This article was originally written by me and posted on NWP in April, 2008.

Poker Etiquette

Sure, there have been articles written before but they are few and far between in my opinion. What is good poker etiquette? Do the same rules apply online as they do in live poker? I like to follow the age-old rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It doesn’t matter if you have inside information on a particular player from a reliable source who might have said “the guy you’re playing likes to stack you then quit”. You have to keep in mind that not everyone treats each player the same. The following circumstances apply to both live and online poker.

How long do you have to play a session before you are NOT considered to be a “hit-and-run” artist? Well, obviously there isn’t any real time line that a person has to follow. However, when you are winning a good portion of money and you have only played a short time your reasons for leaving should be somewhat moralistic. For example, if a sudden emergency should come up and you have to leave, well, then you have to go! If the rhythm of the match starts to change and you find yourself losing profit that you’ve worked hard for, or you feel like you are starting to tilt then of course you can get up. But, in that instance I would explain to the player that I had to quit for a while and that I would play again later if he were interested. I would try to set up a time to play that person again, or exchange information to contact them so that you can play at some other point in time. I would do this so that there aren’t any bad feelings about you quitting, especially if you feel like you have an advantage playing that person. You certainly don’t want them to quit you for life. There isn’t any rule that reads that you have to break even or lose in a match, but there are ways to quit tactfully so that your reputation is still in tact while securing a win.

When I am playing live poker and I see that the game is becoming very short handed I start to re-assess for how long I am going to be playing based on the players that are left in the game. If I think I can get more from a game and I choose to stay, I usually tell the players that I am going to play for “the rest of this dealer”, or “I’ll play out this dealer and one more”. Once I make an announcement I can usually gauge how the match is going to go in terms of the players staying or quitting.

When you are playing a game like PL or NL and you stack a player and quit, that is bad etiquette plain and simple. If you need the buy-in that badly then you are playing too high for your bankroll. If you are winning in any match and you know that dinner is in a half an hour, tell your opponent that you are leaving in a half an hour. He may end up quitting sooner than you like, but he will also end up playing you again because you were courteous.

If you aren’t sure what is good and bad etiquette do your best to follow the rules of common courtesy. Of course much of this doesn’t apply if you are the one losing in the match, or if you don’t mind being viewed as a complete asshole.

Other rules of etiquette for live game play:

1. Peeking at another player’s cards (even when you are not in the hand) as this will influence their decision. Take notice when you see a bad player at your table (playing live) and a player that they respect is standing behind them. They do things apprehensively or make better decisions because they don’t want to look like a complete idiot.

2. Making a motion to fold before it is your turn to act. This obviously will influence the decision of every player who hasn’t yet acted at your table.

3. Angle shooting: Checking, Betting, or Raising out of turn, moving forward with chips to induce a check. Exposing cards when you aren’t Heads Up in a hand.

4. Commenting on what you have, or on what you think another player has when there is more than one person in the hand. Commenting at all when you are not in the hand.

5. Asking to see a losing hand simply to gain information. Some casinos have rules that prevent the abuse of this action. This will only embarrass a bad player and cause them to leave.

6. Don’t everyone quit at the same time when the “live one” goes broke. If there are only a few players at the table left who are seemingly all of the regular pros, we like to play what we call a “courtesy round” after the player has quit. This can also apply online when the rest of the table clicks the “sit out” button at the same time the player has quit. I mean can you be any more obvious?

7. Needling players is obviously bad for business. Now, there will always be some type of small jabs among players, but down right criticizing a player for how badly they play is unacceptable by a professional. Which brings me to my next point…

8. NO POKER LESSONS at the table. When you start using poker jargon most casual players won’t have a clue as to what you are talking about, but believe me even casual players are curious and willing to learn. They will go out and either read online articles or buy poker books, and if they are the least bit intelligent you as a professional will be very sorry in coming months.

