The Meet and Greet
So I've been reading and posting at livepokerforum for a while now and have found the advice and insight to be on the whole honest and helpful. I don't know how different or similar my situation is to other people out there or if anyone cares to read up on my poker journey, it's doubtful I'll be relating any unusual sexual encounters as AlexMR has promised to do on his blog , but hopefully I keep it interesting enough that people will be entertained. My main compulsion for doing this though is self motivation and reflection. I think better when I talk to other people about things or when I write them down for myself to read. So really it's all about me! hehe

My Situation:
So here's my situation. I'm 36, married with three fantastic kids. I'm an IT security engineer making over six figures a year. I've been playing live poker regularly for about three years now and have matured from a total novice to a very solid cash game player.

I don't play online much, just on Pokerstars for small money or $5 sit and goes when I'm craving a little action. I just don't seem to have the patience to play well online, I'm more geared for the live table aspect I guess. I'm fortunate that where I live the poker boom has created several regular games in the area of varying buy-ins. In fact, there are multiple games to choose from every night from $50 max buy in to once a week $10/$25 no limit on the buy-in game that I hope I have the bankroll for at some point. I'm also within semi-reasonable driving distance of Atlantic City for regular casino action and frequent the Borgata, Tropicana or Taj. I started at the $50 games and now play at the $500 games winning very consistently.

Playing sporadically since Sept my bankroll has increased from $1,000 to over $10,000 as of this post. I'm making a commitment to playing at least two nights a week for now.

The Goal:
Solid semi-pro earnings and who knows where that will lead. Well, that's the realistic goal anyway. The unrealistic, but still possible, goal is to have a big enough bankroll to play and win at levels high enough to make at least as much playing poker as I currently make in my IT job. The biggest barriers to success are the fact that I have a family to support and that I am in the fortunate position of making a very good living now.

So, you might ask, "Dennerman, you make six figures a year that's awesome, why try to give that up playing poker for a living?" To which I would answer, sure it's a good living and I enjoy what I do, but I love playing poker. I mean, I really, really love it. All my wits and cunning against other people for cash prizes man, that's fantastic! Also, I'm good at this game. I've always been good at 'people' in general, and so much of no limit poker is about playing the people that I feel I have some natural aptitude here that has been honed over the past few years into sharp skills.

The Business Plan
So I thought to myself, given my situation I should approach poker as a business and even form a business plan. It's not like no one else in the world never took a bit of a risk in order to realize even greater gains. You just have to do it smart. If a person has a good job and a family but really wants to start and own their own business it's not an unrealistic goal. A smart plan and realistic expectations make a good foundation.

I figure the foundation of my poker business plan is cash reserves for the household, cash for a bankroll and the skill to make money at high enough levels to make a good living. How do I accomplish this? Well, I can do it all at the same time. I have a target set for household cash reserves (a little over three months worth of bills in the bank, let's call it $20k) and a target set for a bankroll I'll need (somewhat nebulous target but roughly $50k). If I can earn enough for both just through playing poker then I'll be confident that I also have the skills necessary to make an attempt at being a full time pro.

What I Don't Know
This section is really me laying out for myself, and anyone else to comment on, what the real unknowns and risks are for me. For instance, I don't know any professional poker players therefore I can't really just ask one of them questions about the job, the life, etc. I've read what I could find online and in books and that's good stuff but I still don't know things like:
- At what level do I need to play winning poker at to make $90k-$100k a year playing cards? Making $2k a week playing at $1k buy in games doesn't seem unrealistic, but seems much more doable at a higher level.
- Is my targeted bankroll big enough? I want to be able to play at a level where I can pay the bills and still grow my stake, is what I have planned enough for that.
- If I'm not working a traditional day job my bills go up for things like health insurance. Although I'm likely to get a break on my income taxes which may more than cover that.
- Do I need regular casino trips to play at the levels I want, how often will those need to be if the local games can't sustain the income I'm looking for?

