[johnc]

Yours is not an unfamiliar story. Getting an adequate bankroll for your limits is key. It will help you ride out the variance that most definately occur esp in the micros. The bad beats will happen, one thing that I've found helps me withstand a series of losing sessions is to go back and review your hands. This IMHO is the biggest advantage to having PT. I go to my session stats and usually review my biggest losses AND my biggest wins. Make this a habit. What you should be looking for is if you are getting the money in with the best hand and charging the donks for drawing. In the micros, the key concepts I've found that helped me was charge the draws (they won't fold) and value bet, value bet, value bet. SSHE drives this concept home. Read it over and over. Play. Read it again. Play some more (I wore out my copy and had to get another!). Remeber, you won't and will never get rich at the levels but as you improve the long term will bgin to take over and, hopefully, your bankroll will grow slowly, almost too painfully slow at times. Don't be impatient. Enjoy the learning process and your growth as a poker player. Also, don't allow yourself to get discouraged by seeing others who claim to be winning players bragging about how easy it is, it's not. Holdem' is a difficult game and no one ever truly masters it. Being even a marginally winning player over a decent sample of hands is an accomplishment in and of itself. Keep at it. Keep posting and lurking. Responding to posts is also great but I've also printed off entire threads that I've found helpful and read them during my breaks at work. Hope this helps.