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Hi

As of late I've realised the importance of volume and therefore focused on spending more time at the tables. Since I have a full time job and have to take care of family life as well, this hasn't proven to be easy. Actually, it's quite exhausting and I'm at a point where it seems like serious part-time poker isn't possible - just because you can't realise the volume that's needed to achieve anything plus you have to juggle time in a mission impossible stylee. I was wondering if anybody has any advice in this area and what the best way to proceed for a part timer...Should I be considering things like more aggressive bankroll management? What to focus any study time on? Do we even bother with studying? etc.

Any help appreciated

I'm also playing part time besides my full time job. I life together with my GF so I know it's not always easy to combine poker with partner/family. What I've done is create a schedule when I'm going to play and how long. I made my GF aware of this because she understands that I also have my hobbies and things I want to work on. As long you're clear to your partner and she knows when you are planning to play and how long its should be fine. The thing that is frustrating for you GF or wife is that she doesn't know how long you want to play and she thinks you have no time for her anymore. When she knows that you have a couple evenings in the week to spend time together without poker it will work for both. If you know your GF/Wife is going to the gym on wednesday evening for example you can plan to play that evening from 20:00 till 23:30. There will be probably more opportunities during the week to plan your sessions and if you can plan to play say 15 hours on 5 tables you can play around 30k hands a month. Should be ok to improve your game. My work outside to table is done at my full time job. I know not everyone has this opportunity but if you can I would advice to do that.

Same for me here.
I work full time and play seriously since a couple of years. I think that like Adriano85 said, you need some kind of schedule. There are always a couple of days (2-3, like tuesday, wednesday and Friday) where I usually don't play, except if my GF as already something planned. Also, I always find some time to study and I also take coaching sessions here and there to complement my learning outside videos and analysing my HEM stats.

I think that yo achieve that, it takes a lot of discipline. Also, you need to be aware on when to take breaks from poker, if you are tired because you worked hard this week at your job or felt pressure... Also, I often take one week off once in a while when I feel I accumulated too much fatigue.

I am a live player with two kids. While I do not have a full-time job, I do take graduate classes (10-15 hours a week allocated), take care of all household chores (5 - 10 hours allocated), and work out and help at martial arts (4-6 hours allocated). I maneuver my schedule around my family. I rarely play on weekends, but I can play after the kids go to bed. This requires time discipline (don't stay in the game no matter how good it is late since you have to wake up and function the next morning). You can probably get 12 hours of play and two hours of study doing this without interfering with family time or walking around like a zombie at work.

My rule is girl friend always and I mean ALWAYS trumps poker. If she wants to do something every night of the week, then I don't play that week. However, she is very understanding and when I say there's a tournament that I want to play, she doesn't mind at all.

Also, doesn't hurt that she travels pretty extensively 3-4 days a week for work.

Hi

As of late I've realised the importance of volume and therefore focused on spending more time at the tables. Since I have a full time job and have to take care of family life as well, this hasn't proven to be easy. Actually, it's quite exhausting and I'm at a point where it seems like serious part-time poker isn't possible - just because you can't realise the volume that's needed to achieve anything plus you have to juggle time in a mission impossible stylee. I was wondering if anybody has any advice in this area and what the best way to proceed for a part timer...Should I be considering things like more aggressive bankroll management? What to focus any study time on? Do we even bother with studying? etc.

Any help appreciated

Volume is important in some ways and not in others. Lets look at how it should be in relation to your situation. You have a full time job and, I assume, are not looking to make a second income from poker. If you are, then you can disregard this point. If you are not, then you can actually just ignore volume concerns. Your priorities should be:

1. Fun
2. Improvement
3. Profit

Decide how many hours per week you can spend studying and playing and divvy up X to study and X to play. I would spend more time playing than studying. If you can play live easily I would do that, as in your situation are you almost certainly going to earn more whilst playing less compared to online.