9. Do your best to win and lose with class and dignity. This isn’t always easy, but it is something on which everyone should try to improve. You see people on TV jumping on the tables when they win, leaping around like morons, or players in the casino who let out an amazing “YEEEESSSSSSS!!!” when they have just won a pot in NL, as if they’ve never won anything. Like my friend Peter always says “Act like you’ve been there before”

10. Lay off the dealers. I know first hand how bad and retarded some of the dealers can be in casinos, but I’m here to tell you, it’s mostly not their fault. It is the fault of the Commission and/or the Casinos that hire them to do a job for which they aren’t quite ready. Out West you don’t even need to go to dealing school to become a dealer. On the East Coast you do need school, but it’s an absolute joke. I would politely ask the floor to tell the Dealer Control not to put any amateur dealers on your game (when playing higher limits especially), and if the dealer that you have presently is really bad you make a report after they leave the table, or asked to have them removed from the box if it the beginning of their down.

11. While it is a common rule in most casinos, you should speak only English when you are at the table and a hand is in progress, even if you aren’t in the hand. The only place you’ll never get them to change or completely comply with this rule is in LA. Sorry.

There are many more instances I could cover, but I guess the message that I am trying to convey is that when you are playing live poker it is best to keep your mouth shut when you are at the table, unless the conversation that you are having is a general conversation, and not about the game in progress or the players who are playing. As always, feel free to disagree.

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Preface:

Let me begin by saying, “I don’t chop”. I never did, not even in rake games. Part of that was due to the fact that when I was playing low limit, rake game poker I didn’t quite understand it as a business. I just loved to play, and I was winning all of the time among the people with whom I was playing. So, I always felt that I had an edge or I was confident enough in my play that I just never chopped.

When I started playing mid-limit poker and was introduced to games that collected time, the notion that I already didn’t chop made for a smooth transition among the different group of players that I was now playing with, who also didn’t chop. It was at this point that I started to understand poker as more of a business. I calculated how much I’d need to make in order to overcome the time each year, along with tips, etc., just to break even. I monitored my hourly rate in given games so that I could really determine how much I was winning and if I was indeed playing the right games at the right times. After a while these things became second nature. And, while the time increases when you move up in limits, one thing never changed. I still don’t chop.

Rant:

I noticed something a few years ago, and it REALLY bothered me, ethically. I noticed that other players, who also didn’t chop, now decided that they were going to do so in “time pots”. It used to be that everyone just paid his or her own time every half hour. In more recent years they’ve introduced “time pots” where either some or all of the time is taken out of the first qualifying pot. In flop games, if there isn’t a flop, there isn’t any time taken. You sit down, and the player next to you asks “Do you chop?” and you hear several types of responses like “I do whatever the guy to my left does”, or my personal favorite “I chop only in time pots”. WHAT?!

Segway:

Let us quickly go to the rules. Technically, although the casino overlooks it, in most casinos in Atlantic City (I’m not sure about those that have updated their rule books) chopping is technically not permitted. And, for that matter, neither are time pots. The dealer is technically supposed to have the time in the circle before the hand is dealt, which is why someone at the table usually puts up the time and then is reimbursed from the time pot. The reason I am telling you this is because if a player objects to chopping for time pots only or otherwise, the objection will overrule everything. Now let’s get back to the game.

Continue Rant:

I was playing $75-$150 Omaha H/L at the Borgata 2 weeks ago. I haven’t been playing for a while as I stated in another blog. John was playing a tournament, and I went out for the evening and met him for dinner. It was our first night using a babysitter so I took advantage of the time I had and decided to play a little. I was sitting with some familiar faces, but many of them were new. A friend of mine sent me a text message from across the room that read “Nice little field you got there”. He was right; they were horrible for the most part. I never really talk to people I don’t know at the table unless I am directly spoken to, or unless someone is badgering me directly. So, I sat silently and listened to the bullshit ensue.

