How to make money playing poker

I have to read up and work on bankroll management. I have thought a lot about how to make money playing poker especially since I have been used to making 200k plus per year in a job.

The small SnGs take time and you only make a small profit. The large SnGs have better players so you win a lower % of the time and they take longer to complete so you struggle to grind out a living there. If you mutli-table SnGs you could probably grind out a living but not a very wealthy one.

The tournaments cost anywhere from $1 to $100,000 and have massive prizes. The bigger the entry fee the bigger the reward. When you look online at statistical sites and ranked players it appears the highest earners are those who regularly enter big tournaments and win big prizes. The risk/reward factor seems to be in the big tournaments BUT if you are not good enough you will burn through your bankroll really quickly. The big tournaments have certainly been the biggest cost to me over the last few months. I cash in a bunch of SnGs and smaller tournaments and think "lets go big and win big" and then I blow a fortune because I am just not good enough yet.

Maybe the cash/ring games are where the real money is. You can grind away earning $1-2k a week playing the cash games in Las Vegas and can probably do the same online. If you enter bigger stakes games you could lose a fortune in one hit - it seems many a professional poker player has done this many times.

So how to consistently make money - this is what I need to research and find out. How are other players doing it. Does "bankroll management" really mean "making money" or is it more about "being scared to lose your money". As I find out some of these answers I will share them here.