Hey all,
This is new for me I have never been involved with any forums before, but every since I got hooked on NL holdem I'm trying to gain as much knowledge as I can about it. I truly love this game and want to continually better myself at it.

My question is quite simply, Is it really possible to make decent gains playing online poker for money? I have been playing and studying this game for about 4 months now. I have only played a small number of real money, online games one of which was profitable, however I went back to the same room again and lost a lot more money. I'm also winning a lot more of my live home games against friends that I play with after work. I understand that newbies generally lose a lot, however my game has been improving to the point were I now in most online, play money games, tend to be one of the top if not the only top player in that game. I'm excited about this game because of the challenge it gives me and I have seen the potential to make a decent profit, but I am also conflicted because I still don't see enough consistency in the game for me to justify being comfortable playing more money games.

Often what I see is a very tight game where the players only raise and play into the flop with top hands, or games that are semi loose, but cost me an arm and a leg because everybody is raising during the pre-flop to rediculous amounts. When I have a high ranking hand I can't afford to pay huge amounts of money every single time just to see that the flop does not benefit me at all and I better fold. Is it possible to find with some consistency, games were I have a chance at making some financial gains? I have not really found a lot yet. There are still games that make me second guess wether or not I would be able to make some money and play at a competent level with those around me.

I'm going to continue to practice and read here and at home from some of the poker books I have been borrowing from the library. Any information you folks might have or stories of success that you might want to share that would boost my confidence would be greatly appreciated. I don't know if there is a limit to how much I can post, so I do apologize for the length of this message. Future messages I will keep shorter, this is just a big conflict I'm dealing with and really need re-assurance for.

Thanks all!
Slyman__07[/quote]