Which is Real?

[brianmarc]

For the period July, 2003 to May 12 I played 292 hours 10/20 and 20/40 6-handed online at one of the smaller sites. I was up $29K. Over the next 54 hours I lost $9K. Net for period: Up $20K, over 346 hours.

As far as I can tell (and god knows, I have thought about this a lot), I played no differently in the second period. The games however, did change-in the latter period they were theoretically better there were fewer tight players and more loose fish who played nearly every hand. Part of the time there was one maniac who kept popping the pot and even though he crashed and burned something like 5K in the period, the rocks kept on hitting everything. At one point I lost 11 hands in a row with pocket pairs QQ or better. In only one case was there a legit draw-the rest were guts in heads up situations and third pair hitting on the river. And when I had those beautiful flops like nut flush, open striaght and middle pair would get capped thru to the river, never hitting. Winner would show some garbage like TT, or river his trips.

I know I whould be having wet dreams about games like this, but I'm still shell-shocked and have lost much of my confidence. Am playing scared, which means checking where I know I should raise, and folding when I know I should call someone down.

Any thoughts?