My thoughts are a little different than everyone else's I think (including Nikki's
). We've been lucky enough (thanks to her two tourney wins) to be able to cash out more than we've ever deposited, so, as far as I'm concerned, everything now is gravy. But this is how I look at the whole poker scene as far as I'm concerned: I measure my success based on how long my bankroll/deposit lasts me. As an example, I deposited $100 into UB back in August of 2004. From my wins there and moving the bankroll over to Stars, I finally busted that $100 around May of this year. Almost a two year run on $100. Sure, there was some additional money added to it from various sources (such as one or two of TP's deposit bonuses) but it still lasted me a hell of a long time. For me, that's +EV.
Now, let me clarify the above statement: During that period I was playing poker for fun. I had absolutely zero expectation of profit. I feel my game has now improved such that I do now have a decent expectation of more winning sessions than losing ones. I've managed to move up to .50/1 limit and $25NL levels and am doing fairly well on those. My next move up won't be until my bankroll hits $1000 (probably quite a ways off). I still play for fun though - without a word of a lie, if I were to bust tomorrow, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Sure, I'd be pissed that I burned through my current bankroll in less than 24 hours and I might kick a cat or two because of THAT, but as long as I had fun losing it, that's all that counts.
Seriously though, if I went on a losing run that culminated in me going busto, I'd be aggravated but as long as I didn't do anything stupid like drop the last $100 of my roll into a $1000NL table trying to double/triple up quick, then I'd be happy.
I hope that ramble above makes some kind of sense.