Fitting MTT's around life, Can it be done??

Hey guys,

Little question to anybody currently playing MTT's, how do you work out a schedule to play mtt's around real life??

I ask b/c i wouldnt mind starting to play them but the bigger ones seem to take forever to play, like 5 or 6hrs+ sometimes, i play cash at the minute, which obviously doesnt have this problem as you can just sit down, fire up 4 tables and play for an hour or w/e, but i need to refresh my desire to play, its become quite a grind these days and i've been thinking of switching back to tournies and sng's for a while, and just trying to stop taking the game so damn seriously like i am at the min. When i first started playing and building the roll it was with SNG's and MTT's but that was when i was single and all my time was my own.

Is it just impossible for a guy with a wife and 2 kids to be able to play MTT's on a regular basis?? Or do people play like the 90 man SNG's as their regular MTT's and then maybe play a bigger GTD one at the weekends when theres a bit more time??

Thanks for any advice guys

orangepeeleo said:

Is it just impossible for a guy with a wife and 2 kids to be able to play MTT's on a regular basis?? Or do people play like the 90 man SNG's as their regular MTT's and then maybe play a bigger GTD one at the weekends when theres a bit more time??

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Most of the time it is this. If I want to play a larger GTD one then I have to be prepared to give up sleep and make sure not to allow the lack of sleep to effect anyone. Also try the 180-man games on FT.

orangepeeleo said:

Hey guys,

Little question to anybody currently playing MTT's, how do you work out a schedule to play mtt's around real life??

I ask b/c i wouldnt mind starting to play them but the bigger ones seem to take forever to play, like 5 or 6hrs+ sometimes, i play cash at the minute, which obviously doesnt have this problem as you can just sit down, fire up 4 tables and play for an hour or w/e, but i need to refresh my desire to play, its become quite a grind these days and i've been thinking of switching back to tournies and sng's for a while, and just trying to stop taking the game so damn seriously like i am at the min. When i first started playing and building the roll it was with SNG's and MTT's but that was when i was single and all my time was my own.

Is it just impossible for a guy with a wife and 2 kids to be able to play MTT's on a regular basis?? Or do people play like the 90 man SNG's as their regular MTT's and then maybe play a bigger GTD one at the weekends when theres a bit more time??

Thanks for any advice guys

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I would say the 45 to 180 man sngs are your best bet, just because your not going to get many MTTs now days on the bigger sites that are less than 2k people which in any case would still take 5 hrs plus. There are also the 360 man re-buy on stars and the capped quad shootout.

I would say the 45 mans could be a nice compromise lasting a few hours and multitabling could give a nice return, doesnt that boku guy doing that challenge for stars play these and the 90s and 180s?

I dont know about smaller site though but I would assume an mtt is still gonna go a long time. If you can multi table sngs maybe the 18s and 27s well there is a chance for some leader board cash bonus money, at stars for sure dunno about other sites.

Hmm... I may not be the best person to answer since my situation is different than yours. I have a husband and no children - just 2 dogs. And I don't work - but I do have things that take a lot of my time - for example Cardschat. But I also have the choice of when to be here.

And probably more importantly I don't feel the need to play as much as I can.

Not knowing what your schedule is like - I am not sure how much time you really do have to devote. But remember - it is only going to take 5-6 + hours those times you are going deep. And in tournaments you will play a lot where you will never cash. So many times -unfortunately -it will only take 2-3 hours.

I mostly play tournaments with an avergage of 1200-2500 entries - I only get in bigger ones when I know I really have the time. You can find some with less than 1000 if you are playing big enough buy-ins.

I can't really advise on the sng's cause I have come to the conclusion that I need to stick to 3000+ starting chips.

But it is very important that you balance your tournament time with your family time and that your wife understands how long you could get tied up for when you go deep. It would not be good to get deep and past the bubble then have your family needing your attention.

Hey orange,

First off, the 180 mans are a great "filler" for MTT's if you don't have the time on a given day. They will put you in situations very similar to a regular MTT. They last at the latest 4 hours.

Playing on the weekends can easily work for you. Most of the time you aren't running deep, you'll get knocked out OOM or barely ITM and you'll be able to fire up another table. I know you can 4-table cash games so make sure your doing that with MTT's as well, they are all about volume.

So, if I were you I would be running 180 mans during the week and MTT's on a saturday or sunday (I know with wife + kids you can't do both).

Also, MTT's are so soft compared to cash but read up on them first. You can't reload, so there are some key differences.

