Riding The Wave Of Variance.

It's been a while since the last update. Poker-wise the year has been pretty mediocre. I'm still in the black but had my roughest stretch of 10K hands so far which resulted in a 30 BI downswing. I'm just starting to claw out of it now, though (at least I think I am; we shall see in a few weeks). 

The downswing resulted in a lot of weak-tight play and there are still some residual effects in my game right now. I'm not being nearly as aggressive as I should be but I think I'm still making very good decisions and reading the players and tables well. There are just a few spots here and there where I'm either not pulling the trigger on the third barrel or clicking fold instead of call in some likely profitable bluff-catching instances. 

If there's one good thing that is coming out of this it's that I've really stepped up my studying and review habits. Over the last few weeks I've been reviewing every hand where I saw a turn (some days I'll do every flop if I'm feeling up for it). Generally I'll find between 10-20 spots where I'm unsure. I then start to analyze those selected hands until I become pretty confident in what the correct play is. I got inspired by an entry in Schweig's blog where he stresses the importance of constantly reviewing your own game (http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/schweig/63191-March-2011-Review). I had become complacent with occasionally getting confused or unsure if I made the optimal play. By watching some videos, checking big hands and browsing the forums I thought I was doing 'my part'.  I'd usually tag the big hands to check equities afterwards but the smaller hands would quickly be forgotten. It's the smaller hands that provide so many more interesting things to consider and also contain the leaks that you make on a daily basis, over and over again. Any time I become even the least bit confused now, I make sure to review why I was confused there so that it doesn't happen again, no matter how small the pot is or how insignificant the spot may seem. I'm already starting to see some benefits at the table as my understanding of the game is actually growing each day now.

I'll close it off with my sob-story graph to boost my run-good. I'm the most non-superstitious person I know, so consider this a sort of Pascal's Wager for poker; it certainly won't hurt to try!