Is it this easy?

[Compit]

As part of the WSOP/WPT TV crowd coming into the game of poker over the last year or so, I got caught the poker bug and have done a fair bit of reading and study trying to improve as a player, primarily NL and O/O8.

I could only be considered a duffer at this point, knowing only what a person might learn perusing forums like this one, and browsing Sklansky/Malmuth books. My experience with live action play has been limited to the odd 5/10/25 buy-in multi-table tourney at UB.

That changed this weekend. With nothing else to do my brother and I went to AC Saturday on lark and played low limit Holdem (2-4 limit and 1-2 NL at the Tropicana) for two days. I finished up $450, which could have been much more had I not started to mess a round once I became confident. Having returned home I opened an account at Pacific and have played every night after work (2-4 HE). In three days I am up another $450.

I really am an unsophisticated player. I just do the basic math and make standard raise/check/call/fold in every hand. I only break even with the fancy stuff, if that. But it has seemed to me thus far that even this small amount of knowledge is guaranteed to make me a winner every session, as there are always 4-5 players at the table who have no clue whatsoever as to how the game works. I hear talk of variance but I cannot conceive how I could lose money at these tables. I have not had an especially good run of cards or luck, and have absorbed my share of bad beats (lost the biggest pot of the night last night with bottom quads, and lost with bottom straight flush in AC).

So I would like to know, are my results an anomaly, or merely a symptom of playing the worst players on the 'net at Pacific at the lower limits? It looks like an easy $50-200 a night to me. Is this an unreasonable expectation? Also, at what limit do the completely clueless begin to disappear?