There was another girl at the table I had never seen. She seemed to play mediocre, being one of the better players at the table of the field of 9 players. She never shut up. In fact, I started the game short handed with 2 other guys, and it filled almost immediately. When she sat someone asked, “Do you chop?” She answered, “only in time pots”. I immediately wanted to punch her in the fucking face. She continued to berate dealers, albeit they aren’t always great, but I hate people who think they know it all and just freely offer advice or opinions even when the situation doesn’t call for it. This is pretty much what she did all night.

When she agreed to only chop in time pots, I could have said something and put an immediate end to it, but I didn’t. Why? Because I knew that I wouldn’t yet be playing with regularity. I can guarantee you then when I return to poker on a regular basis, I will be opening my mouth and putting a stop to that shit. You either chop, or you don’t. It’s very cut and dry. You don’t try to avoid paying time by chopping during time pots. It’s unethical. The only time that you could reasonably ever change your mind is if you chop in a full game, and continue to play when the game gets short, and decide not to chop short handed. Everyone realizes that at that point you’d be giving up too much, so it’s an acceptable change.

Speaking of ethics, here’s another thing that I never did. I never played in the same game with someone that I was dating. I mention this because on that evening, there was a pot where the flop came 2-5-7, and the turn was a 4. It was a 3-way pot with her and 2 guys, one who was decent and aggressive, and one who flat out was horrible. Now when I say “horrible” I mean because he could never lay down a hand, and almost never correctly bet the hands he had. However, it is important to note that with players like that, when they are the one doing the 3 and 4 betting in pots, they usually have the nuts.

I don’t specifically remember the pre-flop action but there was raising involved, and 3-betting on the flop. What I do remember is when that 4 hit the turn she bet, decent player raised, horrible player 3 bet and she capped it. Decent player calls, fish calls. The river changes nothing. She checks, decent player checks, horrible player bets, she FOLDS, decent player calls. There is never a reason for her to fold here for one bet after capping the turn. The decent player has a wheel; horrible player has the high straight. I can’t imagine how she could have put in 4 bets on this board without the nuts either way. She was a better player than that, and she didn’t play aggressively enough to be doing it with draws. I was utterly confused. That is until I later found out that the dude with the wheel, the one who played decent and was sitting 3 seats away from her, was her boyfriend. Now, I ‘m not directly accusing anyone of anything, but something just isn’t right there. With the texture of that board, and knowing that the horrible player would never be 3-betting it without the nuts, I have to wonder what the fuck she was thinking when she was building that pot with her boyfriend in it.

There was one other situation where she was annoying. The decent player asked the lady next to him, Jane, if she chopped. It was a time pot and Jane said, “sure”. The annoying girl then said to Jane “You owe this guy $50”, meaning the guy to Jane’s left. She said, “You took his $50 before and now you want to chop with the guy to your right (who was her boyfriend). You owe him $50”. I wanted to really punch her now. It was none of her fucking business which person remembers chopping what money. If the pot is wrong, or someone is incorrectly awarded an extra chip that is one thing. But, to directly involve yourself in something that doesn’t concern you is just wrong. Shut up and mind your own business. It’s up to the player to say something for himself. (Now, she could have mentioned something to the player and said “Hey she took your $50 before if you want to ask for it back”, and left the decision up to him).

Ok. So while the last paragraph was another ethical rant, and I clearly turned this blog into a general matter of ethics, here is my closing thought for the day:

As players who wish to become professionals, I encourage you to act like it. Make decisions and choose your words wisely when at the table. If you chop then that’s great. If you don’t, then don’t. But, be consistent in what you do, and that will keep others respecting you, even if they don’t like you.

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This was a blog that I originally wrote and posted on February 28, 2008 on NWP. I am re-posting it here because many people enjoyed reading it. Hopefully it'll have some new readers this time around, and it is after all, poker content. :)

I was in the mood to talk so…

One of our Admins recently posed the question (in his own broken English) “Why is tournament poker better than cash games?” Our own Dan Druff quickly replied, “It’s not”. I also share this same opinion. There are pros and cons to both, but in my opinion one causes delusions while other slaps you in the face with stark reality.

