I don’t think you can say a specific sample size gives you a sure-fire answer. The best you can do is do your due diligence, study your situation, put in the hours grinding, prepare as best you can and determine if you are properly funded to make the switch, but at some point you have to take a leap of faith if you want to take your shot.

Let me give you an example outside of poker that might put this into some perspective. When I graduated from college I joined my family’s business. I worked in the family business and while I enjoyed working with my dad, I did not enjoy the business itself. After five years I made the decision that I would leave the family business and go into sportswriting (journalism was my college major and I was a sportswriter/columnist on my college newspaper). I gave my dad one year’s notice that I was leaving so that a replacement could be found and trained. During that year I worked in the family business during regular business hours and I got a freelance job (meager pay, good experience) covering high school sports in evenings and during weekends for the Chicago Sun-Times. I was also all set to go to Northwestern University to get my Master’s in journalism when the year was up. I never went to Northwestern, however, because I ended up getting a full-time job at a national sports publication before the start of the school year. I worked at the national sports publication for 12 years and loved it before changing fields one more time 16 years ago to take over a new family business that had been started after the original family business was sold.

Most people told me when I left the original family business to go back into journalism that they thought it took a lot of guts to make the decision I did without knowing if I would be able to get back into journalism after a six-year hiatus. I never saw it as taking guts or as being risky. I felt that the only way to get back into journalism was to take the plunge and commit to the change. Even though I did not know how it would play out, the only way to make it happen was to go for it. There was no guarantee it would work, but trying to just dip my toe into journalism was never going to make it happen. I did my due diligence, was confident in my abilities and I went for it. I suppose I was walking a tightrope without a net, but the only way to get from one part of my life to the next was to take a chance.

That is what I suspect a poker player must do when making the initial decision to become a full-time pro. I am not saying to be reckless in your decision, but you put in the work, see some positive results and at some point you have to decide if you want to go for it. If it seems too risky there is no shame in not taking the plunge. But if you have the bankroll to give it a shot and deal with no regular paycheck then perhaps you make the decision to go for it. You have to take an honest look at your ability to handle a possible poker downswing when you no longer receive a steady paycheck.

As for your question about whether you should take the plunge now or give yourself another year to part-time grind at poker to see what the results are while you still have a regular paycheck, the advice I give to most people in business is it is almost always better to take a chance one year too late as opposed to one year too soon if you are not certain. Another way of looking at this is when I am talking to tenants or prospective tenants in the office buildings I own or my family owns (the new family business), I always tell them that it is always better to take too small a space than too big a space. If you take too small of a space you are a bit cramped for a year but you know you can handle it financially before going bigger. If you take too big of a space you might end up putting yourself out of business.

I hope this helps. I thought that looking at the question from a non-poker perspective might clarify things.