"You don't have a proper understanding of variance, nor are you sufficiently bankrolled for that game if you're sweating an $1,800 loss.
If you've been reading here a while, you need to keep at it."

Well I suppose I will just try to ignore the insulting tone of this response and say that while I most certainly do have a proper understanding of variance, the purpose of this post is that I do not believe this is a variance issue. I think it would be silly to chalk this up to variance when there are factors such as the fact that this game is incredibly more loose than any other I play in, the players all bring significantly more money which not a one of them cares about, and it is the only game I have ever played in which I have lost each and every single last buy in I have ever put into it. In my view this reflects a lack of ability for me to alter my game properly to a profitable strategy in these circumstances... poker tracker has me as a SLAA (semi-loose aggressive aggressive and might I add reportedly the most profitable style according to the autorate rules I use) over 120,000 hands of .5/1 and 1/2 NL. However I don't feel comfortable playing this way in this game and have altered myself to Tight Aggressive, which doesn't appear to be working and I don't understand why. I keep buying back in because everything I see says I should have a 5k winning streak any second now with these crazy fools...I know my chances of winning any given pot with a bluff is probably only one in ten at best, so I just don't do it. I need a winning strategy against a table where you can't weed out hands with preflop raises, but will get no subsequent action if you limp in and then hit a flop because the pot is too small. I've been playing for 3 years on a $5k bankroll at these limits and this is the first time i've had a dip like this so I would question the possibility that my bankroll is too small, but i'll read that thread anyway.