How confident must you be to...

I love eckfreak's point of view... It is still true that we can't have anything fun for just one dollar nowadays, so why not spend a part of the evening on the Internet playing Poker for that 1 buck... Thank you very much to all of you guys. I might start playing real money soon enough and then I might kick you out of the tourneys!!! Haha!

Ben

Tourney are fun and so on, but they are just that. With 100-10000 people to beat there is a big chance that atleast 10-20% of them will be better than you. I know it's chep fun, but it is much more fun busting out guys at the ring tables. So I would say, if you want to make money playing poker, don't go for tourneys, play ring games instead. You will not get rich this way, but you can make a steady income.
Start off by playing Limit holdem instead of No Limit. Get a feel for playing with real money.
Set goals and keep meticolous records. Log every hour every cent.
Know when to quit. Tomorrow is an other day.

Sorry about the spelling, I'm norwegian what can i say.

What you really need to think is what am I trying to do when I play for money?

Are you trying to win money or are you trying mainly to have fun or are you trying to get better?

Does the bank roll that you put in mean anything to you or not ie can you afford to lose it and reload without it affecting your financial situation?

Unless you are playing purely to have fun and losing 50-100 will make little odds to you financially - then you need to a certain degree to respect your bankroll. I will say more on this in another post but simply focus on playing games where you have a reasonable chance of making a profit rather than a loss - so play to your strengths and make long odds the exception rather than the rule.

Now how do you know when your ready? - firstly I dont think free limit games are much use at all but tournaments do give you a reasonable chance to play against some quality players in later stages. I would say before you play real money buy a couple of books such as Brunsons super/system. If much of the advice in these books seems familiar to you already then that is a good sign you are ready for money tables also as lots of people follow the advice directly (or third hand via net forums etc) it is good to see where some of your opposition are coming from.

Finally all i will say is at low limits money dont expect the standard to be high - you will meet some class act players but most are awful dont treat them with too much respect

I, personally, am very cheap in the way I play my bankroll. I have built my entire bankrolls from freerolls. I refuse to put money into it. I figure if I build from nothing, I have nothing to lose. Money is a factor for me, and I have managed to build a decent bankroll from that. That is an option, but don't put money in unless you are willing to lose it.

Yeah, this is probably the best advice. Whenever I go to Vegas I set aside a certain bankroll. For the sake of this post, we'll say $1000. At that point, I say, 'This money is gone. I don't care if I lose it, and if by some chance I come back with any of it in my pocket it's a profit.' I think this is the only way to approach poker if you want to make money (read -- be successful).There is no way to play well if you're afriaid to lose money. Having said this, don't go around calling absurd bets because you don't care if you lose your money, but if you run into a situation where the pot odds are right to call a bet, and you drop in fear of losing money if you lose the hand you need to reevaluate your bankroll.