I have been a cash game player for over 13 years. I started from the bottom playing small limits and worked my way up to what I would categorize as middle/high limit poker, usually playing around the $100-200 limits. Over the past 14 years or so I have played a fair amount of tournaments with moderate success in proportion to the number that I’ve entered. I have watched poker grow into something no one ever thought it would with the help and vision of Mike Sexton and the WPT, as well as the increased popularity of online poker. Has TV and the Internet been good for poker? Yes, and no.

Online poker has allowed the younger generation, albeit not yet of legal age, the ability to play poker and hone their skills at a very early age. As this popularized prize pools in online tournaments increased with the
growing number of entrants. Win one and all of the sudden you go from being a broke kid to being “rich”, but at what expense and how long does it last? I have heard horror stories of young men and women not yet 21 years of age who have destroyed not only their credit, but that of their parents as well, “secretly” using credit cards to fund their online poker accounts. For a while it was so easy to get money online it was a breeding ground for degeneracy, and in many cases an appetite for personal destruction.

One thing that online poker has generated is the number of increased entrants in live tournaments, which has “sweetened the pot” for seasoned professionals such as Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, and John Juanda. Prize pools that used to be a few hundred thousand are now well over several million, and with the number of entrants in each event it has been proven that anyone can win. Chris Moneymaker, a seemingly normal individual, helped initiate this poker boom in conjunction with the aid of online poker when he emerged victorious at the WSOP winning two and a half million dollars. This paved the way for sponsorship greater increasing his earning potential, as well as the earning potential for future winners of major events.

Since that time we have seen major event winners such as Joe Hachem, Tuan Le, Jeff Madsen, Gavin Griffin, and Greg Raymer gain notoriety among their peers and the public. I can tell you with 100% certainty that at
least one of those people has/had gone completely broke to the point where it took them a full year to pay back a $20K prop bet. Now, how does that happen? Anyone who wins a million dollars or more and goes broke almost certainly has to be an idiot. I’ll tell you how it happens…delusions. Play a tournament, win 
a tournament and you are an overnight millionaire. All of the sudden everyone is your friend and you know all of the most famous players. Pretty soon you have forgotten all about improving your skills at poker and you are concentrating on improving your skills at craps, blackjack, Chinese poker, and Wii Bowling. Oh, and how could I forget, you are also an instant statistician and now you are making prop bets where you obviously ALWAYS have the best of it, right?

The above-mentioned consequences aren’t typical of cash game players, but that is not to say that cash game players don’t have “leaks.” Basically what I am trying to point out is that cash game players are a lot more financially responsible in most cases. They have family to support and bills to pay, and they still need to maintain an adequate bankroll in order to perform their job, but in most cases they don’t have a million dollars to do it therefore ensuing a sense of responsibility. To the cash game player poker is treated as a job, a way of life. There is planning, a schedule, and in most cases consistency. There isn’t any sponsorship deals for cash game players, no matter how much you win.

Many of the world’s very best cash game players would be un-noticed and unknown if it weren’t for online poker and tournament poker, and truthfully many still are unknown and not sponsored. Full Tilt Poker has the 
world’s best players behind it, right? While some of those players are undoubtedly the best tournament players in the world, some were mainly cash game players, and the only reason anyone knows who they are now is because they had money long before tournament poker became popular, which enabled them to get involved with the right company to promo te them.

I’ll give you 2 examples: David Oppenheim and David Singer. Both have been winning high limit cash game players since I have known them, which is about 10 years or more. Many people hadn’t heard of David Singer until he won the Heads-Up championship in 2007 at Caesars, LV. Would it surprise you to know that he has been playing tournament poker for over 25 years? David Oppenheim lives in LA where there are tons of tournaments, yet every time that I had seen him at Commerce, he was playing cash games. Since the WPT’s inception he does play tournaments, but mainly those with larger buy-ins.

There are many long time professional cash game players who have benefited both directly and indirectly from the wealth that online and tournament poker has created, but they were winning cash game players for 10-20 years before the boom. Now, many times tournament players start out playing small cash games online then perhaps get lucky in a tournament, and immediately you see them shooting off their winnings in high limit cash games. Hey, that works for me, and many of other cash game players!