I'm not sure if you have to, but my girlfriend usually asks how long i'll be playing. I say about 6-8 hours. If I go over that i'm usually winning a shit ton of money, so can they really get mad? lol.

Im in the same boat as you. Wife and two kids and a very busy schedule. But on the poker side of things I've never been that successful grinding out a huge bankroll on SnGs or small cash tables. So what I do is play these samller games just to pay for my MTT on the weekend or to win a sattelitte for the MTT.

I usually play the 8:00 35K Guarentee on FT. It usually has a ballpark of 1500 players and takes about 5 to 6 hours to finish if you make it that far. I finished 4th a few weeks ago and it was my biggest cashout to date.

I see these guys stats where they play several MTTs a day and would love to do that but just isnt possible. Once a week is what I shoot for.

Goodluck

Thanks guys, didnt expect to get this many answers!

I think the general consensus then, if running to a tighter scehdule, is to play SNG's/smaller MTT's during the week to fund maybe 1 big MTT at the weekends.

This sounds like something that i could do i think as the me and the OH have a good understanding about giving each other space.

Cheers guys

i play a bunch of MTTs on Full Tilt and they really dont take too much time because the majority of the tournaments only have about 300-500 people... and those are even the 2 dollar and 3 dollar tournaments... they prob only take about 4-5 hrs if you are going to win....

Normally i just try to start playing around 10 oclock... if i do well and make a deep run i will goto bed at 2 and wake up for work around 730 and be a little tired.. but happy about my big cash!.. i try to never start one after 11... and thats how i do it

I don't play in MTT's with more than 200 people for multiple reason

1) many luckbirds
2) take to long
3) man needs eat and breaks eventually

I have a wife and a baby and am in the same boat as the OP. I mostly play cash & sng's as well. If I venture into mtt's, it's usually just the 90 person sng's. Sometimes I try to squeeze in a late night MTT after the baby goes to bed, but then I'm totally screwed when he wakes up first thing in the morning and I want more sleep! I'll play a MTT when I get a day off work and the baby is at day care, but it kind of feels like a waste of a day off if I sit in front of the computer all day.

I have a family and am also an MTT player. I begin after dinner and usually play two tourneys simultaneously. If I am fortunate enough to go deep, I will be playing until the small hours of the morning, in which case I take the next night off from poker. I find that is essential. If I lose too much sleep, I am no longer sharp enough to play well.

I always make sure to have at least one night a week when I play no poker and spend the whole evening with the family.

At one time, my wife wasn`t happy with this regime and the atmosphere was frosty at times. Since I have been successful and have paid for holidays and such from my poker winnings, she is much more accepting and it is no longer a problem.

Well my kids are grown, the youngest at 19 just moved out a couple weeks ago, so the wife and I are enjoying the free time. I'm a nightowl anyway, usually staying up until 1am or later during the week even on work nights, and then sleeping in on the weekends (not an ideal situation, but I just can't go to bed early). I'm playing a lot more MTT's now. I was playing strictly cash on Stars and was on a heater for about 5 months, up over 1000BB, then went on like a 3 month downswing, losing over half that. It really put me on tilt so I backed away to preserve my remaining bankroll and to settle down, read some books, analyze my stats and try to identify leaks. After several weeks of no significant play, I was poking around on FT where I've kept a minimal balance, and played some cheap SnG and token tourneys just to warm up and try some new things. I discovered that for me personally, Stars has the best cash games, but FT has the best SnG's and tourneys. I started playing the $26 Token Frenzy tourneys (they have $1 and $6.50 ones every night), winning a token about 50% of the time, and there's usually no more than 200 or so people playing them. I accumulated quite a few tokens for these higher stakes tourneys, and whiffed my first few couple of attempts at playing them... until Saturday before last, when I used a token to play a $26 MTT with 1354 people and came in 1st! It took 7 grueling hours and the wife was a bit PO'ed that I couldn't help her with some things around the house, but when I woke her up at 1:30am and told her I'd just won over $7,000, she wasn't mad anymore.

So I'm just keeping with that approach for now. 2-3 nights a week I play either or both of the $1 or $6.50 token tournies and try to bank the token. Then on weekends when I have the time, I'll find a $26 guaranteed MTT and use a token to take a shot at it -- this lets me try higher stakes than I'm really bankrolled to buy into directly. I still have 2-3 tokens left in my account, and the cool thing is at those stakes you typically don't get THOUSANDS of entrants. Sometimes during the week I see only a couple hundred in these $26 tourneys.