talk to blah. I think he even made a video series about being a part time player

Well my schedule atm. is work at 8:00, come back at 17:15. Family duties till about 21:00 (or 22:00 if my baby daughter doesn't feel like going to sleep). Can play focused till about 23:00 or 23:30. Then half hour downtime otherwise I won't be able to sleep. Then next day. So I have around 2 hours per day on average to play poker which is 12-14 hours a week. That involves playing every day. I'd like to have some nights off and not have it be like its another job in the evenings.. but then the variance kicks in, so then I feel like I need to play more so that it's not so much as an issue, but it's like an evil cycle. I would like to progress poker to something more, if things would allow it

I asked Blah in the past about how he managed to become so successful with a full time job. Basically he had a lot more hours in the evenings and weekends to spent than I do. Also didn't sound like he's a family guy just yet so you can't really compare. Although one thing I did learn from his advice was that you have to have dedication. Wonder how many hours would be sufficient as a minimum to become successful?

I didn't make a series on part time poker, at least not yet. Here's some advice on part time poker with the assumption that you want to take poker seriously and eventually have poker supplement your income.

1. If you can't get aside 2 hours a day average for poker then you don't want to improve bad enough. Serious poker is probably not for you. Or your progress will be pretty slow and frustrating most likely so just play recreationally. Someone has to make some sacrifices some where for success.

2. More aggressive BRM and don't cash out at micros. It's not the end of the world if you have a full time job and have to deposit like 500 every few month. People spend more than that on beer and smokes.

3. Get coaching because you can afford it without taking it out of your BR. Group coaching or some of the micro stake coaches here are good bargain for your money.

4. You need reasonable volume but not in the orders of the 100k hands a month. You can easily play 2hours a day 4-6 tabling and play around 30k hands a month which is more than enough.

5. Yes you need to study. Find time to study during breaks, think about poker in the shower/while sleeping (like grindcore) if you have to.

6. Study smart, don't just watch videos and read forums. Actually think about what people are saying so you can weed out the good information from bad ones. This is easier if you think about poker during your spare time see point 5.

So how many hours a day would you set as a minimum? Would you consider getting up early and play before work, I mean its not that I don't want to. What would be your guideline on aggressive BRM?

I've had coaching from Slowlane, he said my game was pretty solid just have to keep working on my weaker points. We decided it would be best if i'd come back to him once I settled at 50nl. But havent managed that yet as i havent had decent time there and lots of set backs. I'm confident I can beat it though.

Would you study hand histories more than videos? I've studied so many videos it just seems that its becoming repetitive. But there is a lot to learn from coaches thoughts in certain spots. So not sure which one would be more beneficial?

So how many hours a day would you set as a minimum? Would you consider getting up early and play before work, I mean its not that I don't want to. What would be your guideline on aggressive BRM?

I've had coaching from Slowlane, he said my game was pretty solid just have to keep working on my weaker points. We decided it would be best if i'd come back to him once I settled at 50nl. But havent managed that yet as i havent had decent time there and lots of set backs. I'm confident I can beat it though.

Would you study hand histories more than videos? I've studied so many videos it just seems that its becoming repetitive. But there is a lot to learn from coaches thoughts in certain spots. So not sure which one would be more beneficial?

I'd recommend 60hours a month spent on poker. You don't need to play or study daily. You seem to have a misunderstanding on when to move up. I disagree personally with what your coach told you. I think poker is poker doesn't matter if 1bb is worth 2 cents or 1 dollar. You should not move up or down based on short term results unless it's BR issue which I doubt because of your job. This was my biggest mistake when moving up. If there's one thing I would do differently when moving up it would be to ignore results as in bb/100.

I can't comment on what you should study without knowing where you game is at. There is good information as well as bad information on basically everything. Just think about poker and weed out the good information from the bad ones. You can learn something even from bad advice by understanding why it's bad advice.

Someone has to make some sacrifices for the extra money you're going to make from poker. It could be you or it could be your wife/family members. It may be your wife that has to support you by spending more time taking care of your kids and doing house work in return for the extra side income you bring to the family.

