, 1:00am right into poker room. 11:30am total down $8,266.00 (including tips) Not by the way without being up over $3,000.00 around 6:00am.

Had enough at this point almost unable to calculate anything, anymore, get up and decide to get some sleep. Don't even know where my buddy is considering we both understand we're not there to hold hands and may never see each other the whole time we're at a casino, unless of course something was planned in advance. So I go to my suite, and get awakened by my pal calling me at 5:15pm telling me he wants to leave by 7:00pm to get home.

I hurry up and shower and want to give BJ a quick shot before I go. But on the way to the tables, I decide to play a 5 coin $5.00 video poker slot machine. Slide $200.00 into machine and on second try keep the Ac and draw 4 cards. Ring a ding, I'm in the money 20k royal flush. Finally at 6:30pm I'm paid. Cash out the balance without wagering a single more dollar, except for the famous please clear the machine with one more pull.

Go to room, pack up my stuff, get my buddy. We're off 7:20pm. First rest stop 2 whoppers with cheese and fries, (coke) 11:30pm open front door, return money to safe, $11,734.00 more then I took out. Good Night.

ps my buddy got dusted. Will keep you posted.

Would you have had enough money to cover the 8k loss when your wife found out? If not, you may want to take a break man

Safe money is fun money. I'm not the problem with the safe money, she is.

Lol, that made me laugh

Glad you finally hit it big on the video poker machine, I hate those things. Played a few in vegas last year and couldnt seem to win a dime.

this makes me want to get rich so i can do such a thing. GOODDDDD...sweet story too. reminds me of rounders. as for now im stuck with my 50 bankrolls on FTP.. and not going so smoothly right now.

Sweet story dude about the win, IMHO, the jackpot on video poker may have just saved your marriage.....think about that the next time you decide to make such a boneheaded move.
May sound harsh but there is alot of wisdom in what I say.

I don't know if this is off-topic or not, but I spent close to 1k on alcohol and strippers the last time my wife went out of town. So I think 8k on gambling is fine. IMHO. Just saying.

What shinedown says is right ^^^^^ if I was your wife, you would be cut off of personal vacation time the rest of your life, and not to mention a few more things. I'm glad you got lucky, at the end. But would you have posted this story if you handn't?

Edit: OMG rob you are so cut off too!!

It seems like he had the money to do this though.....

Cmon April, I said strippers - not hookers. The former are okay, as long as no one tells my wife.

EDIT: and my friends put me up to it... damn peer pressure.

Yeah but that's how women are and I can somewhat understand them. If it was her that had 8k in the safe and decided to blow it all up on clothes when he was at a family reunion, would he be happy about finding out. Probably not...

Best to keep it a secret methinks.

Who's to say it's not half and half the money that he spent or all hers. If I have those type of expectations, than I surely wouldn't buy 8 thousand dollars worth of clothing or shopping of any sort. Sorry I believe there should be nothing you hide...if you have the desire to have a donkish moment than let me know...we will work it into the budget...I'm not there to make your life miserable, and I'm sure I will want to have those moments myself in the future.. but HONESTY IS DEFINETLY THE BEST POLICY HERE!!!

My example was rubbish, it was just to put things into perspective: ie., unless you make several hundreds k a year, blowing 8k in the space of a day (while your spouse is gone, nonetheless) will not be an action that is shrugged off by most people. Especially not people who don't play poker (I assume she doesn't). Maybe OP has a LIVE BR of several thousands and can sustain it, but from his admission that he had to relaod online for a thousand, I can safely assume that he doesn't.

know when to take a break. the most valuable asset of being a poker player. im still trying to learn