How long does it take to get good at poker?

[whittiphil]

I'm completely serious with this question. I've been playing quite a lot for the past 4 months, I've read Ciaffone's book, HOH1 and 2, some limit holdem books and am half way through TOP. I read lots of poker blogs, and this forum, and Pokertracker tells me I've played 65k hands total at various limits.

This seems like a shitload of study + practice, and I'm not that good. I'm 10ptbb/100 at 25nl after 20k hands, and I get destroyed when I move up. I don't understand this.

I read in the Alvarez book "The Biggest Game in Town" that pro players in vegas can look to log 80k hands in a year. I've almost done that in ~4 months, shouldn't I be way better than I am? Shouldn't I be able to destroy NL100 by now?

So I'm asking more experienced players and posters, people like jkkk, TWP, xorbie, kongtotte et al.. how long did it take you to get to NL100+? Am I slow?

Everyone seems to think that poker is a sweet way to earn money, and I think it is once you get good, but the more I play the worse I realise I am. I have so much to learn, and I want to learn as quick as possible.

This isn't a cockiness thing, I just am consistently overwhelmed by the skill needed for poker. You accumulate your edges, +1% here, +15% there, but then the one donkey call or bluff you make in a day can ruin all that edge.

What do others think? Am I right? Am I just experiencing a 3 week long downswing (must be contributing to my whininess)? Am I just being a little bitch?