If your family doesn't support you playing poker you will have a hard time improving.

Would you study hand histories more than videos? I've studied so many videos it just seems that its becoming repetitive. But there is a lot to learn from coaches thoughts in certain spots. So not sure which one would be more beneficial?

Personnaly, I think that there are personal factors in choosing how to learn poker. Some learn better by listening videos, other by reading / analysing HH. At some point, I agree that videos seems repetitive, but I always find at least a couple of spots that help me fine tune my game. Also, I am a FR player, but I started to listen to some 6 max vids and I figured very interesting things by doing that and learned a lot at the same time.

All in all, I like to listen to a couple of good videos every week and discussing 2-3 hand histories each day I am available for poker. Coaching is another good complement that I use as well and that helps me as well.

In anyway, I think that, like Blah said, you need to want to improve badly! I mean listening to a vid is one thing, but if you don't take the time to get the idea of why the coach is taking this line or this line you will waste your time. Same for HH. As for coaching, your coach will help you and guide you, but you need to prepare for your session, take note and do your homeworks outside the class! As we don't have much time as part time player, make sure you don't waste any of this precious time!

In short, there is no shortcut, hard work will payoff in the long run. With a full time job, if you want to succeed, you need manage your schedule very well and put a high priority on poker in your free time.

Personnaly, I always find some time to study every week and play decent volume (easier now with Zoom) every month, despite having a full time job and playing softball 3 nights a week! I don't have kids yet and it might be challenging to continue, but I guess there are solutions on how to manage a schedule accordingly. Poker is a decent side income for me and I think this is possible if you are dedicated enough.

Solid advices Blah. but:

You can easily play 2hours a day 4-6 tabling and play around 30k hands a month which is more than enough.

- one table = approximately 75 hands/hour
- 4 tabling = 4 x 75 = 300 hands/hour
- 60 hours in a month = 300 x 60 = 18,000 hands per month

Far from 30k ;/ You can boost it by 1.5x (to 27k) if you decide to play on 6 tables, but then it's hard to use all the reads and table dynamics.
What do you think of this?

Solid advices Blah. but:



- one table = approximately 75 hands/hour
- 4 tabling = 4 x 75 = 300 hands/hour
- 60 hours in a month = 300 x 60 = 18,000 hands per month

Far from 30k ;/ You can boost it by 1.5x (to 27k) if you decide to play on 6 tables, but then it's hard to use all the reads and table dynamics.
What do you think of this?

Sorry but... nitpick much? Besides on PS its always 100 hands/hour in which case 4 tabling would result in 24K hands and 6 tabling in 36K hands.

Also I think that playing 6 tables is so much more standard then 4 tables. Unless you are really struggling I doubt it is really gonna affect your bb/100 and will massively improve your hourly.

Being in basically the same situation, I think the first thing you need to do is ask yourself what you are trying to get out of poker.

If you want it to be a significant amount of your income than Blah's advice is solid. I realized a while ago that just isn't realistic for me at this point in my life. My three boys are at an age when they have a ton of activities going on and that priority is much higher than poker. I'm also lucky enough to have a really good job that I love. It's a good enough job that even with a ton of time and effort it's unlikely I'll make a significant amount at poker when compared to my income there. Since the job pays the bills it's also a higher priority than poker.

I know it sounds like giving up, but it's really just focusing on what's important. I'm pretty sure in twenty years being able I'm going to wish I had made more kids baseball games and not increased my volume. There's still a place for poker though. It's great mental energy and I really enjoy it, just not as much as other stuff in my life. Just rank it with everything else in your life and make sure it finds it's proper place. After that set a realistic volume and time goal, but if it's the 4th or 5th priority on your list don't beat yourself up to much if you don't hit it.

I also find that since I know I can't get the same volume in as everyone else I really have to focus on playing my A game. A couple bad sessions is a real killer when you don't get a lot of volume.