[Guthrie]

On the list I posted, in only one hand I folded was I first in, and I think I noted that. All the rest there were at least one, and almost always two or more limpers.

As far as "variance as an excuse" I agree wholeheartedly. What I was trying to do, and it backfired, was point out that it's possible to hit a single horrible session that, if repeated a couple of times, can easily result in a bad downswing. When this happens, you start to question your play and start to fix leaks that don't exist, you tighten up, your play suffers, and the downswing intensifies.

However, what happened here was that everybody saw the 3% PFR for that session and launched immediately into an attack saying that is the entire reason for this bad session, yet not a single person has yet to step up and identify one single hand that should have been raised that was not.

Since there are no perfect poker players, well except the great Phil Helmuth, then every downswing must be a combination of bad play and bad luck. There's nothing we can do about bad luck, but when it masks bad play then we have a real problem. I'm not blaming my downswings on bad luck, I just posted a single session where I think the bad luck portion was greater than the bad play. Instead of identifying the bad play, everyone just tells me to "raise more" as if that would somehow deliver better starting hands and cut down the suckouts. That doesn't help.

I'm not sitting back afraid of passive players beating me on the river. I'm trying to determine how to overcome it. If preflop raising would do it, then I'd auto-raise every hand. I just want some guidelines on how to get from where I am to where I need to be, other than "raise more."

I'm not saying "I couldn't have played it any better." I'm asking "How could I have played it better?" so that the bad luck wasn't compounded by my bad play.