Are swings of this size normal?

[Francis]

Hi,

I've been playing a few months, have a total of 5k hands of poke in my life (all tracked in PT).

Like all the other rookies, I've been reading and rereading TOP, SSH and trying to apply the concepts and teachings from these to my game.

I'm playing .5/1 at Party, and I had been grinding out a basically flat BB/100. A bit up, a bit down, but always hoovering around zero. Then a few nights ago, I reread Ed's post on crushing the micro's, and vowed to be more aggressive (my PT numbers label me Tight Aggressive Passive.

I then went on a 200 hand rampage where I was up 90BB's. I've never seen such a spike in my life. Everything went perfectly, everything I had held up, I always had the best hand at showdown, the smaller fishes kept pushing chips into the pot when I had the nuts. So this is poker I thought. I'm going to like this after all.

Then last night, I played the same way, and nothing went right, everything got cracked, I never completed a hand, or that hand was second best every time. I gave back 60BB. Ouch.

How do you tell if your losing is due to poor play, or simply variance? I realize everyone says 5k hands can't be used to determine if your a "winning" player or not, but how should beginners know what they need to work on? And are 90BB swings common over 1 or 2 sessions of say 200 - 300 hands?

Regards,
Francis