Dealing with live downswings

[Ghazban]

Currently, I keep my live poker bankroll separate from both my normal living-expenses-type money and my online poker bankroll. Over the past couple of months, I've been doing fairly well online but getting crushed live (primarily no-limit holdem in both venues). I'm almost to the point where I'll have to take some money off the online sites to reload my live roll.

When I go through downswings online, I can usually look at my stats for the relevant period, review hand histories, etc., and fairly easily figure out if I've just been unlucky, read people badly, or have some leaks that crept in without my noticing.

However, live play isn't as easy to review. I almost always take some time after a session (winning or losing) to jot down some notes and/or think about certain plays I made during that session to review and improve my game.

Since the new year, I'm down quite a bit in live play and am not seeing significant holes in my game. That isn't to say I've played flawlessly (I certainly haven't) but I'm starting to question if I have leaks in my game that I'm not catching.

Obviously, 3 months (of playing live maybe once or twice a week on average) is nowhere near the long run but I'm still fairly new to this game (played for less than a year) and I know I've got a lot learn. I suppose the crux of the issue here is in differentiating the poor play from the bad luck.

Any thoughts?

[antifish225]

Down swing happen all the time, asssuming you were beating the B&M game before the last three months, and not much has changed in terms of the game itself (ie. players are not differnt/better), then I would simply accept the donwswing for what it is - a natural fluctation that will happen to everyone over time.....in terms of keeping track of if there are 'holes' in your game offline - here is what I do - and I know it sounds stupid/geeky - however if I find myself running bad for a couple of session I bring my old note book to the table and actually write down every hand I played, how I played it, why I played it the way I did, and what the outcome was (also for 'good hands' that I chose not to play I do the same), then after the session I literally go through every hand that I played and rate my own play.....this has done wonders to both my game (when I find a couple of mistakes), and my confidence when I find that I played almost every hand to the best of MY ability - that it is just a run of poor cards/horrible rivers.....now I do not do this everytime I play (I used to when I started playing 20-40) - but when I think something is off data is always king.....just get ready for a few smart asses at the table to make fun of your book (and stand up from the table when you are making notes...some people think it is poor etiquite to write at the table) - hope this helps...hope your cards turn....