How confident must you be to...

Hey there, I'd like to ask all of the expert that come out here a simple question:
How gutsy/confident must you be to first start playing with real money online.
I mean what are the signs that you might be ready to put some real money on the line? Is it that you won a big play money tournament? Is it that you almost always finish in high position. Is it when you know exactly what hands to play and what hands to fold??
Please help me, I wouldn't want to go online and lose money that I shouldn't have bet because I was not ready enough to do so.
When did you first started? What told you you were ready??

Ben

Personally, I've yet to give money to an online poker site. However, I have considered it for a while. At Pokerstars, enter the 27-45 person sit&go's and try to get your play money account up doing that. If you manage to finish in the "money" after a while, and you are able to honestly say you played everyhand the right way and successfully avoided being on tilt, I may make the move, and give them the minimum amount allowed for whatever method you choose to use to send them money.

You must be able to have a basic outline of hands, and quickly be able to decide whether or not to play them, when to raise (i.e. what position you're in and how much to bet accordingly). The key, in my opinion, to playing with real money is to know what to do and when, and rarely have say afterwards, "I can't believe I did that!" (Unless you did it intentionally and you knew it was an oddball / wrong move.)

If you know poker, have done your homework on hold'em...play a few not too too many play money sit n go's, so you don't pick up bad habits...you might be ready for .01-.02 ring games.

I think I'm about ready to make the leap myself.

Following Crapshoot's advice and stick to the .02 ring games

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Dont judge your reddiness on your performance in play money. It is very different. I started with just $1 and I play the lowest limit tables and I have won over $17. Again, do not judge how ready you are on how well you play with play money. judge it on how you feel about how you play. You will know if you are ready, and just to test it out, throw a couple of bucks into your account if possible. Remember though, at the lowest and pretty low limit tables, people do play crazy like they do with play money so watch out.

Do you feel ready?Go test the waters if you do.Only you know or will know.

you just need to have the confiedence to play and play for some money that you can afford to lose just incase you come up on the short end of the stick.

You can learn a little bit about how good you are playing w/ play money but real money is a whole different story. But who cares 50 bucks is 50 bucks. For example... You sign up for a $1 hold-em NL tourney friday night @8:00. You make it about 2 hours in and get bounced. Well you just had a good time for 2 hours for 1 freaking dollar, you got about 150 hands of experience risking only one dollar, and hopefully you learned a couple new things you didn't know before. You can't play 150 hands in a ring game learning unless your at .02/.04 limit and you still might not be able to.

Must be pretty confident, but not over confident...