There's Always Next Week

It's been six days since the last post and I only have one poker session to speak of.  My break continues.  I'm not sure what happened.  For a full year I played and played poker every chance I got.  Now it's a not even a second thought in the evenings. 

I'm not sure if it's burnout or just a shift in priorities.  I've taken extended breaks like this before, where I didn't touch the computer for months at a time.  I get tired of trying to find the time to play and wishing that I could play all the time.  I've been going to bed at 10:00 and getting full nights of sleep.  I feel better. 

Part of me feels I should get back to playing.  The rest of me knows that the time away from the table is precious.  My kids won't be young forever and I don't want to miss the time that they still like to hang out with me. 

I finally feel like I've struck a balance with my life and poker.  That balance is only playing 1 night a week for fun with friends.  It's scheduled.  Everybody knows I do it.  I am supported in playing this game.  I'm risking the same amount of money with better odds of a payout. 

The rest of the time I barely watch T.V.  I play on my phone a lot while I sit in the living room.  I can put my phone down and play with the kids if I want. 

In the foreseable future I plan to play at the local game once a week.  I may jump online from time to time to play a tournament if I find the time.  The rest of the time I will just hone my skills at the live table.  It's a lot more fun than being belittled for my style of play online when I win a hand.

In this weeks local game I started out ice cold.  I couldn't get a good starting hand so I played mediocre starting hands.  I would catch a pair and the other person would have the stone nutz.  I was very low stacked very early in the game and had to tighten way up.  I won a couple of crucial hands as the blind levels got bigger and finally got to above my beginning stack a little after break. 

The blinds started eating away at my stack and I was soon down to 1 bb left.  I found a playable hand and tripled up putting me in the top 3 in chips.  People were going to start dropping at any minute so I stayed really tight.  Within that blind level we lost a few people and only needed 1 more to go out to make the money.  She got low stacked and was put all in by the blind.  I called without looking at my cards.  I don't remember what I had but it caught and got me in the money.

From there I was looking to wait out for 3rd and start playing.  The low stack caught twice as they blinded down to all in putting me at the bottom of the pile with 1 bb left.  I made my move against the blinds with K7o.  BB had A10 and spiked an A on the first card of the flop.  I didn't improve and ended my night.  There's always next week.