I feel like, with 15 guaranteed tokens at the $1 game, and 35 guaranteed at the $6.50 game (both usually pay out more than that if the turnout is nice, say 42 tokens for 200 entrants in the $6.50 game), $26 tokens are much easier to win on a regular basis than $26 in a cash payout structure at those same stakes. But one thing to keep in mind is that your bankroll balance will drop by the buy-in amount even if you're winning tokens. You can't cash a token back into dollars, like you can with tournament dollars, so you'll need to finish those $26 tourneys ITM at least sometimes to recoup your bankroll unless you want to deposit.

I think you have it backwards..... life... what's that? Ya see... what you might need to do is... play poker and work everything else around that, hee hee.

I know that alot of the Very good MTT players also play the 45's as their bread&butter game. The turbo versions are short and fields are a mix of some topnotch players mixed with average and of course some total fish in there too. Generally I find the Turbo 45's have far better play in early & mid levels than the reg's do and being that they are turbo's and the nature of the 45's, it is easy to multi-table them.

For MTT play.. yah.. for sure one needs to be sure that everything is out of the way prior to sitting down to play. Can be very tough for sure with all of life's stuff going on. I usually post a note on my door saying that I'm not home (although all of my friends know this means I'm playing a tourney so they'll knock anyways and wait til' I'm not in a hand to answer the door, lol).

I had some fierce arguments in the beginning too, but I must admit that I was playing waaay too much then (8hrs a day freeroll whoring).

Now I usually play seriously on 2-3 days a week with which both my gf and I are satisfied.

I chose tue, fri, sat - and let one of these slip if something more important is going on.

Some might feel restricted like that, but I wan't to keep both - my girl and my occasional game.

I don't join tourneys after 10 pm anymore either during the week because I have to get up at 5:45.

Egon Towst said:

I have a family and am also an MTT player. I begin after dinner and usually play two tourneys simultaneously. If I am fortunate enough to go deep, I will be playing until the small hours of the morning, in which case I take the next night off from poker. I find that is essential. If I lose too much sleep, I am no longer sharp enough to play well.

I always make sure to have at least one night a week when I play no poker and spend the whole evening with the family.

At one time, my wife wasn`t happy with this regime and the atmosphere was frosty at times. Since I have been successful and have paid for holidays and such from my poker winnings, she is much more accepting and it is no longer a problem.

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So we should all follow Egons example and start winning mtts , Seriously I have to say your sig makes alot of sense tonight.

Yeah, I had the same problem. I got tired of having to fix and/or eat dinner while being blinded away. Usually by the time I got back to the game, any chance to win was gone.

My solution? Just like you -- Switch to cash. It's a very good solution, but I am starting to miss tournaments.

The main reason I bought my laptop was so that I could take it to the kitchen during dinner time, but I haven't ended up using it like that. It ended up upstairs, where it's sometimes even hard to find time to go up and play AT ALL. The other solution is late at night, since I'm a nightowl, too. I'm not quite so sharp as it gets later now that I'm getting so old(!), so that's not the best solution, either.

I am home all day as of June so I get as much poker as I want to any given day (usually all freerolls). Hubby on the other hand works 11 hrs a day so after dinner he usually does a satty to the daily dollar (tilt) which starts at 8:15 and then joins either a 180 2.25 or a 27 2.25 all depends on how tired he is. He never starts a game after 9 pm because after 11 pm is generally our time and usually his tourneys are over by then. If we have anything planned poker is given up in a moments notice for any family activities. He does like to play the larger tourneys on the weekends if I don't have a long honey-do list.

I haven't read other people's responses because I'm about to log off and watch a movie so if anything I say is a repetitive to what others have said, sorry.

So, I have a husband and 4 kids. I lose sleep by playing after the kids have gone to bed at night a few nights a week (there's a nice $11 6 person table on ps at 11 pm est) but most of the "good" mtt's happen earlier.

I dedicate 1 night a week to "family night" - usually on Monday nights. I also reserve Sundays from 2 pm on for myself. The family knows that on Sundays from 2pm until they go to bed I am unavailable - they are to pretend I am not home. My husband gets Saturdays to do what he wants so that makes him happy and agreeable to me playing online on Sundays. Besides, the best mtt's are on Sundays anyways.

Sometimes we have other commitments or trips that take the weekend away but this works for us most weekends.

Good Luck in however you go about it!