Does that mean that tournament players can’t play poker? No, of course not. Tournament play requires a different strategy and skill than cash games. Players like Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Negraneu, Juanda and Seidel have been consistently either making money or winning tournaments for as many as 20 years. But, it seems that poker has grown so rapidly and has allowed young people with little or no sense of responsibility to gain instant wealth and notoriety, that the strategy and planning are out the window so to speak, thus causing a lot of them to be broke and borrowing in the end. For many, if they didn’t have some sort of sponsorship deal they’d either not be playing due to high costs, or they’d have no money do to not winning. Today there are tons of tournaments with very large entry fees, and a massive number of entrants. Winning isn’t easy and it doesn’t share the same consistency as cash games do. I keep mentioning that word, consistency. It is because I feel that it is the main difference between cash game and tournaments along with reliability and responsibility.

Early on I mentioned stark reality referring to cash games. Even if you do everything right (start with an adequate bank roll, play according to that bank roll, try to maintain a schedule, and really focus on game selection) it won’t take too long for you to find out whether or not you are a winning player, or if you could pursue poker as a job. There are many talented and intelligent players, but not everyone has what it takes to rely on poker as their primary source of income. There is a lot more to overcome than just the cards. Mentally and emotionally, this life can be very brutal and draining. Take away the million dollar prize pools, and let everyone grind. How many of today’s tournament winners would be winning poker players? And, for that matter, how many would even be winning tournament players? Not many I would guess. Of course, this is just my opinion.

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For those that are curious, here are some updates on how my diet has been going. Today, January 31, 2010 is Week 14, Day 2 of my diet. I weighed in at -1 lb. this morning. I am not yet at my goal weight, but I am really close. Actually, I am within 4 lbs., and that makes me happy. Never mind that I look like shit in the picture below. I wasn't prepared to have "photo day" at the gym, but my trainers insisted on taking progress pictures, so I'm sharing it with you. Since this was taken I have lost another 1.5 lbs.

On Week 13, Day 4 I had it out with my trainer over quite a few issues. The bottom line was that I decided that I am fucking starving and I need more food. He agreed. So, I can now have Sweet Potato, Ezekiel Pasta, and Brown Rice (I feel like I just leveled up in “Farmville”). I was told that I can add oatmeal to my shakes, and that I could eat these carbs at every meal. He increased my caloric intake from approximately 800 to 1500 per day. Of course though, I am stubborn.

I was happy to be allowed to eat more food, but at the same time I feel like I have worked so hard to be where I am at now, that if I gain weight because I added more carbs without yet being at my goal weight I’m going to be pissed. So I added them in at dinnertime only, for now. I figure that should keep me from wanting to kill people all of the time.

For my first experiment I made diet Sweet Potato soup and I promise you, you couldn’t imagine how good it tastes. There isn’t any brown sugar in it (however I recently discovered that Splenda makes brown sugar), but rather a substitute, sugar-free maple syrup with Purevia. Instead of flour I used Flaxseed. Instead of butter I used “I can’t believe it’s not butter”. Instead of store bought broth, I made my own Veggie broth that’s fat free, and salt free. I added some spices, and didn’t use milk at all. It was delicious, and it will be a regular staple food for me in the future. This week I am making Sweet Potato chips and Sweet Potato Fries (sprayed with Pam, and baked of course, then pan-fried with Pam for crispy coating!)

Since I am starting to eat more carbs now we have changed my workout routine. I am doing less and less traditional weight training and more “Art of Strength” training, and Boxing. I actually box quite a bit now, and these came in the mail for me this week:

I love them! My boxing trainer says that I’m really good, and that I improve every single time we box. That’s probably because I enjoy it more than anything else that I do. I like going to the gym. I never thought I would, but I do. The AOS training is awesome, but there’s just something about the boxing that really makes me want more. Perhaps it’s my Martial Arts background and the natural love of fighting, but even after a day of boxing when I am so sore the next day, I can’t wait until the next time. What I love most is that it’s a high intensity workout, so I don’t have to worry so much about adding in my new food. Since I have started eating the carbs I have still lost 1.2 lbs more.

