Well after a fairly rocky start to my "sub-operation", I have finally made some progress.

I dropped another couple of buy-ins from my starting point over the first week, then I had a +4 buy-in session yesterday and another positive session today. That puts me at -$200, which is up $50 from the start and 20% of the way towards getting back to even.

I've been spending a lot of time off the tables watching videos and reading, and I think thats finally helping me to get better at dealing with the shorties, aggro nits, and constant three-bettors. I recognized a massive leak on one recent video, which the coach called "floating yourself" - basically I was raising preflop with a decent hand in HJ or EP, cbetting a whiffed flop out of position, and then check-folding when I still didn't improve on the turn. So instead of doing that nearly every time I've been throwing a few different lines out, have taken down some pots and seem to have at least stemmed the torrent of cash flowing to my opponents in that spot.

Anyway, two decent sessions is a long way from a winning player, so I'm not getting carried away yet. Got to stick at it!