Looking for some advice on the topic of leaving my job and going fulltime poker. I've been on the fence about it for awhile now and I feel as if im ready to make the polar plunge or I may never do it. I'm hoping the discussion here will help further my reassurance on my decision or help provide some other angles or insight I may not have thought of or should put more weight into.

Just to give a little background info on me, im almost 28 and live in Virginia. I've played poker somewhere around 5 years now. The bulk of my playing time will be live at the new MGM, maryland live, and borgata with the majority at the closest one to me (MGM about 50 miles). I would be mainly playing 1/2 and mixing in some 2/5 shots here and there. I'm still going to play online some but want the main focus to be live. The job I would be leaving is a $16/h night shift job working in a 0 degree warehouse. I have a serious girlfriend I will end up marrying soon and a family to plan for not too far in the future, she is supportive if I decide to make the jump but cautious because of obvious reasons. I will need to earn about $1,200/month to cover my expenses. I think I can also bet sports and play blackjack profitably but want that to be on a very small scale and not factored into my main income.

The independence of being your own boss and having an open work schedule is very attractive to me. I apologize I probably didnt write this very well and maybe left out some information needed but any feed back will definitely be appreciated. Any locals to the area add me on twitter at @jnolanpoker

Appreciate the responses so far guys. To help give a little more information to the thread on concerns ive seen posted. I book a win in roughly 80% of sessions I play for wins anywhere between $200-900 and never book a loss for more than $400. To be more specific when I touched on playing blackjack and betting sports profitably I meant as I have the blackjack mathamatical chart memorized so I know what to do on every scenerio and might play it once a week. As far as sports go im talking about $20 a bet and maybe looking to make a few hundred a month from it.

As far as my job goes its a bonus that I just have a regular run of the mill job and not a career im leaving and if I take a slight pay cut or possibly make a little more to make my life more enjoyable im all for it. I grossed 32k at my job this year so I brought home maybe 23k so if I could make around 25k playing cards that would cover all my expenses and leave me some left over. I think the timing of this plays a big role also since I more or less just have me to look out for right now and in maybe two years ill have a wife/kid/etc to consider. My short term maybe long term goal would be to move up to playing 5/10 regularly and not live at the 1/2 forever.

You need a decent roll saved up, and 6 months to a year of living expenses on top of that before considering taking shots at it. Probably 6-10k for 1/2 and 10-15k to live on by what you listed. Even then, I'd suggest making the transition slowly...maybe look around for part-time jobs which you'd like doing to break up the poker monontony (preferably with room to move up in the future) in case poker doesn't work out for whatever reason. The huge gaps in employment might look kinda odd if/when you were to apply for jobs later on.

Tbh it's probably best to wait until you've moved up in stakes, and that's much easier to do when you aren't having to spend it on bills and such all the time. Study hard, grind online for practice(and a lil extra cash maybe), and try to work your way up to 5/10 live. Try to avoid sports except for maybe a lil fun on games you'll already be watching, and definitely avoid blackjack. If you're gonna add extra variance in there like that, you may as well take shots at some small buyin live mtts instead.

Probably the main thing you have to consider is that poker is not going to be a life long career anymore. The games will (more than likely) continue to get more difficult and mean that your income decreases year on year in relative terms. This means that you will be back in the job market after a few years of nothing but "professional gambler" to show for it on a C.V. Obviously everybody on here can appreciate that the skills involved both on and off the table, but to employers it unfortunately does not look good at all. I hate to be a downer but that is the reality of the situation.

This thread is an example of why you shouldn't post the same thing in two different areas. I responded in the other thread earlier and did not know about this thread so when I clicked on this thread thinking I was in the other thread I thought a lot of posts had been deleted.

Getting back on track, a $16 an hour job isn't something to walk away from lightly.

Yeah not to mention he has two account on 2+2 and is also a scammer who robbed me for $40USD for a site to site transfer. Dont trust this guy @jnolanpoker