Let the Fun Begin
So there it is in black and white. It feels good to write it all down. I welcome any comments for feedback. I'll keep this up to date with how things are going. Right now I can easily play two nights a week and not have poker adversely effect my work or home life. I could push more nights into the schedule at some point, but not just yet. My wife is incredibly supportive, she trusts that I won't do anything stupid so my biggest barrier is probably an asset in my case.

With a family I'd bump your req's considerably. Prolly 30k in household savings or what not and like an 80k bankroll. You don't wanna be the guy that comes home after losing three or four buy-ins and yells at his kids because he's feeling scared about his roll.

Thanks for the excellent feedback from everyone, it's all very appreciated. My first week after posting has gone well. I have set a very loose goal of $1,000 a week playing those two nights and I did a good deal better than that last week. I set the goal for a couple of reasons, first I'm a goal oriented kind of person, I like personal benchmarks so I can feel like I'm making progress. Second, I wanted to put a little pressure on myself to get a taste of what it would be like if I were playing for a living. If I feel like I'm not earning my target amount how is that going to effect my game, my mood or my love of playing? It's one thing to tell myself I'll be ok with it, it's another to actually have it happen and see how I respond. I would have done even better this week but I got a nice AK hand against someone who hit trips on the turn. I was able to fold eventually but not until I had made a big re-raise back at him to see if he was for real. I put a post about that one up in the NL cash game board.

Random Thoughts
Is there a better feeling than sitting at the table wearing a superman T shirt and having a massive triangle of chips in front of you knowing you have everyone at the table covered? That felt good.

Speaking of personal benchmarks, it was a pretty good feeling rubber banding my first $10k brick of hundreds a few weeks ago. I thought about what it would be like to be playing at levels where I'm tossing one of those in as my bet. Ah to dream the dream.

Responses to Comments
Godlikeroy: Thanks for taking the time to make the post, you make some good points and don't worry I didn't take it like you wanted to crush my dream...sniff. jk. A lot of the advice I've seen given in the member journals is meant to be sobering to people who have stars in their eyes. That's not a bad thing at all.

As for how many hours I'm willing to play, I'd expect a typical week would run anywhere from 30-50 hours of play over 4-6 days.

As to the games available and the Internet. There are a lot of games locally around here. I'd expect to play at those a lot of the time and make a couple trips a month to Atlantic City as well. They're trying to get a referrendum passed at a place about an hour away to allow poker and table games so if that goes down, and it'll take a couple of years probably, then I'd even have a local-ish casino to play in. I'd consider the Internet game, but I still don't know if it's for me. I've had about $100 in Pokerstars for over a year. I win some and lose some and play just for fun and haven't made a deposit or withdrawl in all that time. I'd have to really try harder to take it more seriously if I were going to be a good online player.

You asked if I quit my job job how easy would it be to get another one? Actually it would be very easy for me. I'm very advanced in my field of IT security and engineering with lots of industry contacts and a resume that can blow people's doors off. Hell, I might even get more money by changing jobs for all I know. Also, my initial plan would be to take a leave of absence from my current job for, "personal reasons." That way if poker weren't working out I could just go back to my old place. Again, my family is the most important thing, there has to be a safety net.

Juskimo:
Hmm, -20 bi swing in one month would be pretty harsh. I could do it if I had the cash reserves that are my goal, but I guarantee if I'm down 20 buy ins in a month I'll be pretty sobering. Of course if that happens after 5+ months of playing winning poker it would be much easier to take in stride. If it happened right out of the gate that's when I'd have to re-evaluate things.

Coming home with less money some nights is part of doing business. If I owned my own small business there might be months where the store income doesn't cover the operating costs, especially if it's an industry that has up and down seasons during the year. I think that if I treated poker the same way I'd be ok mentally. A down week or month is just something to bounce back from and doesn't cripple you if you have the bankroll to weather those things.

All this is of course if one has proven to be a winning player over the long run. There's no way to weather a storm if you're a losing player.

