Your life is like.. a Rollercoaster, baby baby!

I noticed that my bankroll has been going up and down, but staying on the same amount for quite some time now. I make nice plays and win money.. and then when I get bad beats, I tend to give all the stack I'm holding. The important thing I've noticed is, even though I can currently keep my own on $25NL, the only days I've really won big, is when I played really relaxed, with full attention and nothing bothering me.. Now, I know it's common sense not to play when you're tired, but I just had to experience it myself how bad my game can get when I AM tired. It's hard to notice though.. since you are seeing the nuts to the board and making rational decisions for your cards, BUT, you aren't following your opponents. And thus you can't capitalize on their errors.

The only days in my short career I've really gone up, a lot.. is when I've played on my free days, with no school work to stress about, with nice amount of sleep behind me, no environmental disturbance.

The days I've crashed my bankroll, is when I started playing tired - after long day of school, not quite enough sleep, which led to tilting and generally not caring about losing.

The only times when I've ended up positive when playing tired, was because of LUCK. And we know poker isn't, and shouldn't be about luck. This is a reminder (with play history to prove it) to myself not to play tired anymore, but rather read some theory or browse through forums. That's good poker too - at least in this stage of my education;)