Lastly, one of the most trivial, but greatest benefits to me is that I am finally fitting into all of my designer clothes that I bought before I was pregnant with Isabella. This was my whole reason for setting my goal weight so low. And, what’s crazy is that the more things I try on, the more I realize how thin I actually was at one time. While most things are fitting great, there are still some things that I can’t get into. Perhaps I’ll try again in 4 more pounds. In any event, it’s nice to have my old wardrobe back!

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As previously written, I said that I was going to upload a few of the older, poker related blogs that I had written for NWP. This blog was very well received, so I'll post this one again in hopes that there will be new readers, and that the older readers will enjoy it once more. I think it's good to have some poker content on the site!

When is Enough, Enough?

In a recent article that I wrote on NWP I spoke briefly about how many players possess the necessary talent to be winning players, but lack other important characteristics such as game selection, adequate bank roll management, following a schedule, focus, and discipline. No one does all of these things correctly 100% of the time, but still a player is usually able to deviate from perhaps one of these things and still be a winner. One thing I didn’t speak about was quitting. When do you quit a game? When is enough, enough?

Well, first we need to determine what the average win rate is for a given game. I’ll use Hold’em as an example since it is the most popular form of poker. In a brick and mortar setting the average win rate is most likely 1 big bet per hour. Therefore if you were playing $100-$200 Limit Hold’em you would be making $200 per hour, and that is not bad at all. This can and should easily be sustained by any average to good winning player. The win rate would be higher for a very good to excellent player. When talking about online poker the average win is displayed in terms of BB/100, which is the number of big bets per 100 hands. 1.5BB/100 is probably an accurate win rate for average to good online players. There are situations where above average to excellent players can sustain around 2.5 to 3BB/100, but those cases are usually due to games being both loose and passive.

Now that we have this information, how do we know when to quit? Let’s talk about live, brick and mortar games since that is what I mostly play. You are in the casino playing $100-$200, and you are approaching playing 8 hours. You are up $1600 but the game is good and you feel good about playing. Should you quit? I think that this depends on a lot of things. How much more do you think you can win from the current field? How much do you think that you will lose back if you continue to play? Sometimes games are so tight and/or predictable that there could be a player or two willing to give you action therefore increasing your earning potential, where as you are almost certain to never lose any real money in a pot because their play is transparent. I think this game is worth continuing. Let’s reverse the scenario. Now you are stuck $1600…should you quit? Again, there are many factors to consider.

Recently I was faced with a dilemma. I was playing in an Omaha H/L game where I was either the best, or 2nd best player, and we were both losing marginally. The game changed and became short handed, which was better for both me and that other player. We were now playing 4 handed with two people who could easily be mistaken for two of the worst Omaha H/L players to ever grace the Borgata. Now we were ready! The only thing we needed now was time. If these two players don’t quit, we feel that we both have a very good chance of getting even or winning. We continued to play not our best poker, but something very close to that, which should easily have been good enough to get the money. Well, it seems that it doesn’t always work that way, LOL! Imagine that, here I am with another good player, playing with two lesser players, and neither my friend nor me can win. As a matter of fact, we couldn’t drag a fucking chip. As my friend said several times last night, “Sad, sad days.”

I watched as the massacre slowly took place. My friend, a normally VERY solid player and good short handed player, was now playing passive and weak and had turned into a calling station on boards where I should have been able to get him to lay down hands without thought. This happened more than once. Knowing that he had changed his play I now had to change the way that I played against him, which was also costing me money and pots. After all, even though we are friends we still must play against each other if we were both to continue to play. Every pot that we played together against each other was virtually chopped, and every pot we played against the other two players we lost or got quartered. It was like someone had stabbed me in the liver and I was slowly bleeding out. God had left me to play my best game against two of the worst players, and I wasn’t winning! Now only wasn’t I winning, but I was losing more, and for that matter so was my friend. So, when is enough, enough?

