Fell free to skip the long part down there and share your thoughts on the topic!
What do you prefer and why?

...

So I'm struggling to make a decision for a long time now.
I started out playing FR Cash like many of you guys too and I sticked with it (~5 years now). I felt comfortable with the dynamics and had a decent winrate at the micros [7-8bb 10NL; 5-6bb 25NL;3-4bb 50NL] over ~600k hands.
(I didn't reach the small stakes because of cashing out regularly which wasn't that smart but.. that's not important now.)

I played MTTs once in a while and although I was quite successfull (variance ofc) and enjoyed playing, I never thought about a transition.

Well, since I'm taking Poker more seriously and thinking about it and reading a ton I feel like the skill gap at FR between the good and the great players is even smaller then I supposed. For example, Let's say at 200NL a 2bb/100 would be pretty good right? I never played midstakes but I guess You would need a very well reasoned gameplan for achieving that, applying balance in many many spots and exploiting opponent's tendencies in detail. Not to say it's not achievable or worthwhile grinding all the way to get there. If I put in the hours (say 70-80 hours a week [studying & playing]) I think I'm capable of accomplishing it.

But the reason why I started this thread is that I felt I'm kinda loosing value staying at FR. I'm steadily thinking of what a great tournamnent player I could possibly be and how much money I could make...
But leaving FR would mean I'm leaving home going into uncertainty!


I know variance is a huge part of it (read a lot about it, and I had no clue it was such a huge factor) but I feel if I make it clever I'll stand a chance!

I'm currently playing a 1.9k bankroll and thought about starting unhasty with 1-5$ buy-ins (don't know how many 90/180man's I'm adding...)
I'll start making a schedule if I'm confident I made the right choice.

So what do you think?
Advice appreciated

You should only play what you are more comfortable with. Dont push yourself to do something you dont really want to. You can be as much successfull in MTT's than in FR cash games depending on what you prefer.
You definitely have a nice bankroll to start grinding the micro MTT's and some small stake MTT's. This leads you to a wider selection of tournaments that you dont have with a smaller bankroll.