Warning to new poker players

Here is what happened to me when I first started playing poker online. I registered and made my first deposit. I was a little nervous so I watched for a while until finally I got the nerve to sit down at 5/1 single table sit and go Hold'em tournament ($5 to the prize pool $1 to the poker room). Before I tell you what happened next let me warn you that it is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a new poker player. Brace yourself...I finished in the money! In fact that day I played 6 sit and go's and won or finished in the money 4 times. What's so dangerous about that? Wow that's great! I can here you saying. The problem is when you get lucky early on you begin to think you are a better poker player than you are. You become over confidence and when your hot streak ends (it always does) and the cards run cold it can be a very expensive lesson indeed. My initial deposit was about $150 and my first weekend playing online I turned it into nearly $600. I was making $8 bucks an hour at the time and not making ends meet and I'd just made $600 in about 12 hours! That works out to be $50 per hour! "I CAN QUIT MY JOB!" I thought. Over the next couple of weeks I was up $1800 total and to be honest it was mostly blind luck. Somewhere around the third week the inevitable started to happen suddenly the cards weren't going my way. And over the next month I went from being up almost two grand to being $1000 in the hole. I couldn't afford to lose a $1000, hell I couldn't afford to lose my initial $150 deposit. One of two things seems to happen to most people when they go through this. Many give up poker thinking that they just don't have what it takes. Others blindly forge ahead believing there luck will change and eventually it does. But because they do nothing to improve their ability they become long term losers. They think that eventually they'll take down a huge pot that will eventually put them ahead while the true pro's sit there quietly building their stacks on the mistakes of those who rely on luck and self delusion. What I chose to do is go to school. I knew that you could make a living people playing poker if you had the right combination of skill, experience and cunning. I also new that I was sick of barely getting by and living pay check to pay check. Since then I've read at least a hundred books on poker and spent thousands of hours honing my skills and a dozen online poker rooms. I've taken hundreds of pages of notes and spent hours analyzing my play. Now I make my living playing poker online. Is it worth it? I think so. Until next time...You've been warned! Poker Resources Featured Poker Rooms: Absolute Poker Full Tilt Poker UltimateBet PokerStars Learn to Play Poker Profitably the right way: Sit N Go Pro Outstanding Poker