My luck is absolutely awful. My only break has been calling a guy's open-shove from UTG with 99 for 50BB with AK and catching on the flop.

Highlights from today include my A-9o raise from the SB, flat-called by A-Q in the BB and the flop coming A-Q-9. I check, BB min bets for 0.20 (wtf is that?) I raise to 0.80, he raises to 1.60 and I start to worry about A-Q but there's no way I'm laying this down, especially considering he only had a half stack. We get it all-in, and of course I can't hit 2 outs. He then proceeds to say 'ty', which is my least favourite habit of poker players.

And THEN, as I am steaming from a combination of this and getting no action when I bet out with a flopped set (which I NEVER do, but wondered if it would work this time), I get dealt JJ, raise it 0.80, get flat-called once and the button raises to 2.60. Possible squeezeplay, but I'm not stacking off with JJ so I flat-call, as does the original caller (he must have something like TT). Flop is a beautiful, yet ugly, J / K / 6, all diamonds. Pot is $8 already so I bet pot as first to act, overcaller folds and button jams for twice for my bet. I have to call and pray he has AA with Ace of diamonds so I can at least try and fade a diamond draw. Nope, he has KK. The K looked so ugly when it flopped, but I am NEVER laying down a flopped set. Ever. Give me 2s on an A-K-2 flop and I'll get it in all day every day.

I'm getting on the good side of variance with tournaments, and on the bad side with cash games. It really sucks.

I had a decent month in August. I was up about $400 by about the 20th just grinding away at $20 6-max. Then something in my brain just switched over and I bombed out. I'm currently a break-even player, having pretty much wasted 2 months-worth of spare time.

So I've had to take some time to reassess how I'm playing. I think I began to ignore position, believing that pure aggression was going to be enough. I began calling 3-bets with 10-9s in hope of that perfect flop. I must have every leak going.

So, I've decided to set myself a target for the rest of September. By September 30th I want to be $200 up. That's pretty much half a buy-in per day, is nothing, but is achievable.

I've also decided to start being serious about reviewing my play, and actually reviewing my sessions using Poker Office. I wish I could afford Poker Tracker right now, but it's pointless while I still have a valid PO licence. I'm going to make myself a hard-copy graph to track my progress over my sessions.

And I'm going to tighten-up. No more calling 3-bets with drawing hands OOP. No more shoving the flop with A-K cos I don't believe that the player who has 3-bet my raise every time in the last 5 hands has anything and I can take the pot away. I can't.

Pointless post? Maybe. But I'm posting firstly to affirm to myself that I can, and will, do this, and secondly in the hope that you guys may have some constructive suggestions to help me on my way.

If I fail in this, then I'm taking the rest of the year off to concentrate on learning more about the game, and on my University degree. If not, then we'll see how it goes...