>>11798950Also:
Do you understand pre flop ranges?
Do you understand equity?
Do you understand pot odds?
Do you understand implied odds?
Do you understand Negative implied odds?
Do you understand the strength of a hand versus the equity of a hand? (Hint: they are not the same)
Do you understand the importance of position?
Do you understand bet sizing and how to create effective bet sizing?
Do you know how to count outs and how to calculate the likelihood of them coming on the turn and river?
Would you rather call an UTG raise from the button with 76s or A9o?
If you can answer most of these questions with "yes" you can probably beat most low stakes live games and certainly micro stakes online. If you answer these with yes and then go on to lose over a decent sample size then you probably don't have a good enough grasp on the above topics and take a step back and review.
As far as your variance goes, it could be that you were simply experiencing beginners luck.
In my first couple months of playing poker at my local casino I went on an insane tear. I was playing 300NL and cashed on 17/20 session I played in a single month I was up $5000 in 20 session. Obviously I thought I was the shit and was better than everyone else in my games. Eventually I started playing a loose aggressive play style and lost all that money in about the same time I lost it. So it is likely you are experiencing the same thing I did.