I am not usually bad about quitting a game stuck. I don’t like losing, but I don’t usually “go off” when I lose. I know that the same game will be there the next weekend, and the same bad players will be playing in it. This time was different. I think that seeing my friend experience the same thing that I was experiencing, and knowing that he is also a very good, winning player, blinded me from the truth. Sometimes things are going so bad that you are just NOT going to win. I have told myself this very statement on many occasions over the past 13 years, which is part of the reason why I am not the type to typically just blow up. During this particular session though, I reached a point where my friend and I looked at each other and we both said, “Is this really happening?” I laughed that we both said the same thing at the same time, but then he said, “Seriously, how can this be happening to BOTH of us?” I said, “I know…this can’t continue, can it?” Guess what folks, it can, and it did. I got buried and when I finally did quit my friend was buried even worse. I have no idea how he ended up but I am sure that I’ll call him after I finish this article to find out.

After what was a restless, sleepless night (I had fallen asleep around 6:30am and was up at 8:00am), and now that I am thinking somewhat lucid thoughts, I can’t imagine that it got very much better for him as I am certain that the minute that the tide started to turn the two players that we were playing with would have surely quit. There it was…there was the one question that I had overlooked when thinking that I could get even. How much longer would these two play if things started to go our way? I know that they both gave enough action where I could win big pots from them, but how many of those pots would they be willing to lose before calling it a night? If one quit would the other one play 3 handed? If my friend had lost the money in front of him would he have stayed? The answers to the last two questions are “No”, and “No”. Part of being a professional is learning when “enough is enough”, and how we determine that is by asking ourselves other important questions regarding the game. It seems that in this case I overlooked some questions and didn’t know when to quit. Writing this article has helped me clear my mind and refresh my train of thought so that the next time I play, I will indeed be a better player. I hope that parts of this post will help others as well.

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I’ve been playing poker as a profession since I was 21 years old. In 2006 I gave birth to our daughter Isabella Rose, and took a small break from poker. After a while I was able to return in 2007, playing only on weekends, which was fine since that’s when the game I play is available at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. In late March of 2008 I became pregnant with our 2^nd child, Johnny. He was born in December of that same year. After getting settled in with the new baby and trying to adjust to having 2 young children, I returned to playing poker in the earlier months of 2009 on Saturday evenings. I was doing very well, but then things changed, as they sometimes do in poker.

I found that I was finding it more difficult to either win a ton or recover losses, because my sessions were being cut short due to the fact that I’d have to leave at a somewhat reasonable hour so that I could get home to sleep, as I had to wake up the next morning early with my children. This made it more difficult for me to concentrate solely on playing, because there was always something in the back of my mind telling me I had to go (whether I was winning or losing). This was not the way to play, and I knew it.

My last few sessions were losing sessions, so I decided it was time to take a break altogether. I needed to focus my efforts on taking care of my family and getting myself in a healthy frame of mind. Also, from a business standpoint it’s much more important that John plays poker, as he makes a lot more money than I do, and without me playing he was able to play both Friday and Saturday nights live at the Borgata. His game also only goes on the weekend, and is very profitable.

Taking care of two children is a lot more difficult than taking care of one. The difference is astounding, and I still had both of them in diapers at the same time, which made things even harder. I started to discover that the longer the break that I took the more I enjoyed being away from the table, and the more time I had to actually do things for myself. For so many years my life has revolved around poker and its schedules. It has afforded me the type of carefree lifestyle I have always lived, and for that I am grateful. Now in recent years life has changed. Poker is no longer a priority for me; my family has taken its place.

We did things ass backward. We had two kids, and then decided to get married. On August 1, 2009 John and I were married on the beach in Ocean City, NJ. We had a wonderful wedding that was mostly family, and a few of our closest friends. We would have loved to invite all of our friends, but honestly it just wasn’t feasible, and for that I am truly sorry. I have always tired to make people happy whenever they were in my life. In some cases I was successful, and in some I have failed miserably. But, I stand by the decisions that I have made as I believe whole-heartedly that I have always tried to do the right thing, although it didn’t always seem that way.

