How to tell if I've been unlucky, or I s*ck? (warning: long)

[bostondave]

Hello all,

I'm writing this post in frustration. I haven't been playing O/8 very long (about a year), but I've always felt that I was above the level where I've been playing. I was a constant winner from the beginning at the micro limits online, and I've moved up to 3/6 (is that still micro) successfully. The past three weeks, though, have been atrocious. I've burned through several buy-ins, and can't figure out if it's just Mother Variance come home to roost, or if maybe I was just lucky to be winning before. It seems like every A23 hits a flop of TTJ, and every AAQQss hits a flop of 2 5 9 rainbow. I'm getting beat by people who had fewer than 4 outs more than I ever have before. And it's not that I'm moving into tougher games. If anything, they're looser and no less passive than the lower limits were.

After each successive session, I've gone back into PTO to review my play. I'm consistently around 22-25% VP$IP, but I have low aggression factors (I think subconciously, I'm afraid to put money in the pot w/out having it locked up). It seems like if I lose $100 in a session, I can always find two $50 pots where I was better than a 90% favorite going into the river, and wound up losing...and I can never find any that are the other way around.

Believe it or not, this isn't just a rant based in frustration. I have two specific questions, and one more general. I should state up front that I've read Zee's book (3 times so far), as well as Winning Omaha/8 by Tenner/Krieger (twice). I don't *think* I'm a fish, but I could be completely wrong. Anyways, the questions are:

1. If you flop top set on a disconnected rainbow board, how do you play it? Let's say there's 1 low card on the board. How about 2? I've been playing this aggressively to try to push out draws, but it seems to be backfiring on me...is this a leak I need to plug? I know a set is nothing but a drawing hand in O/8, but if there's nothing else out there, how do you play it?

2. How about the same situation with a flopped straight? I seem to have an uncanny ability to flop a straight, then watch a runner-runner flush hit, and have the river pair the board. And the runner-runner is never the suit of my redraw. And of course the paired board doesn't help either. It's really a sight to behold....

The general question is this: Is there anybody out there who would be interested in/willing to train a willing student who is ready to admit he needs some help? I know that some people will say "read the archives" and "read book x", but I've done that already. I think I need some help. I'm not exactly sure why anybody would want to help someone who could potentially take their money in the future (way, way in the future, because I'm not taking anybody's money at this point), but if you've always wanted to teach somebody, I'm your guy [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Otherwise, I think it's back to the .25/.50 games until I get my confidence back.

hmph....just previewed my post. I seem to have convinced myself while writing it that I do, indeed, s*ck. Help!