Had a nice score this weekend at the $1-$2 table? Great! Unfortunately, that doesn’t prove a thing.

Maybe you just got lucky. Or maybe your opponents were just so bad that a monkey could have won.

I’m not trying to rain on your parade but a few killer sessions at the poker table doesn’t prove much. In order to show me that you’re skilled, you need to log at least 500 successful hours of cash game poker or perform well over the course of 25-30 tournaments.

I’m not just talking about breaking even or winning a little bit over 500 hours.

In order to prove you’re ready to jump to a higher level, you need to show impressive results.

If you are a tournament player, did you get one big score or are you consistently (1 in 2 or 3) cashing? If your results are based just on one big score, you’re not ready to make the jump – you just got lucky.

If you are consistently cashing, you can start playing at higher limits. Cash game players should be able to show consistent wins – not just one or two big scores – over 500 hours or about 60-70 sessions.