*shoo* Assi!

Sub - what you've described is classic beginner poker syndrome. The huge ups and downs of your bankroll, the big suckouts and then occasional big wins. That and learning as you go along.

1st things 1st - do not under any circumstances go up in stakes until you are "consistently" winning. You WILL lose your money. The players, as they go up levels, do get better. Not all of them, by a long shot, or there would be nothing for the sharks to feed off. But there will be plenty of players who won't let you get away with wrong moves and it will cost you big time. Especially if you are playing LAG. Loose aggressive takes a lot of skill to play and win consistently. Anyone can play loose and win a few massive pots. That comes with the territory of loose play, but knowing when to back off is more important.

Also your reference to bad beats and "runner runner" beats is a give away. If you play right, bad beats are rare - you usually get out when you realise you are too far in a hand. Bad beats happen, sure, but they should be less in your mind than the great wins you have. Put it this way, when you are playing right, and you get a bad beat, it doesn't really bother you as you know you played the hand correctly and that's just statistics - it has to happen here and there. As for runner runners - well, if you let the other guy see both the turn and the flop when you had a made hand then you should consider why he called - probably because you tried to slow play a hand that could be beaten.

I'm no expert by a long way, but after, well, search here, I'm not sure, about 5 months (I started posting on here about when I started playing poker) I am now at the stage that I can enter a ring game and pretty safely walk away in profit. Sometimes lots, sometimes a few bucks. It's taken that long to become reasonably consistent (and god I make some noob mistakes) and I'm still playing 10/25c and 5/10c when I feel less up for it.

The point is, it takes time, and you do need to read up on strategy. You learn an aweful lot from pure experience, but there is SO much you can learn from reading up on different play styles and strategies.

Some of the old school players never read any books. Cool. But they started in clubs when poker was a back street thing. We are jumping into a world of competition where everyone else is reading up and applying solid logic to their games.

My recommendations would be:

1) Stick to the 10% rule - never sit at a table with more than 10% of your bankroll.
2) Read up. Buy a book or two. Ask advice about specific situations here. (should I play LAG is too vague - try more like "I played this hand like this: xxxxxx what do you think?" - the answeres you will get will explain an aweful lot and improve your game no end.

I also recommend trying what you learn in freerolls. Nothing lost ! and the games usually calm down after an hour or so.

I hop you don't take that patronisingly - I may be telling you to suck eggs. Just thought that might be the kind of pointer yuo were looking for.

p.s. You really don't want to be chosing a defined playstyle such as LAG at this stage. You need to learn to play well. Good solid reliable poker. When you get that down, you will find you will tune your game to a style that suits YOU and you enjoy, and that works for you. Some people will be Tight aggressive all their lives, and do well, some will be maniacs, and do well. It's what works for you, and more importantly, what works at the table at the time. Each table is different in so many ways. You can sit at a table and being aggressive will get you sloughtered, other times, you can own. Saying that, aggression can't just be classed as what you do after the flop - aggression is something applied at the right time, in the right place - and we all have to do that.