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Maybe there's a solution for you, if you make enough in 6-9 months for a years worth of living expenses, maybe you could take 3 months off and travel with your girlfriend, or do something that is not related to playing poker/going on the computer. After those 3 months you can go back to grinding. This way you would feel fresh after every "break" and maybe your life won't be so affected from poker.
What I am trying to say is, you don't need to quit poker, but find a way to balance it with your life. I am sure you don't want to be working 9-5 jobs being an analysis or something, because that's basically the same thing.
Every 6 months i spend 4-6 weeks travelling. Also in between i do alot of weekend-5 day trips. I've also noticed this is something I really need to clear my mind.
Great post!
A lot of it reflects my current life too what's not just sad but even scary... ♦
Keep this blog alive please!
Hey there,
I really liked your article, I feel connected to it in several parts.
Just like you I didnt get really interested on any uni career so I took a gap year and moved to New Zealand, there, I started playing often and met some spro and pro poker players that showed me the way and helped me in my path and showed me that playing poker for a living can be a good way to live, specially when youre young and you want to travel. So Im giving myself on heart and soul in studying and playing and Im doing really good actually.
What I think of your personal situation is this:
- Poker is not guilty of your feelings of beeing disconnected with the real world, at least is not the only responsible: people can get too attached to their jobs and lose touch of "Real life", but not only pro poker players, lawyers, meds, writers and basically everyone can became "workaholic". The key is to understand that youre playing poker as a job and its a mistake to take that to other areas of your life, specially emotional ones (relationships, friends, etc).
Poker is a job and you should have another actitivities to do on your spare time: use the money and flexibility that poker gives you to explore new areas and adventures that this beautiful world provides, youre a lucky guy that can do almost any activity he wants on the Earth. Use this to feed your soul and body.
I read that you travel a lot and thats good, is a good way to free yourself from the virtual world you say youre trapped in and to socialize and know the world around you.
- Why are your friends only virtual? cant you make flesh and blood friends? Altough I play a lot of poker I can make myself time to see my friends and have a few pints with them, is just organizing your schedule. I think that were not gamblers but poker can get you addicted: when you have a badbeat is hard not to automatically register to the next tourney, but thats where our intelligence plays an important part and you just turn off the PC and go do something else you like, you cant let poker make the times of your life, you have to make the times of your life including poker and everything else.
I think that going back to normal work life is gonna be hard/impossible to you: working on fixed shifts, ansewering to a cunt boss that will yell at you for no reason, working for other people interest: the system is wrong and working is a way of slavery. But the good news is that you probably wont need to do that anymore: use the money that poker gives you and find a good way to invest it, like a bussines of your own, put some money on a football team, buy stocks on a company, gosh, anything you like, if you were smart enough to became a pro youre probably smart enought to start your own bussiness.
I think that the main problem though is that you are not interested in anything else rather than poker, once you find out what fullfills your soul youll find a way out of the world you feel youre trapped in and making money from your hobbies and activities you enjoy shouldnt be hard if you have the economic power to do so.
Sorry for the long reply but I felt I had loads of things to say!
Take care and keep the blog alive.
I love your thought process and am going to follow along. Please keep posting as you remind me of when I was young and starting out.
I put myself through 3 years of University and then spent 2 years after that playing cards way back in the 70's. Yes I'm old. 
I got so burned out from playing full time I quit for quite awhile. Playing was no longer fun. It was a full time job. A very stressfull full time job.
I got married, got a real job, raised a family, and played for spare change in order to buy the extras. Cards became fun again. My life became fun again.
What I'm trying to say is you need to find balance in your life but I think you already know that. Start working out 3x a week or going for a walk with the girlfriend at night to relieve the tension. It will amaze you what a little down time away from the game every couple of days will do for your outlook on life.
Good luck and keep it fun.
Originally posted by ramabranch
Hey there,I really liked your article, I feel connected to it in several parts.
Just like you I didnt get really interested on any uni career so I took a gap year and moved to New Zealand, there, I started playing often and met some spro and pro poker players that showed me the way and helped me in my path and showed me that playing poker for a living can be a good way to live, specially when youre young and you want to travel. So Im giving myself on heart and soul in studying and playing and Im doing really good actually.What I think of your personal situation is this:
- Poker is not guilty of your feelings of beeing disconnected with the real world, at least is not the only responsible: people can get too attached to their jobs and lose touch of "Real life", but not only pro poker players, lawyers, meds, writers and basically everyone can became "workaholic". The key is to understand that youre playing poker as a job and its a mistake to take that to other areas of your life, specially emotional ones (relationships, friends, etc).