Because of the timing of the wedding and our daughter’s birthday (mid-August) we waited to go away. In between the wedding and the time we went away things got a little busy at home and I wasn’t finding the time to do what I wanted or needed to do for myself. I still had leftover weight from Johnny that I desperately wanted to get rid of. In October, John and I went to St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, CA. It was an amazing place and so very relaxing. While on that trip I explained that there were things I needed to do for myself and that we would need to find some compromise of time to allow me this opportunity. Graciously he made some sacrifices with his time (as did I with my sleep schedule), and complied. When we returned home I went to 4 different gyms to find a personal trainer that was qualified, and that I thought would be the kind of person I needed to get me back into the shape that I was in pre-babies. This has been so fulfilling for me. I am on my 10^th week of training and dieting and I have lost 28 lbs. I have 14 lbs. to go before I change my diet and exercise program to a maintenance program, and work on body sculpting. The life change has been so positive for me in so many areas. My general outlook on everything has changed, and my energy levels are through the roof.

Will I still play poker? Yes. I enjoy playing and I enjoy winning even more. But, there won’t be any pressure for me to stick to a certain schedule or make a certain amount of money. I have found other (legal!) ways to make money that are working out for me; therefore I don’t have to depend on poker income to buy myself the things that I want. I plan to return to poker sometime midyear with a new body, and new frame of mind.

We will be spending the entire WSOP at “X”’s house with his Wife and their own new addition, baby Spencer, as well as some other friends. I look forward to seeing West coast friends again, and this time for a much longer period, as last year my trip out West was very brief.

There will be parties, and I will cook. Be prepared to eat. <3

PS: I will be posting a few of the old blogs that were poker related and on NWP. There were a fair number of people that seemed to like them, and in the event that we have any new members here I think it would be good content. I hope there aren’t any objections.

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It's been a long time since I've written anything, mainly because everything I wrote was being stolen by someone else and passed off as their own. While it should have been flattering, it was getting annoying so I stopped. With the new emergence of Donkdown.com I will start to once again write blogs to do my part in helping to actually make this more of a poker site, like NWP was when I created an account in 2004. Most of the blogs will be poker related and some will be about other business and home life. I had been playing poker in the beginning of this past year, but I was finding it difficult with the birth of our son, Johnny, to manage my time, get some much needed sleep, and still stay focused on poker. Since poker was my main source of income, it was imperative that I be in the best possible frame of mind, and also be equip to withstand the long weekend session physically. Therefore, my first blog for 2010 will be about balancing poker and motherhood.

I will be back to playing poker on a somewhat regular schedule in 2010. But first, I need to reach a personal health goal. After I had our first child, Isabella, I just about lost all of my weight with the exception of 8 lbs. I was sort of OK with that. Then I became pregnant with Johnny. I never lost all of my weight from him, and I started off 8 lbs. heavier than the first pregnancy. So, in October when Johnny was 10 months old, I hired a personal trainer. I have since been on a strict body builder's, low carb diet where I consume less than 800 calories per day. I am in the gym both lifting weights and doing what is called "Art of Strength" training, along with cardio and abdominal work 4 days a week. It is a life change both mentally and physically, and I LOVE IT! The point is that I will be approaching poker with a fresh mind and new body, and I am looking forward to having a great 2010.

Aside from new situations and discussions, realize I have 16 years worth of poker experience to offer. If some of you don't find it to be anything else, at the very least it should be well written and entertaining. I want to end by congratulating two of my very best friends, Scott "X" Bohlman and his wife Sandi, on the recent birth of their son, Spencer Scott Bohlman. He is absolutely perfect and Mommy, Daddy, and baby are doing wonderful. The best part was that they were able to have the baby home in time for their Christmas celebration. Best wishes to your family, Scott. I'll be there soon!

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