losing a lot in a short amount of time

[mhlandry]

So I've just lost 150bb in 1500 hands. My mind is spinning.

I've played about 90k hands of poker. So I've lost this much before, but never so quickly. I've tried the little tricks... limiting sessions, dropping down in limits. But it seems like literally everything is falling apart. Name a premium hand and odds are it's losing me a significant amount right now. Damn near every single one.

How do you guys handle this? I need to get over this if I want to become a better player.

[Harv72b]

If you can handle the downswing without letting it affect your play, play through it. If you can't (many, many people cannot), take a break. It's that simple.

If you're looking for ways to make yourself feel better away from the table, some things I'll do:

-Look at my PT stats from the downswing. If most of my "base" stats are the same as normal (VPIP, PFR, AF, WtSD) but my "results" stats are lower (W$SD, W$WSF), I can be fairly confident that it was just a bad run of cards, which will reverse itself. If my base numbers are off, I know that I was probably tilting at some point, which I can correct.

-Compare the amount lost during your downswing to the amount you've won overall. This helps me a lot--while losing 150 BBs sucks, it pales in comparison to the thousands of BBs a good player will have won over a larger sample.

-Post some of your hands on the appropriate forum(s) here, and see if the majority agree with how you played them. If they do, it's a confidence boost. If they don't, it's a chance to improve your game.

-Re-read some of your poker books. Watch some old poker dvd's.

-Drop down a level or two and whip up on a ridiculously soft table for a while, as a confidence boost.

-Play another variation of poker for a while as a change of pace.

Swings come and go. Good play is forever. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DyessMan89]

Check out the new article in this months 2+2 Internet Magazine. The one entitled "Playing Through a Downswing" should be very helpfull to you.

[Michael Emery]

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So I've just lost 150bb in 1500 hands. My mind is spinning.


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How do you guys handle this?

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I drink heavily.