What to do in a bad streak?

[Gula25]

Alright, Im not trying to sound like a whiner, but the past 3 weeks or so I have had a horrible string of beats, suck outs, and unfortunate situations. It seems like lately, I have been running into more players who make bad calls, and overall they have been getting luckier and I havent been able to over come it.

Started playing the $5 sngs on stars, won about $280 in the course of a couple weeks... and now 3 weeks later im down about 80.. I have never had a losing streak sustain for this long, at first I had no problem convincing myself that bad calls are what allows me to do well on the site, but as the beats get worse and more frequent its hard to maintain a positive attitude towards it.

So basically anything useful someone could post to help me turn the ship back on course, maybe something little to concentrate on or whatever. I have been thinking about stepping away from the SnGs for a while but Im not sure where to play?

How bad do the losing streaks get (in the grand scheme of playing poker) and what can you possibly do about it when your in the midst of one?

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[lorinda]

and what can you possibly do about it when your in the midst of one?


First and foremost, take a day off.

It is entirely possible you are playing slightly worse than usual.
Burnout is a strange beast, you can swear blind that you are playing no different, and yet come back a couple of days later, fresh, and immediately drop back into the groove.

If you simply can't take a day off (bad sign if you can't) then change site, change game, change the scenery.
The mind works better when fresh.

I find that a change of pace, even playing on a different site can make a little difference to my play.

Finally, remain confident.
Get your stats out, look at how good you were, you're probably having a real bad run, they can get BAD.

As an example, before two nights ago I was winning 66% of my heads up games. The statisical probability of me only winning one in ten is roughly 1 in 2000, yet that's exactly what happened to me.

I switched to some low limit ring NL on another site and won 400x the big blind (200BB in pokertracker) in two hours at four tables in one sesssion and 280x in a seperate one hour session.

Mix it up, keep yourself interested and don't panic.

Lori

[stupidsucker]

[ QUOTE ]
won about $280 in the course of a couple weeks... and now 3 weeks later im down about 80

[/ QUOTE ]

Does this mean you lost $360 from your high mark playing 5+1 SnGs?

If so that is way too much of a swing. You may want to post a few iffy hands here and see what people think about your play. I may be out of line but a 70 buy in swing is normaly an indication of some big mistakes.

If you have only lost $80 from your highwater mark then no worries at all , it is a natural swing, (This doesnt mean your game is perfect though).

You may be over playing some hands like AJ or AT or middle pairs.


If this is the case then I

[Gula25]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
won about $280 in the course of a couple weeks... and now 3 weeks later im down about 80

[/ QUOTE ]

Does this mean you lost $360 from your high mark playing 5+1 SnGs?

If so that is way too much of a swing. You may want to post a few iffy hands here and see what people think about your play. I may be out of line but a 70 buy in swing is normaly an indication of some big mistakes.

If you have only lost $80 from your highwater mark then no worries at all , it is a natural swing, (This doesnt mean your game is perfect though).

You may be over playing some hands like AJ or AT or middle pairs.


If this is the case then I

[/ QUOTE ]


whoops ya didnt look to clear in the post, definelty only lost 80 from the highwater mark, not left with 80 now.. otherwise yes that would be a huge swing..

thanks for the comments though, greatly appreciated!