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I am living proof that you don't have to be good at poker to be a winning player. I consistently win both online and live, and my game is full of holes big enough to drive a [censored] Mack truck through. The thing is, and a few others pointed this out, is that the signal-to-noise raito is very low when playing in games where your opponents are loose gamboolers. Their horrible mistakes are the "noise" that drowns out the "signals" that SHOULD be telling you that you have leaks. When some moron gives you his entire stack with middle pair/no kicker, it's easy to forget the hands where you made bad plays.

I too learned this the hard way. I started out at the bottom online and I was absolutely crushing the lowest stakes. When I hit the mid limits, reality, and humility set in-I realized that I was no longer the shark, but a fish! I often remarked that I felt like I was the only player at the table playing with my cards face up for all to see. My monster hands almost never got paid off, but then my AA would get outflopped and whamo, there goes my whole stack, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make up that lost ground from ONE SINGLE COSTLY MISTAKE. I found that my biggest leak was overplaying big pair type hands. So after dropping ten buy ins over 10,000 hands and nearly swearing off poker for good, I cashed out out nearly all of my bankroll, and literally started over at the bottom.

It's worth repeating that you don't have to be a good player to win at poker, but what you MUST be good at is game selection. If you are playing at a full ring .5/$1 limit table where every pot is contested 2 or 3 handed, you are playing in the wrong game. Get the hell outta UB and open an account at Party or one of the skins ASAP. You need to maintain a buddy list, and get PT so you can not only track your stats, but you can get a good read on your buddies. When selecting a table, look for loose tables with big pots. Also 6-max tables are where the action players are. Full ring is tight even at the micro-limits.

I suppose the downside to this is that constantly playing low stakes against bad players really isn't going to improve your game very much. If you want to learn to beat good players, you are just going to have to play against good players and pay for your education. Still I'm lazy, and I would rather practice good game selection and prey on the weak than play against trick aggressive players who must be outplayed to get their cash.