Is variance too great and my BR too small to play this tourney?

[OneByPhi]

I play a lot of these low buy-in tourneys in Seattle-area casinos. In my experience, the level of play is godawful, but that doesn't mean a good player will always (or even usually) cash. If the low buy-in tourneys where you live are like the ones here, you will get called a lot of the time when you push, but remember even if you are getting your chips in as a 4:1 favorite, you're still going to lose 1/5 of those hands, and if you get all-in enough times in a single tournament, your chances of being sucked out on can catch up with you.

My advice would be not to play for cash unless you either don't care if you lose it or have a big enough bankroll to withstand a bad run of luck. I've been playing 5-7 tourneys a week at the $25-$50 buy-in level in local casinos for the last year and a half, and I have won an average of about $500 a month over that time, but there's a lot of variance. Some months I win much more and some months I lose badly.

If your bankroll can't handle a big downswing, stick to playing the play money games online. Also, you can't make a living playing these low buy-in tourneys, so you have to be in it for the fun of playing and for the experience you gain.