When I started out playing online poker I deposited $20 at Bodog and $25 at UB. The UB money leaked away fairly quickly but the Bodog stake I was able to work up to $540 playing 10NL & 25NL before cashing out. I had started reading about "Bonus Whoring" and thought it would be easy free money. All I had to do was go play 100NL at the Cryptos for a few hours and then collect my free dough. Not that easy. After getting my ass handed to me and with now with a BR of only $240, I went back to Bodog with my tail between my legs. Then I discovered 2+2 publishing and their website and through them I doscovered the AWESOME BTP forum. I began learning A TON about how to play the game properly. Especially from the BTP forum. I now feel like I am a much better player than I was before. I slowly worked the BR back up to $500 and started "Bonus Whoring" again only this time at Paradise, Party and Empire. The bank roll began to grow nicely again. Then just recently I was looking at my records and noticed that I really haven't "won" much money these past few months. Most all of my BR increase has been from the bonuses. I'm no longer winning money! Now, I'm just a break even player clearing bonuses. But how can this be since I know so much more about how to play the game than I did before?!!!!!! What gives? How can I have gone from a winng player who didn't really know what he was doing to a break even player who actually has an idea of how to play the game? Have any of you folks had this sort of experience? What did you do about it? I don't want to play only for the bonuses. I want to "win" money too.

Sounds like a bit of variance to me, seb. Keep making the right moves and thinking about the game and sooner or later you'll have some collosal sessions that'll bring your overall winrate back to something like it should be. Have you noticed that your luck hasn't been great recently, for instance?

I find I play 40-60 hours a month and although I always win something, it varies wildly between a few hundred bucks minus bonuses and a few thousand.

Also, consider you might be playing in better games (i.e. moving up to bigger, tougher games) or that, because you're bonus whoring, you're not always picking the best tables to play on (i.e. you might sit on an uber-tight and not very profitable table just to free up your bonus, which will be profitable due to the bonus but which will hurt your non-bonus winrate).

i've said this many times before, so apologies for repeating (although it is relavent):

many low stakes tables become relative rock gardens during the party and empire bonuses. i encourage you to wait until the end of the bonus period, if at all possible, before you attempt to clear the bonus. furthermore, i encourage you to _avoid_ these sites during the first few days of the bonus -- let the rocks clear the bonus and leave.

i'm not sure about nlhe, but in plo8 during the bonus periods the 25 tables are usually awful, the 50s often worse, and the 100s MUCH tighter than usual. for the 100s, the tight, moderate winning 25 players often move up and play a super-tight game just to clear the bonus a bit quicker. it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the 100 nlhe tables got tight, too.

another point, the "bonus madness" that multipoker has done this month seems to have extended this tightness ad infinitum (although it's admittedly not as concentrated).

anyway, if i'm off the mark here for nlhe, then i second what monk said.

Thanks for the responses guys, I really appreciate it. I'm sure it probably is just variance. I know it can't be because I am playing worse than I used to because I have learned so much from everyone here that I can see that I was making a LOT of playing mistakes before I came to BTP. I was still making money back then though which is what puzzled me. But like you guys said, bad luck, variance, whatever you want to call it, I'm sure I am just going thru one of the lowspots in the cycle right now.
As for the bonus whore rock gardens that kuso mentioned, I have to say that I TOTALLY agree with this. I first got PT and started at Party in early to mid august and the tables were very loose back then. It was easy to find lots of tables that had high VP$IP and low preflop raise avg's, but since about the 20th of August or thereabouts, Party, Empire, or Multipoker has been offering some kind of a bonus continually and the rock gardens sprang up and have not gone away for the most part. Combine this with the variance I think I'm seeing right now and it pretty much explains the problem for me. I'm actually glad I don't have a bonus to work off at one of them right now. Instead, I'm giving Limit Hold'em on the Cryptos a shot using Piersmajestyk's guidelines and it seems to be going ok. Very hard to play as tight as he suggests though after playing NL for so long. But it works. It also helps to know that I need this money from poker for part of my income. Helps me a lot in remembering to play tight.