LG John

Since graduating from university with a degree in Town & Country Planning I have spent the last 7 years working in a planning capacity. Of those 7 years I would say that most of them have been pretty much wished away living for the weekends to break up the boredom and monotony of a completely uninteresting job.

However, that all changed recently when I took the decision to hand in my notice to pursue poker play as a means of making a living. I’m loathed to say ‘professional poker’ because I don’t believe I am qualified to make that claim until I have proven myself over several years of results. As some of you will know I have played poker part-time to generate extra income for a number of years. I have been actively building a bankroll with a view to taking a shot for around a year now and I have established a win rate that suggests I can start out making more than I did in my job. Thereafter, there is lots of room for growth but it is impossible to predict where my path will take me.

This is a huge step for me and there is a great deal of risk involved. I believe I can do this, but I won’t allow myself to ignore the potential risks and pitfalls of which there are many. I’m committed to putting in the hours playing and learning as much as I can about the game and this certainly hasn’t been a rash decision. Nevertheless, the prospect of complete failure leaves my mouth dry!

You are probably wondering why I’m telling you all this. Well, there’s no real reason I guess. I’ve talked about it on here in the past and I have moaned about my discontent in my planning work – I guess I just wanted to stick my hand up and say, ‘look, look, I grew some stones and went for it’ Most of you don’t care, some of you might and I know a few of you do. For the last year I have been keeping a poker blog to document my poker path – it has been a fun and useful tool and I intend to fully document my transition to full-time play through it. I’ve included the link for those that are in anyway interested in keeping track of how I’m doing. As always I am brutally honest in my blog so what you read is what happened or how I’m feeling.

The future is completely unknown to me but I find that to be really exciting. If I stayed in my job I could tell you to the penny what I’d be earning a year from now! At this time my range of wealth a year from now is quite feasibly from flat broke to $ millionaire and everything in between.

I would say wish me luck but that’s not really what I need. I need to play solid, skilled poker at all times and for enough hours of the day

Saxo Boy’s Poker Blog

Kenny

P.S. If I’m loaded a year from now I’ll risk an engine failure to film and prove once and for all that fuel surge exits in classic scoobies
P.P.S Tomorrow is my final working day and then I'm off on annual leave for two weeks! Going to be pretty emotional tomorrow

Nido

Good luck anyway

Jamjar

Go for it mate, you only live once

Drunken Bungle Whore

You know what? I quit my job just over a week ago to set up my own business and, although I'm working hard and things are looking very positive, I am of course bricking it to a certain extent. Now I see you've quit your job to make money from playing poker and my decision doesn't seem quite so rash by comparison!

Good luck SB - you only live once - and as I've said many times over the past couple of months, if it all goes t1ts up I'll just have to get a proper job again!

Suresh

Giving up a steady income stream for a variable on is taking quite a gamble IMHO

Good luck anyway!

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Good on you Kenny, good luck mate

ronjeramy

iTrader: (1)

out of interest if you don't mind saying, how much do you have in you poker pot and how much do you need to "make" to live every month? i'm going to have a look at your blog, and good luck i hope things work out

LG John

Ron, to answer question a) not as much as I'd like but enough to handle variance as long as I don't do anything stupid like tilt like a mad un'. As for question b) once, the Impreza is sold that should offer about £250-300 a month in relief meaning that my bottom line will be around £1300 a month. That would be TIGHT though! To make a go of poker long term I'd really need to be making £25k a year on average (just over £2k a month) and even at that I'd need to have a growth potential.

Thanks for the support as as for the 'you only live once' comments that was a big influencing factor. It really came down to me concluding that if you don't try you can't gain. Branson didn't build the Virgin empire but sitting wondering if he could sell some CD's from a megastore.

unclebuck

No pun intended.... ?

JTaylor

Nice one, Kenny; you'll make it work!

dnc

Good luck to you SB! Wish I had the ***** to do something similar. I think risk-wise you would stand a decent chance of securing decent employment if it goes pear shaped. Just come out with the 'x time spent travelling' if ever you need to go through an interview again.

Now go the whole hog and leave this island for poker playing in the sun

DNC

LG John

That's the plan - I figure failure will come, if it's going to come, within the first 6-12 months meaning I can write off my period of not being employed as 'travel'. I'll just have to brush up on some places I've been, seen and things I've done (all of which I've not)

jiffthejiffmanjaffa

iTrader: (10)

What POKER site will you be playing on? will you play on a number of different sites or just one?

RRH

Fir play to you chap- hope it works out

simon.

LG John

I play Full Tilt mainly at the moment but have accounts with many others and will generally try to play then in a staggered format to take advantage of the 'looser' periods on each site (i.e they play different at different times of the day). I'll try to break my days down into 3 chunks of two hour sessions with a 30-60 minute review period at the end of each to assess my big losing and big winning hands of the session for any sub-optimal play.

D.K.1

Wow!

A very brave thing you're doing SB, best wishes and good luck! I hope it works out for you

Markus

Kenny,
Bloody good luck to you Sir!

Luan Pra bang

good luck and I hope you saved enough to not have to draw on your bank roll for a few months whle you get warmed up to full time play. Remember that full time play will require more concentration which may take a while to get used to. Also if you do have to go back to full time employment go with the otherside in the planning battle. Its alot more fun.

LG John

Again thanks for the support - LPB, I plan to not have to withdraw at all for the first 4-6 months. Hopefully I can climb out the level I'm in through the one above and onto the one after that in that period of time. Point taken re: concentration which is why I'm splitting my day up into smaller chunks and not trying to play silly 5+ hour sessions without some R&R time.

NotoriousREV

You're crazy. I like it. Go for it and good luck!

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

good luck saxo boy.

i only wish i had the gonads to quit my oppresive warehouse job, and persue something where my real talents lie, in the design industry. but a weekly wage that scrapes the bills away keeps me on the graveyard shift.

scousefly

The Zohan

Good luck chap

Luke-Avfc

You've gota do what you feel's right for you.

Best of luck to ya Buddy ..

Gav

Get in there Kenny, i wish you all the best in this


P.s - i won my first MTT yesterday so i'm hot on your heels

XRS

Good luck to you. I sold my STi IV to a guy nearly three years ago who had given up working as a travel agent to do the same thing, and he seems to be doing well.

So you won't be on your own.

SiPie

About time mate..........

Takes guts to do what you are doing and good luck

davegtt

I know youve been considering this for sometime and I realy hope it works out for you, afterall, what do you have to lose apart from money? Its a very brave and big step to talk and well done to that man making it

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

well hats off to you for doing something you want to do and bugger the consequences