Already a month has gone by and I've played probably only 1,500 hands in that time which is just terrible. Fortunately I've played reasonably well over those hands and have made a reasonable profit.

On the positive side things have eased up a bit at work recently and its perfectly feasible I can get back on track and start hitting the far higher number of hands I'd hoped each month.

My current goal is to get 80,000 hands into my PokerTracker in as short a time as possible (hopefully by June 21st). Currently I have about 7,500 hands in there (due to starting over on a new computer) and whilst my stats at the moment are good the sample size is ridiculously small.

Why 80,000 hands? Well, the simple truth is that I feel I may have an opportunity to turn to playing rather than working on poker as my main source of income. Its my son's first birthday in June and I'd love to be in the position to have an opportunity to change my work/lifestyle, to be able to spend a lot more time with him. He's growing up quickly and I really don't want to live the normal life of a father who during the week sees his kids of an evening and just puts them to bed. I feel Poker could give me an out.

This is not a flight of fantasy or rash decision based on some decent results. Year on year my profit has been solid and for at least the last two years my poker hourly rate has been greater than my working rate. I've spent several years honing my game, reading books, using sites like this and just steadily improving, waiting for an opportunity to give it a shot. Whilst I'm not a world-class player, I know that I'm far better than many of the opponents I encounter and my results bear testament to this. I'd also like a real crack at moving up slowly to higher stakes - employing strict bankroll management at all times! :O)

Late last year I spent time opening a USD bank account which is not a simple as you might think in the UK. This will allow me to withdraw from poker rooms without the exchange rate spread I've previously faced and also pay myself a monthly salary. Furthermore at the moment it's allowing me to exploit the dollars weakness :O)

What playing poker full time means for my career is difficult to say. On the one hand I have a very good job and a solid career progression ahead of me, whilst the other road would be stepping into a complete unknown. I have an MBA and MSc to fall back on a lot of experience, so even if Poker full-time was not for me, I should be able to find another job with hopefully not too much trouble.

Decisions.........decisions.

I've been considering kicking off a blog for a while and finally decided to get round to it. I'm hopeful I can use it to track my thoughts on poker and the progress that I make. Before we begin some stuff about me:n o

Life: Married with a 7 month old son, live in Greenwich, London

Work: I'm a Product Manager for a European Poker site

Poker: I've played for a few years and consider myself a pretty solid player. Played SNGs and MTTs for probably too long a period and although I was profitable in them, its only now that I've focused on cash that I feel I'm really learning again. I own and have read a ton of books and really believe in studying and improving your game. I play at Stars, Full Tilt, Party, Paradise, Ultimate and Betfair.

I'm a big believer in bankroll management and at the moment I'm comfortably staked for $1/$2 and hope by my birthday (Mid-March) that I'll be taking shots at $2/$4 etc.

I've set myself a ton of targets for 2008, more of which I'll divulge in the future but the most important one is the amount I get to play. I'm trying to hit around 10,000 hands a month and already three weeks in, I'm way behind the curve. My work this year has been manic and stressful and after 12 hour days of talking about poker as a business, its not always easy to face playing. That coupled with having a wonderful but demanding son has left me with my work cut out to reach 10k hands each month but I'll certainly try and give it my best shot.

Wish me luck :)