I started playing online poker a year ago, learning NLHE from scrtach. I lost about $750 in the first five months of the year, but became breakeven in May and then a winning player at the low limits (I hope) in June just after I switched to stars. By the beginning of December I'd recovered the $750 and made another $1,600.

In December, I went through a horrible downswing. I lost $400 of my $1,600 bankroll playing SNGs (of all types, but mainly single turbos) of $6.50-$22 (4-tabling). I should mention that $400 isn't very much money for me - I earn it in a day, but I hate losing at poker. I suck at technology but if anyone fancies sharkscoping me and posting my graph, that would be very illustrative.

In the last week, I've made back about $250 by working out where I was going wrong and thought I'd share in case it helps anyone else.

1. I was in the wrong frame of mind. For the first two thirds of the month, I was working really hard. I was getting up at 5 a.m. or earlier, working for 11-13 hours without a break. I'd come home at 8.30ish read my son a story then play poker for an hour or two. I was way to tired to think straight and I was often donking away the stresses of the day. Because I was so busy, I wasn't doing any studying either.

2. I had the last week and a half of December as a holiday. Things should have got better, but they didn't. I still wouldn't start playing until the evening, but by then I'd had a few drinks and spliffs.

3. I'd started getting arrogant, playing speculative hands in position expecting to outplay villains post-flop. 2/3rd of the time I could and I'd get a few chips and reinforcement of a stupid play. The other times I'd lose more chips or get busted (see 4.) below

4. I was messing about in ring games at the time too and was transferring some of the concepts over. Too often I was basing my SNG decisions on cEV and not $ev.

By limiting myself to one beer and remembering the proper low-limit SNG strategy that build my roll in the first place, I'm back in business and can now remember why even a limited player like me can make a solid profit at low stakes SNGs.