I'm Depressed and Don't Want To Play

[CrisBrown]

Hi bison,

I second (third, fourth?) this advice. This poster sounds as if he not only lost yesterday, but seriously tilted. I think it's almost always wise to take at least a day off if you've tilted in the previous day's session. It helps to prevent "throwing good money after bad."

Cris

[joedot]

Well, I don't think always taking a day off is a good thing. I think it really depends on your situation. If you are playing for a living, you can't do this very often. And taking a day off can cause anxiety, and you still may be very aprehensive about playing. In other words, it does nothing to improve your confidence, which is the main problem here with Gata. Burnout is another issue, but that is not what he is describing. To get your confidence back, here's what works (for me anyway):

1) Tighten up!!! Very important. You may even think you are playing tight. Stop lying to yourself. Play tighter. This will reduce the variance, and will give you a lot of confidence to once again see that tight play does win
2) Move down limits
3) Go back to playing 1 table until you are confident again and running better
4) find a game that works. If the nl wasn't working, play omaha hi/lo, or shorthanded he, or whatever works for you. That is why it is important to play all games. Experiment, find your niche. Some games are great because they have lower variance, and are more advantageous to winning players. When I go into a drought, I have a fallback game. If that game doesn't work, I try a different game, and find one where I start to kick ass again. I play that for a while, and win, and in no time am feeling much better about poker and life. You shouldn't box yourself into only 1 type of game. This can get stale, and can really create problems for you when it isn't working for you for some reason.

Anyway, that's what works for me. You do this and you'll figure out what, if anything you were doing wrong. Tightening up is the main thing. Aggressive play can often lead to looser play, even if you don't want to admit it. It's rarely just bad beats that cause all your losses. I play for a living, and taking days off never has worked for me in situations like this. The only cure is winning, and you have to try whatever you can to get back to winning. If you're burned out, ok, maybe that's different. But even with burnout, it is amazing how quickly a winning session clears that up. Something else to try is to get out and play some live poker. That could be just what the doctor ordered to get you out of your funk and any boredom that online poker is sure to create. Anyway, good luck my freind, and hope this helps.

[CrisBrown]

Hi joedot,

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I don't think always taking a day off is a good thing. I think it really depends on your situation. If you are playing for a living, you can't do this very often. And taking a day off can cause anxiety, and you still may be very aprehensive about playing. In other words, it does nothing to improve your confidence, which is the main problem here with Gata.

[/ QUOTE ]

Losing six buy-ins in one day at NL, after dropping 40BB in limit, is not a confidence issue. It's tilt issue, thus an emotion-management issue. Charging straight back into the fray is likely to land you at the table with the very same negative emotions that cost so much money the day before. Until he has regained his emotional balance, he really doesn't need to be at a poker table.

Cris