semi-professional poker, high natural variance.

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A day in which you lose 20, lose 7, lose 32, and then win 85 for a day's profit of 26 dollars, and that's almost perfect! That's when you're short-stacking with a tight-aggressive style. And is there any other way when you're trying to make money in a casino? Not that I know of! It's not a particularly fun style. You can mix it up with tournament games and limit games, but those will probably be net losers that will eat into your no-limit winnings.

And it can go either way. You can have three months in which you're playing well, and things just go against you.

And vice versa, there months in which you're ahead of the game, and you're skills aren't yet that advanced. And it's hard to accept even the possibility of that.

I played seriously for two years and broke even. And I am going to count that as a victory.

Eek.

This is not the right way to go about poker.

-You're never going to make any money playing small-stakes in a casino. Even with a healthy win-rate, you're only getting 20-30 hands an hour (if that), and the rake is massive.

-If you have an edge, you should never rathole (short-stack).

-If you took it seriously for two years and broke even, you're doing something wrong.

Buy the right poker books, play 6+ tables online, rinse and repeat. I imagine you were playing 1/2 NLHE live, well, if you can find an edge, you can 10 table 25NL (.10/.25) online and win more money. Figure that out, move up to 50NL and you can make a half-decent living. Figure that out and move up to 100NL and you can make a good living. Move up to 200/400/600NL and you can make a great living. I play tournaments because it's just my style, but in all honesty, cash games is where the money is.

Sklansky and Malmuth in one of their books said, given the advantages, why would anyone not shortstack? And their answer basically was that it makes for a boring session. So, my response to this is that you mix up the cash games, and yes it was 1-2 NLHE and in some casinos 1-3, with tournament games, understanding full well that with the $70 tournament at Caesar's or the $110 sit-and-go at Mirage, because of the rake, there is no way you're going to make money in the long term.

I am all in favor of having an edge and capitalizing on it. However, I have never understood targeting a weak player at the table because most weak players tend to be calling stations! The 'sucker' will call you down with high pair, or often even mid pair. I guess, if I have position, I could see them with any two, and then I have a 2% chance of hitting two-pair on the flop and an additional 1% chance of making trips.

The way I see it, an aggressive move or two toward the beginning of a session is useful in sowing doubt in my fellow players' mind. All the same, poker is primarily a calling game in two regards, that is people's natural predisposition and that's when you make your money!---when you have a good hand, you bet, and you get called (or you induce a bet, which is another reason it's good to have position, if that player doesn't bet, you can).

Now, I do agree that the Internet has the advantage of seeing more hands
(1) How do you make it fun? You're not watching people in the casino, instead you . . .
(2) And I really want to make sure it's legal. Being an American, I know the 2006 law put stops on the banks transferring money. And this doesn't affect me at all? I'd really want to see a source and a link, pretty authoritatively saying, it's okay for me to put money in, and more importantly, it's okay for me to get money out!

And on the question of natural variance . . . in Cardplayer or Bluff, one of the pros talked about going through a several month slump at the end of the year, and one of the hardest things for him to realize was that no, a proper fold will not get him out of the hole, but it will keep him for getting deeper into the hole and that's just as important.

Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson did an experiment, I guess to prove that it's possible, and Chris is a pretty intellectually intense guy, maybe Aspie, maybe not, and either way is okay, in which he started with nothing and he entered free rolls, he built it up a little, after considerable ups and down, and built it up some more, again after more ups and downs. And at one point had it up to $28,000 cash money. Then he had a bad streak and it was down to $9,000. My thesis is that that decline, from 28,000 to 9,000, can be explained solely by natural variance, even when you are playing well. (although in any particular case, there is the question of whether you are also partially out of rhythm, also to be asked if you're being honest with yourself, and gentle, be a good coach to yourself most of all)