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How many of you have parents or spouses nagging you about playing poker for a living, part time or just for fun? They say things like gambling is addictive and so forth. I see poker as a skill game, it's not like going to the boat where you are doomed no matter what over time.
ALL OF US.
my wife is pretty cool with it as long as i take some money out and establish a goal with it.
and, it IS addictive. and, more of us are hooked than will admit. just try and stop for EVER. i bet you cant do it. sure, you can for a football season. but, you will always come back.
you cant prove to anyone that you are NOT addicted. thats the problem. the only way is to quit forever. and, i am not ready to do that. so, i'll let them talk about addiction and what not. but, poker pays my taxes, and for our family vacations. that usually shuts them up a bit.
no poker, no Disney. pretty simple.
now who's levelling who? bioootch. lol.
Move please.
But how much did you lose?
In all seriousness, I tell anyone who doesn't like it to suck my fucking dick if they don't like it and I usually don't get much shit about it afterwards.
My dad disapproves but knows he can't do anything about it and also knows I'm pretty sensible. My girlfriend ditto - it did negatively affect our life but I achieved a balance that we've both been pretty happy with. My mum I think secretly likes it.
Now that I've had time to think about it, not that many people know besides my parents, my brothers, and my girlfriend.
My dad has started some shit with me before about it, and much to his dismay he found out that I make more than twice what he does at his job by the hour, and so I haven't heard much about it since. My mom and brothers don't really care wtf I do as long as I'm not a crackhead or something. My girlfriend knows I play and doesn't care either.
I told an ex-girlfriend about it once because I knew she had a loud mouth (the bitch gave head like whoa and like 20 times a week) and like I knew she'd tell her spastic ass preacher dad who hated me and would flip out, and my plan worked perfectly. She was a semi butter face but it's hard to turn down good head as often as she liked to give it.
I showed bmxicle this in the IRC days probably like a year and a half ago but if you go into PT and filter for "Folded Before Showdown" and add those losses to "Went to Showdown & Lost" then you can answer people exactly when they're like "But how much did you lose?" and shit. This is funny as shit since like for example my combined number is over $17,000 in losses, just for the first 8 days of this year.
That's just the thing. I am not a losing player.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
My girlfriend brags to everyone that I'm a nasty poker shark, and says I'll smoke em if they want to put their money up. She'll say shit like "My man makes thousands kid, no joke", or "He's a scary poker player". I fucking love her.
One time she got all excited because she won a $600 pot on Stars after flopping a set. I thought she was gonna piss herself. Only downfall was she stopped bragging about me for a while and instead would say "I won $600 in one hand. How about that motherfucker"?
As long as the withdrawals keep coming, I am fine. She loves having me home, and with my addictive personality, she prefers my choice. I think the big thing is benefits. What do they get, for putting up with looking at the back of your head while you play 50K hands a month. Take out $100 and take them to dinner, tell them you know your spending a lot of time playing but PS3 or Xbox will just get the time and it won't buy dinner. Before I was full time, I paid for the Vacation to PEI in July, so she did see the benefits. Don't ever fool yourself and think that she should understand when you are grinding a $100 BR for 3 hours a night and making $4, she will never see the future in poker, nor understand the time you spend on it.
Oh yea, I also bought her a laptop, so she can still Facebook, makes my life easy.
funny how most things in life arent visible unil they are BIG enough to be seen.
nobody understands grinding $4 so you can someday move up limits (all of us in the beginning). nobody understands wanting to take on IBM from your garage (Bill Gates). nobody understands playing music for rent money (any big rock band). nobody understands hitting golf balls at 10 years old until your hands bleed (Tiger Woods).
and nobody BITCHES when you take the to dinner with the fruits of your labor. or buy them a car. or buy them a 10 bedroom home with a view.
knew a guy who started a business. early on, he worked 80+ hours per week. slept on people's sofas. stayed away from his wife and 2 kids for whole weekends to provide "someday." now he has THREE homes. one- a penthouse in Cabo. his kids attend the finest schools (youngest will graduate Stanford soon). and he takes all FORTY of his closest family on cruises through the tropics.
all he heard early was, "you are NEVER home. your kids NEVER see you. all you do is WORK WORK WORK! your priorities are all screwed up. you NEVER take time off to play."
all he hears now is, "you are never home. all you do is PLAY PLAY PLAY. your priorities are all screwed up. you NEVER take time from playing to work."
you cant please everybody. hold on you your vision. make it happen. and, if they dont come around later...FUCK 'EM, you dont want them around anyway. surround yourself with positive people that see where you are going, and help/support you in going there. the rest are dead weight.
disclaimer: disregard this if this is your hobby. lol.
This line makes me think your original post is about never dealing with people who criticize your poker-playing, so you want to hear peoples stories who do deal with that sort of thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pythonic
I say this because the #1 and #2 questions we always get asked are:
1. How much did you win?
2. But how much did you lose?
lol that's badassQuote:
Originally Posted by Rondavu
1. Up around 2K profitQuote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
2. See #1
I have my wife complaining to me all the time that gambling is addictive which I know but I tell her that poker is more skill then luck when played correctly. She just doesn't get it and isn't good with math.
My wife has never said one negative word.....she's the best!
If I were feeding the beast with money, though, I think it would be different somehow. The fact that I make money has a lot to do with it.
Use flipping a coin examples. People who are bad with math tend to get those.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pythonic
ie: If we flip a coin over and over, and on every heads I pay you $5 and on every tails you pay me $6, I'll make a profit over the long run etc etc.
That's a real good way to look at it spoon. See if it works.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
I lol´ed :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Rondavu
on topic:
My parents weren´t happy at all about that poker thing. Since I explained the concept of BR management to them and that I won´t put anymore money into the system they aren´t bitching around and start to feel quite comfortable that I always can pay for my electricity/cell phone/heating bills.
I use that one a lot too, except in more obvious terms, i.e. I put up $1 against your $100. I then try to explain that if I take this bet ten times (I've got heads, you've got tails) and I lose every one I still made great decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
The silence that usually follows is not too reassuring.
Edit: I've also tried to explain how "probability over an infinite amount of time is certainty." Big mistake.
Stories about how I can stare into a man's soul, bluffwith absolute crap "cuz I'm that good," have ice-water in my veins and all that made-up shit seem to work better than any real explanation involving "odds," "math," or "long-run."
Yeah no shit. They're more apt to believe "I'm really Jesus so I can see their fucking cards" than "I work really hard at getting better because it's a skill-based game so I can beat it and make money."Quote:
Originally Posted by bigslikk
My reply is still in 2nd place.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
...this is even more fun when they still don't get it and will play the coin flipping game with you all night long.
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by shazbox