Well this isn't as fun a post to make but I want to chronicle the bad as well as the good. I had a short but very profitable streak of six winning sessions in a row snapped Wednesday night. I was averaging a sweet $200 per hour win rate during that time that I knew wasn't going to last. I got stuck for just over one buy-in so it wasn't disastrous by any means, but definitely a let down. I'm 11-2 winning to losing sessions over my last 13 games and I'll play again tonight and hopefully get back on track.

Wednesday was just one of those nights where it doesn't feel like there's much you can do. If I hit a big Queen I ran into a set, if I hit a big King I ran into two pair. I had three pocket pairs all night, 55, 66, and 77. Just only a couple of top hands to play with. I actually won my biggest pot with [5s] when I straddled and no one raised. I flopped open ended, called a raise and hit my straight on the turn. It was actually a really nice play I think because although I wasn't getting the 4:1 pot odds to call the flop bet, I correctly predicted that if I did hit the straight my opponent was someone who wouldn't be sure that I had made it and would likely still bet big at me. This gave me the implied odds to call his raise and it worked out.

I made another nice move after flopping Broadway with the flop had KQJ. I correctly put my opponent on two pair and made a river bet of $100 into a $60 pot. This of course appeared to be a gross over bet and steal attempt on my part, but with the two pair he couldn't let it go and paid me off.

My worst move was overplaying KJ after not having gotten anything decent to work with for a long time. I need to remember to continue to be patient and play a winning game even when the deck is cooling me off.

Back to winning ways. I can say one thing about myself, I do manage to learn from my mistakes. Last night's game was a $300 buy in $3/$3 game against some good competition. For example, one person at the table had just finished second in the Pokerstars Sunday Million and another one only plays poker for a living right now. I managed to more than double my buy in which is my normal bechmark. I might even make a post about this in the regular NL forums, what are people's normal goals and targets at the table? I know at limit hold em people try to average a certain number of BB per hour. For me at the no limit tables my goal is to double my buy in by the end of the session. If I make more than that's great, if I make less then I probably made too many mistakes and bad decisions.

When I say I learn from my mistakes I'm referring to going through a cold deck or slow patch where I might get bored and want to overplay a marginal hand or a good hand in a questionable situation. Last night started out very up and down, I couldn't really accumulate chips consistently. After a while I wondered if it was going to be like my previous session where I was just never going to get enough to work with to have a really good night. If I'm not showing down some winning hands it makes it very hard to bluff or make moves at other times. Well, I repeated my mantra of play solid, winning poker and to be patient and be aggressive when the good hands came. And eventually it worked out.

Late night after the stacks were getting deep after people had gone bust and new players sat down and others had rebought a few times (average stack is now around $700). A couple of key hands that worked well together and where I played my opponent really well were:
I get [Ks] from the small blind and after a few people limp the player to my right on the button makes a big raise. I just call trying not to show too much strength and I correctly predict that the raise was big enough to make the limpers all fold so it's heads up to see the flop. The flop didn't have an A so I assumed I was good. I lead out with a bet knowing he was going to have to raise me with any overpair. He did raise and I came over the top with an all-in. He went into the tank for a long while and eventually folded. I didn't show my cards and he was clearly irritated that he had to fold what he said was QQ.

And then two hands later...

I get [Ts] while one off the button. There's a raise from someone early and five callers including myself see the flop. The flop is very good for me with [7s][5d]. It's checked around and the turn comes . It's checked to the player to my right that I had just beaten out of a big pot with my Kings and he makes a pot sized bet which I and one other person call. The river is a brick and player to my right makes it $100. Normally I might make a value raise here just doubling his raise, or even half his raise knowing he'd almost certainly call. But instead I come over the top with an all-in, just like I had done to him two hands before. The other caller folded and player to my right goes into the tank once more. I just know he's got something good and it's killing him that I've come over the top of his big bet twice in three hands. Eventually his ego won't let him be pushed around and he makes the call showing [4d]. The that came on the turn giving me the second nut flush made his set and cost him the rest of his stack.

Feels good to put another win in the books and I'm looking forward to my next game.