Poker is a job and you should have another actitivities to do on your spare time: use the money and flexibility that poker gives you to explore new areas and adventures that this beautiful world provides, youre a lucky guy that can do almost any activity he wants on the Earth. Use this to feed your soul and body.
I read that you travel a lot and thats good, is a good way to free yourself from the virtual world you say youre trapped in and to socialize and know the world around you.- Why are your friends only virtual? cant you make flesh and blood friends? Altough I play a lot of poker I can make myself time to see my friends and have a few pints with them, is just organizing your schedule. I think that were not gamblers but poker can get you addicted: when you have a badbeat is hard not to automatically register to the next tourney, but thats where our intelligence plays an important part and you just turn off the PC and go do something else you like, you cant let poker make the times of your life, you have to make the times of your life including poker and everything else.
I think that going back to normal work life is gonna be hard/impossible to you: working on fixed shifts, ansewering to a cunt boss that will yell at you for no reason, working for other people interest: the system is wrong and working is a way of slavery. But the good news is that you probably wont need to do that anymore: use the money that poker gives you and find a good way to invest it, like a bussines of your own, put some money on a football team, buy stocks on a company, gosh, anything you like, if you were smart enough to became a pro youre probably smart enought to start your own bussiness.
I think that the main problem though is that you are not interested in anything else rather than poker, once you find out what fullfills your soul youll find a way out of the world you feel youre trapped in and making money from your hobbies and activities you enjoy shouldnt be hard if you have the economic power to do so.
Sorry for the long reply but I felt I had loads of things to say!
Take care and keep the blog alive.
Thanks for your reply!
I agree With most of what you say. I only would like to comment on the "friends" part. I didn't say i only have virtual friends. But I've recently moved to a country, where it's hard to get by on English. My "real life" friends live in The Netherlands, and I'm in Italy. Obviously a plane ticket is easily booked, and I will do my occasional weekend drop in. But on a day to day basis I don't see many real life people 
Also my girlfriend and I live in a small village. Next week we are starting with Italian lessons, and we're looking for a commen hobby (where we can also meet other people). So hopefully I'll book some progress in this area
Originally posted by TheMarxBros3
I love your thought process and am going to follow along. Please keep posting as you remind me of when I was young and starting out.I put myself through 3 years of University and then spent 2 years after that playing cards way back in the 70's. Yes I'm old.
I got so burned out from playing full time I quit for quite awhile. Playing was no longer fun. It was a full time job. A very stressfull full time job.I got married, got a real job, raised a family, and played for spare change in order to buy the extras. Cards became fun again. My life became fun again.
What I'm trying to say is you need to find balance in your life but I think you already know that. Start working out 3x a week or going for a walk with the girlfriend at night to relieve the tension. It will amaze you what a little down time away from the game every couple of days will do for your outlook on life.
Good luck and keep it fun.
Also thanks for your reply! It's fun to read the game changed from Live to online (for the most part), but a lot of factors are still the same! I am trying to work out again lately, but it's hard to motivate myself sometimes
Maybe you should talk to TwiceT, I think he was similar to you in terms of 'can't just play poker' as he went to universitry again, and decided to invest money (as well as party 3+ times a week and tried to have a life outside poker). Idk, my advice is to just find people who were like you and try to see what they changed about themselves.
Poker and emigration (part 3)
It has been months since my last blog and a lot happened in my life. I broke up with my girlfriend, so I decided it was time to travel and clear my mind. After that it was difficult to get back on the grind, but now I’m almost back on track. But that is not the topic I want to write about. This blog will be about why I moved to another country and travel around and how this affects my life. Do I feel at home everywhere, or nowhere at all.
The obvious reason for immigration are the bad taxes in my country. But I think I always wanted to live abroad, explore, discover and find adventure. I settled on Italy, it's a beautiful country, good food and a nice-sounding language I can’t speak. I figured I would try to learn it but life got in the way (as usual). I live in a small village with approximately 2000 residents, and probably about 20 that speak English. You can imagine it is difficult to build a social life here, I am doomed to live like a hermit, or learn the language --> Hermit it is!
