[AlanBostick]

Here are a fact that essentially everyone is leaving out of this discussion:

To make up for having to pay one's own medical benefits, self-employment tax, etc., one needs to earn about 30% more self-employed than would receive in employee salary and wages. Thus, if you currently have a job that pays US$40K per year, you would want to bring in US$52K or so to maintain the same effective income level.

People who are talking about needing US$100K to 200K to replace a US$50K annual salary are indicating that they have absurdly high risk premiums. Which strikes me as bizarre, considering that we're all here to discuss poker. Hello! We're gamblers, right?

I'm in a funny situation myself. I'm self-employed, so I have to cover my own benefits, SE tax, etc., already. I've just reviewed my poker numbers for the past two years and discovered that my hourly rate in the local $15-$30 game (2BB/hour) is about twice what I typically can charge my customers. What's more, the game is pretty much always there, 7 days a week, with no hustling for new customers, no deadlines, very few expenses. I'm staked for the game, and I'm in good financial shape otherwise. The idea of quitting the hustling for customers and just playing cards for a while is looking awfully tempting.