Well, I'm back. Last night, a good friend mentioned to me that even if I wasn't going to play every day, I needed to blog every day, and discuss the psychological impact of doing this.

I have, in fact, returned to playing every day, though...slowly. I finally had two days in a row where I played a "normal" cache of tourneys - thankfully at a positive clip, for once.

The swings of the game are what tend to destroy most players. One day you are feeling unstoppable, as if doing this for a living will be the easiest thing since sliced bread. You believe every heater will be followed by an even better one. You even tell yourself that you're "owed" even more than you've already gotten out of poker, because you've "paid your dues" and that one time the guy sucked out with 72suited against JJ and it cost you roughly $20k in expected value has gotta come back to you.

One week later, you hit the cooler. No worries, it's part of the game. But a couple days later, maybe it becomes a bigger cooler. Well, no worries still, the next heater is just around the corner, and it's gonna be HUGE. Then... maybe it becomes a massive cooler. Suddenly, you feel as though everything you've ever done in poker is a huge waste of time and the process is totally futile. You begin taking the swing out on other people. Your mind goes to shit. You second guess every decision, even the correct ones. Your mood changes from hand to hand. You start to give up on yourself.

This is what happens when you hit a +40 BI upswing over 160 games followed by a -57 BI downswing over 220 games.

And then hopefully, before you destroy yourself psychologically, it swings back...

This most recent downswing has easily been the worst of my entire poker career. At the $13 level, I'm -57 buyins since my last upswing. My spreadsheet is a red wasteland. It's not totally out of the realm of possibilities that it's natural, but it's nonetheless brutal. At the $13 level, I'm not even winning 1 in every 6 tourneys - my 1st place % is about 15% (at every other level it's between 18 and 22 percent) My % in 6th place is 5% higher than it is at any other level, as well. This hopefully indicates some brutally bad luck.

After dropping down, I've enjoyed a modest upswing at the $6.50 level, about +10 buyins over about 100 games. This has been a nice boost to my now-fragile ego.

I think that if I can prove to myself over 3500 games that I'm a winning player, I may become immune to any future swings like this bothering me emotionally, because I will have been through everything. Hopefully.

However, the jury's still out...

At the $3.25 level, I'm +19 buyins through 430 games
At the $6.50 level, I'm +11 buyins through 255 games
At the $13 level, I'm -24 buyins through 536 games

This is all normal stuff, when you look at it this way. It reassures me to analyze it like this. At each level, I have too little data to really conclude much of anything.

I think from now on, I'm not going to focus on my overall ROI as much until I have a lot more data. I'm about -1.5% through 1221 games.

I'm praying that I'm just experiencing the worst luck overall at the highest level and that this will straighten itself out.

The good news, I suppose, is I have over 6500 FPPs, which have an equivalent cash value of about $105. That almost cancels out my negative ROI. Almost.

Unfortunately, I can't cash them in at their highest cash value (1.6cents per FPP) until way down the road (when I have 250,000 and I'm Supernova), unless, of course I use them to freeroll an entry to the $215 multi table tourney when I have 13500 of themr. And I am considering doing that....although that really is like playing a better form of the lottery with the Sunday Million.

However, that is a tournament I've finished in 11th out of 2500 people in before...an 11th place finish that was cemented by a certain player in 6th place and 20 big blinds going all in with 7d2d against my pocket jacks preflop...jacks which would have held up to give me the chip lead going into the final table 86% of the time....but alas, it was not meant to be. It was meant to be one of the 14%...

I also have started playing more continuously, rather than in sets. It's tougher, but I think overall it will be way better to start getting used to it. It took me 1:44 to play 18 tourneys today, and I think if I do 24 continuously I can do it in about 2 hours (most of the last 15 minutes was finishing one tourney). That might allow me to play 48 tourneys a day instead of 36, which would get me to the data promised land much faster.

Current bankroll is at $511 and holding. Let's hope we can keep holding on. I do hit a cash $50 stellar reward bonus in about 800 more $6.50 tourneys...it would be sweet to cash that on a huge upswing. Time will tell...