Just One More Day, Just One More Day...

One last day to kill at the day job before fleeing for the holidays. I'm taking off a week and a half to burn unused vacation days that I'll otherwise lose, which combined with company holiday days means I won't have to step foot in this place for about 15 days or so after today. To which I can only reply: sweeeeeeeeeeeeet.

So I have to admit that I'm seriously considering giving the full-time poker gig a go, when I slip the surly bonds of the day job in a few months. I've tried to avoid that line of thinking in the past, for all sorts of reasons, but I'm reaching a certain point where I think it's equally foolish to rule it out. Especially as far as doing it as a three month trial run, after which I'll reassess everything and see where I'm at.

Reasons to Give Playing Poker Full-Time a Whirl for 3 Months When My Current Cube Monkery Existence Ends

1) I'm clocking in at 1.67 BB/100 at 15/30 and above, over 31,928 hands. I completely and utterly realize that's not the largest sample size in the world, and that I shouldn't draw any conclusions from it, for that reason. Completely understand that. That said, as much as it pains the modest side of me to say this, I know what I'm doing, and I just can't see that number dropping below .75 BB/100 (especially if you add in rakeback-propping), which is about what I currently make, on an hourly basis, playing 15/30 and above.

2) My eyes are pretty wide open. Grasp what a grind it'd be playing full-time? Check. Understand the realities of variance, taxes, etc.? Yep. Willing to simply grind online with no notions or desire of fame and taking shots at much larger games? Yep. Understand the horribly unfulfilling nature of clicking buttons all day? Yep. Have the ability to park my ass in front of the comupting box for ridiculous lengths of time? Yep.

3) I've saved enough money and have enough supplemental income streams from my freelancing/Web endeavors to simply not work for three months, at all. Aside from that, I'm adequately bankrolled to play 30/60, as far as what's currently in the online bankroll. There's absolutely no external pressure to make a single solitary dollar from the three months of full-time poker play, as far as paying bills and what-not.

4) Why the hell not? If there's any time in my life to do something like this, now is it. I can get health insurance via my wife's plan for pretty much the same price I'm currently paying. I don't sacrifice anything, as the only bright spot of my current job is the flexible scheduling and telecommuting two days a week. In the grand scheme of things, I really don't make that much money, nor do I have any career with this company or within this industry. If I were making $150,000/year or had an MBA or any other professional bankroll built up, then yeah, I'd have to ponder long and hard on turning my back on that. As is, there's really not much that I'm giving up.

5) I'd also have more time to devote to other personal business ventures, as I don't necessarily envision myself playing 8 full hours every day. The ability to generate some income from poker would make the potential transition to being self-employed that much easier and provide a bridge that would make the sudden cessation of a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks much less traumatic.

6) When I exit Cubelandia, my payout for our annual bonus + accrued vacation time will be close to three month's salary. So, in many ways, taking three months off to play poker is a freeroll, if you use a little imagination.

7) While not 100% gung ho, ScurvyWife has given the plan the official thumbs-up, if I choose to pursue it.

8) This sounds bad, but there's little danger in this resulting in poker becoming a grind for me, and not as much fun as it once was. That train left awhile ago, as far as the joy produced from simply playing poker. I like the competitive side of it, true, but there's not much simple pokery joy left to grind away.

Reasons Not to Give Playing Poker Full-Time a Whirl for 3 Months When My Current Cube Monkery Existence Ends

1) Stability. A guaranteed paycheck is very nice, especially when I supplement it with poker winnings and other income. It greatly accelerates the curve towards potential early retirement, especially since it's injecting principal more rapidly early on.

2) If even reasonably sucessful, the three month stint might ruin me as far as getting another similar day job, in the corporate world. This one I actually worry about, as a job like my current one is only barely tolerable because I've conditioned myself to accept it. Three months of not wearing pants and sleeping and waking up whenever I want would make it very, very hard to even grudgingly re-enter the workforce. This actually worries me more than anything, as the long-term goal is to one day get another job, at some point.

3) Stress. My life is really, really low stress right now. And pretty damn happy. Part of me wonders about the wisdom in rocking that boat, especially in relation to playing poker and exposing myself to potential stress-inducing events like dropping 150BB in a month, due to nothing more than plain ol' variance. I could get another day job, be much happier working for a sane, reasonable employer, and continue to motor on stress-free, as I've been doing.

I'm sure I'm missing a few, but that's basically the pros and cons rolling around in my head. Any thoughts or comments would be highly appreciated, as I'm sure I'm overlooking more than a few things. Any decision is still a few months off, so I'm still very much in the roll-things-around-in-my-head-stage.

Edit: helixx does raise the very good point about the potential con of a gap in my resume, if/when I do re-enter the workforce. I hadn't considered that, honestly, but it's sort of a weird simultaneous pro/con. I touched on this briefly in another post, but one potential plan that my wife and I have been discussing is living in Curacao/Belize/Costa Rica for a year or two, and the possibility (probably a small one, but there) that I could land a gig with an online operator based there, doing affiliate manager/SEO/content creation/player retention work. So while resume gaps could be a real concern, it also could potentially be a resume booster (or at least something that wouldn't hurt me to list), as far as taking time off to play poker full-time, given the nature of potential jobs I might be pursuing.

I also have the MFA gathering dust, and one potential way of filling a resume gap is through the trusty saved-up-money-and-took-time-off-to-write-the-great-American-novel river bluff that many people seem to respect, whether or not it's actually, you know, true.