Be very careful with the people who claim to be winning at anything. People tend to forget the losses quickly, otherwise they would not come back. As an example, My sister thought she and her friend were break even bingo players until I told her otherwise, after long debate she had a separate bingo account and I offered to double anything over her initial $100 at the end of the year, she didn't make april 1st. Now I know that poker is different in the fact that you can twist odds in your favour i.e. pot odds and EV...., unlike most gambling games where the house always wins, and beleive me if the house didn't have the rake we wouldn't have poker. Now she want's to try hold-em instead, but she's not going to give up the bingo. My point is the numbers tell you how to win, not the short term "variance" that your friends may be winning at, at the moment. How often are they talking about the 3 months of losing continuous buy-ins or being stacked by the guy who caught the straight on the river to bust the set.