A few months ago Courtney Gee blogged on PokerListings about playing high-stakes poker against some of the best in the world on the PokerStars.com Big Game.

Courtney is continuing her quest never to work another 9-5 job by playing poker professionally and she's giving us the chance to follow her progress in her new blog right here!

Check out this intro post and keep your eyes peeled for weekly updates as Courtney throws off the shackles of the rat-race to pursue her dream of being a professional poker player  cheat poker!

My name is Courtney Gee - welcome to my new blog! You might already know me from a couple posts I wrote in February about my PokerStars Big Game experience. My story for being on the Big Game revolves around a goal to never work another 9 to 5 job ever again. I would like to use this blog to document my experience as I work to achieve this goal.

I'll try to give you some background info to explain why I have this goal, and hopefully it doesn't end up being too boring.

I went to the University of British Columbia and majored in Biochemistry. At the time I thought I wanted a career in the

health care industry. In my third year I realized that I absolutely hated what I was studying, but I felt like it was too late to quit. I decided to just finish up and leave with my BSc.

student loans and got amazing management experience.

My years with Student Works are important because they showed me what it's like to be my own boss and to have freedom with my job. I worked 14 hour days, but I decided EVERYTHING – what time I wanted to start, where I wanted to work, and who I wanted to work with.

I graduated a few months after my last year with Student Works. I was working in cell phone sales part-time, and I went full-time after I graduated. I must admit that the 7 months that I worked full-time for this company were some of the worst months of my life.

The days were long and monotonous. Every day I got up way earlier than I wanted, went to the same office, sat at the same desk, made the same phone calls, and made the same sales pitch. If I wanted a day off, it had to be booked way in advance. If I got sick, there was a lot of pressure to get better ASAP and get back to work.

I could go on and on with things I was unhappy about. Every day I woke up in the morning and could not wait for the day to be over so that I could go back to bed again marked poker.

This job obviously wasn't for me, so I started planning for being able to quit. I had a couple things going for me. One was poker. I had learned to play poker a few years ago and I had become quite competent at it. The other thing was a part-time job with FlopTurnRiver.com (FTR). I had worked for them part-time while I was going to school and they were willing to take me back.

I quit my job at the end of 2009. At this point I had a year of living expenses in the bank and a $20k bankroll. I planned to work 15 hours per week for FTR and then spend 25-30 hours per week playing and studying poker.

Because of my part-time job, I only had to make ~$1,500 per month playing poker. This seemed easy to me because it meant making just $13/hour at the tables.

It’s Murphy’s Law, however, that things should be difficult just as soon as you think they should be easy! In my next post, I’ll talk about how my new life went for me in 2010. Thanks for reading and see you next time!