At the moment a poker friend lives with me with whom I lived before, so I have someone to actually talk to in real life. But even if I live here alone or travel around by myself I don’t feel lonely. For some reason Facebook, Whatsapp or Skype is enough for me to keep loneliness away. I’m used to no human interaction, I’m not sure if this is a positive or negative development. In the movie Cast away Tom Hanks turns his volleyball into a person to communicate with. My phone is my Mr. Wilson. Without it I think my life will be a lot more difficult and more lonely. I remember the scene he loses Mr. Wilson, I imagine I would feel the same emotions losing my phone even though it’s not completely the same. Through my phone I connect with friends and family but it is still just an object even though it feels different to me.
Right now I’m planning to travel to South America for a while in 2014, start in Colombia and go from there. My Spanish is better than my Italian, I am going to force myself to take some Spanish lessons while I am there. Even though it seems like I’m living the dream by going anywhere I want and do whatever I want, when I want it. It doesn’t feel like that to me. I don’t really have “dreams” anymore. I just do whatever sounds like fun or new to me. I don’t think I appreciate the options and possibilities I have got as much as I should. I have no clue how to change that. I try to “stop and smell the roses” in small moments, like a beautiful sunset or on a nice autumn day like today when I can see the vineyards changing colors. I know happiness is in the small things in life, and that’s what I am trying realize on a daily basis. But I want to enjoy the highlights of life too. I realize I am in the prime of my life, and I’m doing all the things people dream they could do, or would have done in their life. And it’s frustrating that I can’t find joy or happiness in that. Don’t get me wrong, I am not depressed or unhappy. I just feel I’m not getting maximum value out of my life. I’ve thought about going back to Holland, but I am scared that in the future I will regret all the opportunities I missed. Also I’m not even sure I will find peace of mind and happiness there. I rather regret the things I did do, than the things I didn’t do. This makes me kind of restless.
Because I moved to another country I have lost some friends, and some ties with family got lost. But the friendships I maintained grew stronger. I make an effort to keep in touch and when I visit Holland I spend quality time with them. Some friends already visited me abroad, and I’m sure more will follow. I have a small brother and sister (13 and 9 years old) and I regret that I have to see them growing up through facebook. A couple of months ago I was in Holland and my brother suddenly had a lower voice. Which made me happy because slowly he is growing into a man, but at the same time made me realize I am missing their childhood. But traveling around the world also gave me the opportunity to meet many interesting people. Some of them I am happy to call my friends. While traveling you meet a lot more open minded people, people with a similar way of life, people with similar views on life.
Traveling definitely gives me a unique life experience, even though I’m uncertain it will be useful in my future life. It made me practice my social skills. Talk to strangers every day while traveling and I still do, now that I’m back in Europe. During my travels I also found a new way of life which fits me well for now: “life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. If you stay in your comfort zone life will become boring. I need to reach out of my comfort zone to feel excitement and to feel alive! Even though I see so many new places and things, it all feels the same. It’s because I am already comfortable going from place to place and live in strange countries so it in my comfort zone. I have to find it in different more extreme things or I will be bored out of my mind very soon. But it can also be in very simple things. Like start an awkward conversation about something that bothers you or makes you curious. Or you see a good looking girl on the street and you just walk up to her to say “hi”. The more things you do that are out of your comfort zone, the wider your comfort zone will grow.
So when will I be done with traveling and where will I settle? These are questions I ask myself every day and I can’t come up with a satisfying answer. I know traveling is currently just a way to kill boredom and honestly I am just making sure I wont regret not traveling for when I no longer can. . I made a very long bucket list with countries I want to visit and things I want to do, which should keep me occupied for at least another couple of years. This should give me enough time to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Maybe I will just fall in love somewhere and just stay there forever.. That actually sounds like a pretty solid plan to me.
A friend send me this quote by Imam Shafi’l RH this week. I found some comfort in it and hope my restlessness is normal in some way.
“The intelligent and refined find no rest in dwelling in one place,
So leave your homeland and travel far away!
Travel and you will meet new people replacing those left behind,
And tire yourself out, because it makes life worth living!
I have seen that water stagnates when it stands still,
Yet when I runs it is sweet and pure.
