Planning to Take a Break

[JohnnyHumongous]

It's hard to explain but when things run bad, they run bad. I can look at hands and see an army of bad beats, and excuse it away as that, but I believe there is more to it than that.

It is a feeling. A feeling that happens to me when things are running bad, and I'm feeling "pokered out", and also maybe feeling a little tired or stressed due to non-poker things in my life... the feeling is like a cloud, a mental haze going around and through my head. It makes me feel almost shell-shocked. You think you're making the right decisions, and you don't see leaks etc., but things just start going all wrong and I know that it is because the cloud is causing me to make mistakes or play in situations that are not optimally profitable for me. The cloud hit me hard once before, when I had a full week to devote to poker and I played too much plus got bad beats all at once, and all this combined to make me drop $4000 at 10/20. I'm feeling that cloud again now, and that is why I have decided to take a break from cards for a while.

I'd be surprised if this made sense to anyone. Oh well, it helps me to put it down in words.

[steamboatin]

Excellent idea.

[deacsoft]

Nothing wrong with a break in this case. It's wise to only play when you can play your best. Come back to the game when you're refreshed and have a clear head. You're doing the right thing and there's certainly no shame in it.

[Subfallen]

200 BB is nothing.

[JohnnyHumongous]

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200 BB is nothing.

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The 200 BB was in March. I just dropped approx. 270 BB since Thursday. I DON'T play that many hands so this many downswings is NOT just variance I'm sure. Before this downswing I was running at 3.08 BB/100 for my last 60,000 hands at 10/20, and that includes the 200 BB in March. I was completely smoking the limit. When I'm under control I can demolish 10/20 (I've been playing there exclusively since last October so I have plenty of experience). But these swings are definitely symptomatic of something deeper.

[mungpo]

Looks like you were running incredibly well for 60k hands. Relax, things will get better.

[JohnnyHumongous]

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like you were running incredibly well for 60k hands. Relax, things will get better.

[/ QUOTE ]

60K is a lot of hands dude. I know it's "en vogue" on these boards to dismiss winrates as statistical blah blah blah but you try 4-tabling 10/20 for 5 months and 60K hands and tell me how you do. Not trying to be standoffish here, it's just that I'm tired of people talking about 60K hand stretches like they don't mean what they mean statistically. I just played the equivalent of 2,000 hours of live poker. Also, it's my first 60K since I started using PokerTracker so it's not like I'm talking about a certain 60K block where I ran well that I pulled out of a larger 500K hand database. This is my only collection of hands. My winrate, incidentally, improved consistently as my own skill improved and leaks were plugged.