Poker and the daily grind ...

Hey guys, it's been forever since I've posted so I'm a little rusty.

I was just curious as to your daily poker related routine. Do you have one first of all, and if so, what do you incorporate into your day(s) to help your game?.

I was what they call the poker-frenzy heavy user - once.
It started to collide with my daily life.
Now I play between 6pm and midnight (roughly) and on the weekends occansionly (only if my girlfriend watches annoying stuff on TV.)
Whereas I'm still - er - kind of dependent on poker I guess.
There could be worse stuff though, like sniffing glue aso.

I am deep into the regime now, poker and chat, it accounts for a great deal of my time. I should rethink this I think....

My schedule is a wreck honestly, so i try to fit in poker when i can in between classes and school work. If i can get one or two hours here and there im pretty happy. There's nothing more i like to do after a tough day of class then some relaxing poker (mostly). I might get in some hours at night too if i don't feel like going out, playing some poker and drinking a beer is pretty chill. I do take it pretty seriously, i'm on the forums quite a bit and if i have an extra minute or two on campus i sneak in some reading.

Every other night (my wife and I alternate this duty) I get to sit in a rocking chair while my daughter goes to sleep. That is my poker time. I start around 8pm with approximately 6 tourneys (all small stakes or FR's) and have 3-4 in the back burner in case I get knocked out of any of them (or when I get knocked out ). The sessions last as long as I am alive in tourneys. If I get knocked out of all of them in short order or if the wife insists on some time together to talk (errr me listening- sort of ) I'll go in our room otherwise I stay in my daughter's room until I am out. If I win more than my buy in I'll usually play a couple of HU SNG's ($2.15 on FTP- look for me - CheckoutKQ) to unwind specially if I got a bad beat to knock me out .

During the day I scour the forums (in the breaks from my work ) and sometimes listen to a show like pokerroad radio or ESPN PokerEdge.

I would love to hear other parent's story of how they fit poker into their schedules while trying to maintain a family life.

well i dont really have a long day of playing poker, i dont play poker at work, i refuse to install it on my comp cuz im not gonna get fired from my job because i was caught playing a 1 dollar SnG.. Lmao its not worth it.... but anyway when i get home i usually play the 10 center on FT and which ever scheduled tournements they have that are less than a 7 dollar buy in.... sometimes ill hit up a cash game but not often. GL on and of the felts

If I have a couple of hours free, I'll sit down & play about 1500 hands on 7 tables. Not much else to the routine than that. Sometimes I listen to music?

I found that between long work hours, and toddlers waiting for me to get home, that I no longer have much time to play.

I recently pledged to sacrifice half my sleep, and try to go weeknights on 3 hours of sleep a day. After 5 weeks like this, I can now make it to Wednesday before I start hallucinating, and I expect to be able to make to Thursday soon :-)

You must be hallucinating again

Wake up
Work 10 hours
Eat while watching poker on TV
Play poker for two hours
Sleep

Repeat.

(damn. with all that poker I should be better)

Stupid sleep deprivation!

this discussion makes me wonder how long it took you guys to become winning players. i mean like after a decent stretch of hands like 2-3k were you still up?

Just been pretty curious about that cause i know my routine is really to work, read some about poker maybe look at my old hands to see where i could have done better. Then try to play for an hour or 2.

i have only played about 1k hands so far but im still down about $20 so hoping that with all the playing and reading that it will soon pay off in the form of at least breaking even haha.

i play .25/.50 limit atm if anyone was curious

That is a great question, and I wish I had kept better track. I've been playing for about 15 years now, and can say that only the last 6 have been profitable (at least on a somewhat consistent basis). Most of my early experience was in live limit-games, and I should have kept better records. You would see the occasional player at a table with a notebook keeping track of hands he was playing, or even just results from sessions, but sadly, I didn't understand the value of introspection. The internet has changed my game, including giving me tools to evaluate my play, and has forced me to be more honest with my results.

Since moving online, I have changed to mostly NL HE Tourneys, but I do still enjoy $1-2 NL cash games when I can find a live one. I don't play ring-games often on the net, since I feel I have a better edge when I can read a live player; and it is a lot easier to guess if two players are working together when you can see them in person. (It also gives me a reason to go to Vegas every once in a while :-)

Online play and access to great info in places like Cardschat has definitely sharpened my play, but I do miss the rush of walking out of a back-room game with a 'gangster-roll' of hundred dollar bills after a good night.

Yea right now my main goal with playing is to break even. i enjoy playing alot but cant see myself continuing to put money into something that i cant at least pay for itself. (i started with $200 so i could at least get a good feel at the end if iw as any good haha) I already have expensive hobbies i dont need another haha