And if a lion left not its land,
It would not catch its prey
And if the arrow left not the bow,
It would not hit its aim
And if the sun moved not across the horizon,
People the world over would have tired of the sky”
- Imam Shafi’I RH
How are u doing Khaliesje? Just found this thread, very nice posts! 
Sad there is not Part 4+, but maybe u gonna blog again...?
I usally only write every couple of months. When I feel like I have actually something to write about 
This week I will upload a new one on here:
https://mortpoker.blogspot.com
I just came across the blog and can relate to it in so many ways that its unreal!!!
Awesome job writing all your thoughts down.
Please continue updating and write more things in future.
I will respond more in detail when I read everything in those 2 pages
All the best
Morten again awesome blog and will share some of my thoughts with your updates.
Part 1
Having a GF - relationships in general
I agree with so many things you said about this. It is very hard to find the girl that will support everything you do and yet understand it also.
Since woman are emotional creatures, they tend to respond to everything with emotions rather than rationally. That pretty much means if you are on a DS and feel like working on your game more to the point you are obsessed about poker to fix your leaks and increase win rate, in woman's head that is interpreted as " I must have done something wrong to turn him away from me" or "He must have found another girl" or "He simply is not into me anymore"
I share your thoughts also and catch myself when I am with the girl if she is super emotional trying to find rational solution or even like you said thinking of DS still etc
The best solution for having GF or relationship in general that I can offer and find useful is:
- Brake up with girls that are taking your energy, making you "regret" not paying attention enough to them, always questioning wondering if you are into them and such things
- Find the girl that will accept your job 1st , stress that it brings, obligations that it has, ups and downs and everything that comes with it.
- This girl will follow you both in DS and upswings and support you no matter what; she will also know to give you space when you need cause I am sure when you are in DS you want to work on the game harder not discuss some emotional chick stuff ♦
- Girls in general are more emotional then rational so always find a way to appeal to their emotions rather than rationally (take her out to dinner or prepare one to show her how much you care, have more sex with her - that will keep her in tact for a while ♦
Finally, I can relate to this with my ex gf very much so. We have great fun, great sex, we can talk a lot, but when it comes to poker she can't understand it like I wrote above. It will always be stuff like " How come we saw each other 3 times last week and then this week you couldn't see me once?"
So now I am single, seeing her on occasions just for sex cause simply I don't see myself with that girl long term.
Rounders quotes are the nuts and that one from Worm in particular hit the spot!
Woman are the rake and no matter what somebody else says this is the 99% true.
You have to be extremely lucky to find that 1% woman who will support you understand poker and lay off your back (give you space to have your freedom) for this to work.
Everything else is just bunch of stories from grinders, coaches, moderators where each of them has in the sentence something like " Would have played/studied/coached/worked more but my GF/Wife/Fiancee is... "
I am firm believer that in life for relationships to work you have to have very solid foundation. If foundation is not strong, meaning girl doesn't support your poker career and understand how to adjust to you, get out of it while you can and seek another girl.
Otherwise things will just get worse as time goes and this "hidden" thing will keep on dragging forever. It is the same like in poker, if you don't have solid pre flop game plan, how do you expect to make money post flop?
If you find woman you love and get along with great, marry her and make kids. This will keep her busy and I am sure a lot of married guys with kids will confirm that ♦
Will respond later to parts 2 and 3 also
Thanks for your indept reply IvicaIliev77! I enjoy reading your thoughts about this subject as well. I can happily say I found a gf now who supports me in all ways. She is a psychologist, so has much more understanding about the mental side of the game. And can even mental coach me sometimes )
I am curious om your thought on the other blogs. And my new blog is almost finished. It will be online soon on blogspot. I will post here when It's online
Originally posted by Khaliesje
Thanks for your indept reply IvicaIliev77! I enjoy reading your thoughts about this subject as well. I can happily say I found a gf now who supports me in all ways. She is a psychologist, so has much more understanding about the mental side of the game. And can even mental coach me sometimes )I am curious om your thought on the other blogs. And my new blog is almost finished. It will be online soon on blogspot. I will post here when It's online
Glad you enjoyed it man
Also very happy to hear that you found GF who support you in all ways.
This is super difficult for hard working poker professionals. I mean us who spend 8+ hours a day in the office grinding/coaching others/working on our game.
You have to find time to go out meet woman and once you do you gotta get that upswing and meet the right one ♦
Will write in near future about parts 2 and 3 for sure.
Look forward to future updates!