I've also been having a pretty annoying year. Playing primarily $30 - $50 SNGs, January was a 25 buy-in downswing. I managed to battle back to even in mid march and since then have regressed to a few bucks above my January low point.
The only plus side (online - I'm solidly in the black in my few LHE & NLHE live games) is my pwnage of the low buy-in Stud/8 and HORSE multis coupled with a win on $5 R&A satellite for the NAPC qualifier which I cashed out as T$ on 'Stars. Without these, I'd be grinding very low BI SNGs. As it is, I'm still playing mainly $30s - $50s now.
SNG wise, I'm not sure how much of my frustration is variance, how much is too many people having read Moshman, or maybe a flawed analysis on my part of what made '09 a better year than '08. I suspect I've gotten too cautious, no so much in push/call ranges, but at the stack size where I go pushbot with less than strong hands.
In '08 I regularly used to push over smaller stacks at the 10 BB point. After absorbing Moshman I tightened up my 12-9 BB push/call range and did not really open up until around 7 BB. I'm beginning to wonder now if the marginal drop in fold equity in these cases is the main factor that's causing me problems right now.
In the final analysis, it is probably a combination of factors that I need to work out to find the proper balance.
A secondary factor is I'm now playing a lot more SNGs on 'Stars and that requires a slightly different approach than 'Tilt due to the difference in the structures between the two sites.
The good news is I'm patient, and of course, in the words if Jim Kelly, "I'm an optimist with a short memory."
