Hey Choppa, I'm in exactly the same boat...in fact the post you made describing how you like to play is exactly the same as me, including the bet sizing, it's scary.

I've also been trying to adjust my game in ways, such as expanding my range, and ran into the exact issue as you in regards to the downswing which leads me to think that it's not so much variance (though I have graphs from pokerev to show that's not quite true and I'm sure yours would do the same).

I think overall though it will actually be bad play and sucking all of a sudden but with a reason behind it. Think about when we first started playing a new form of card game (eg moving to hold'em from 5cd, plo from lhe, etc) and how much we usually suck at it compared to the players that have been there a while...we get reamed pretty much until we start picking up on the nuances of the game that are different to what we are used to, etc.

Well this is the same thing, we are trying to adjust our game from where we are comfortable to a new variant of the game and as such we are still trying to find the nuances of it comapred to our previous style so we are going to suck compared to the lag's that have played that way for ages (or the tags if you are moving from playing lag).

The benefit of this is that we know we can pull through it, as we have in the past, and as long as we remain confident in our ability to learn and adapt then we don't have to worry too much about our confidence in our actual underlying game and realize that while we might be suddenly sucking it's only a short-term thing until the new plays and strategies we need to employ click in our minds.