I have been playing online poker for nearly a year, I have been playing 10 years in real life though.

With all the internet software out there, it's hard not to be put under the microscope by other players.

You may have a horrible ROI (return on investment) or you could
have a very decent one, The point is although you can gain insight on a
decent number of players. However sometimes it is a horrible way to
gauge your poker skill or chances on becoming a internet Pro.

I know players who have a very very good ROI, 50% through 10% got lucky in
some big online tournaments and used that money to play some one tabl,e
high
buy in sit and gos won a few of those on a hot streak and turned the
horrible ROI around but were still very weak players. Now if you
look at their ROI you would think he is some kind of a poker god.
However even though they are somewhat a solid average players there is something
the ROI doesn't tell you, or tell themselves. That he is a losing PLAYER.
His overall sit and go record was horrible. He got lucky in a few
tournaments and won some high priced sit and go and has a huge profit now, but before that he just wasn't a winning player at
all. They are just the type of players that kinda ignore math completely and play off
instinct, and have never ever read a poker book of any kind. Everyone
loses many more sit and gos than you win, but looking deeper they only won around 15% of sit and gos.

If you were too look at my ROI average, you would see that I have
a -30% ROI (also played around 1,000 more sit and gos and them).
However that is very deceptive as one of my internet pro buddies
pointed out. He told me if I wanted to really know my skill I'd have to
count all my top 3 sit and Go finishes, count 1st, 2nd and 3rd place
finishes and go through every sit and go and find out what my overall
record is.

I asked him why that is so important, it is then he told me
bankroll management is why my ROI average is so horrible. I'd win a the
lower stakes, build up a bankroll go up to the higher sit and gos win
for a few, hit a bad streak and not have the bankroll to handle those lovely swings.
So really ROI isn't a good way to gauge how good I am. So
I looked into it and I advise you do the same with yours.

My overall sit and go record was 334- 683, I counted how many
times I came in first, second, and third. Those are wins. Now that
record doesn't look all that impressive as I told my friend. He then
told me, to keep the buy in the same, and start low, 3.50 +80, each
time. What he meant was make all of my wins, wins for that buy in for
first second and 3rd.

I did that and I was simply amazed what good bankroll management
would have done, I would have lost a grand total of 2,595.40 dollars,
and won 3,468.15, at that lower level had I stayed on it and was
mentally focused I would have made profit, to the tune of 872.75
dollars. So my skill isn't reflected in the ROI, my ROI is telling me,
I need to commit completely to bankroll management. I was playing 160+9
sit and gos on full tilt poker, I won one of them for 720 dollars, and
finished second 3 times in a row, then the normal losing streak hit
where good cards didn't hold up and I was down to nothing again. If I
had would practiced bankroll management never would have Happened! I
would have worked up to that point, and made long term profits, but I
went up there, with only about 30 buy in's and that isn't enough with
the overall luck swings of the game, especially if you do not move
down.

How important is bankroll management, everyone knows you will go
broke, however nobody says you are robbing from yourself if you are a
winning player, it messes with you head, in fact you could be even better than Phil
Ivey skill wise and fail ever to reach success with bad bankroll management, not taking
a deeper look at your stats.

Making the buy in 160+9 adding my wins I would have made
140,120,00 dollars! In the time it took me to play those games which
was 6 months! I have had some people tell me the reality is, it doesn't
work for the higher limits because your win rate goes down because the
level of players. That is where they are wrong.

All of those games were super turbos, I have played all the way up
to 160+9, and there really isn't much difference, it's all in poker
until you get a chip stack, you go in with top cards, know when to
steal. The math shows if you do that, you will win, it is a fast form
of poker, where everyone starts with 300 chips. So if you are a weak
player (which I'm not) you will never get out played post flop, because
it's all in poker.
I have been told it isn't poker, but tell that to, Raul Paez and
Andy Black (who finished 5th in the 2005 world series of poker main
event). They play those tournaments, I have knocked them out and they
have done the same to me. They also know these tourney's are a gold
mine in the form of how many of them you can do. So that blows any
opinion out of the water that no real poker player, plays those and
they "aren't poker" they are a "crap shoot".

So now I am saving up for a bankroll of 8,000 to 10,000 dollars
and I am strictly going to play those for a living, and that doesn't
even count MTT wins, or cash games. Even standard sit and gos. If I was
just to play those(the super turbos) I would make at worst 280,240
dollars a year Minimum for every 1,000 +games played I would be around
the 140,120,00 mark.

I am not saying ROI, isn't a great way to find weak players, even
rate yourself. I am saying sometimes you need to read between the lines
and realize with a few outside adjustments, like bankroll management
you will find the your ROI, even though very poor is not a reflection
on skill for some people or yourself, the way you management your money is the problem.
L.T.S.G.R (or as to call Long term sit and go record over 1,000 +
games) is the best way to tell, if you are a lucky player had some big
wins taking a shot, a bad player, or a winning grinder. So try it for
yourself.... the more games you have played the less luck has anything
to do with it. Just add your level of buy in, with your wins and
subtract your losses, That is your hidden L.T.S.G.R dollars! (I could
be really lame and call them C-bucks,in fact I will cause it is easier
to remember).
So do the math and I hope you are rolling in C bucks!