Poker is a strange bird. Honestly, I’m not sure what it is about the game that is so seductive. Is it the money? Well, for many people, yes it is the money. I rarely play for money nowadays, what with not having any, and yet I still have this yearning to play.

I’m not a gambler. I don’t like to risk more than I can afford. I don’t even like to risk money for entertainment. The skill element of poker is what keeps me interested. 99% of a casino floor is wasted on me. But the poker room draws me like a magnet.

Is it the social interaction? The constant psychological warfare? The easily quantifiable competition? Or the thrill of the gamble, regardless of stakes?

What is it about this game that makes you want to put it ahead of other, more important hobbies or activities? I’m a musician, and largely due to the time I’ve invested in poker, I haven’t played a show or written a song in almost 6 months. But I play poker at least once a week, more if you count online play.

I even face a constant, deeply tempting battle to place poker ahead of family. On the surface, this sickens me. Yet I continue to find myself trying to justify my way into another weekly game.

I will never let any hobby– poker, music, golf, anything– become a destructive force in my marriage… but I feel like I’ve flirted with just that with poker. I’ve slowed way down on the music, haven’t touched golf clubs in months… all to make room for poker. But I haven’t done enough adjusting of priorities to properly compensate the time drain on my most valuable of relationships.

The funny thing is, I look it over and I don’t see the solution as just simply ‘quitting poker’, or ‘cutting back on poker’. That’s attacking a symptom and ignoring the real problem. I can play the same amount of poker, even more perhaps, and maintain a thriving, deepening marriage relationship by adjusting the entirety of the priorities, and addressing the heart of the matter: how does my commitment to my hobbies communicate to my wife? or, more appropriately, what does it communicate? Too much time checking e-mail and watching TV can be just as destructive.

So I’m not quitting poker. I probably won’t even cut back all that much. But my priorities have to adjust. I will not let poker become a mistress.