[yellowdoyle]

Coldwolf -

I have been playing for a about 24-30 months, and while I have won a large MTT, it was chopped 3 handed so it wasn't a 'true' win. I have won some 4.40/180 mans, but that is not too large a field. I also go "deeper" much more often now in large field tournaments, with low to medium buy-ins. I also like the 45 man SNG's on stars, they are relatively short and just playing standard TAG seems to be profitable.

But......NONE of this happened to me within the first year. In fact, it has all happened within the last 6 months or so. Why...? because I started taking it seriously. I don't play as often as I would like, but I don't force it if I don't have time. When i did try and "squeeze" a tournament in, I never played my best. I also started posting more on twoplustwo, and really *THINKING* about my bets, checks, folds (and WHY was I doing or not doing such and such a thing), every aspect of the game.

Another important thing - in my opening line, I said 24-30 months of poker. Why don't I know exactly? No spreadsheet....I can't imagine playing without one now. It keeps track of your progress/results, and forces you to be honest with yourself.

So to summarize: be patient, stick with it BUT keep in mind you probably won't start winning/going very deep until you really take it seriously.

(note - not to assume you don't do this now per se, but just pointing out that when i really focused and tried my best my results turned around.)