Long, Painful, and Seemingly Endless

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
you must have misunderstood me. what i mean by just chill do other stuff is have a life outside of obsessing about poker and how bad youre running and changing that and woe is me and that whole obsessive cycle. i didnt mean, dont get better, dont try different approaches or anything like that. i meant take some serious time off away from the game. sometimes this means finding another source of work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh ok. In that case I completely agree with everything you've said.

[Barry]

[ QUOTE ]
You may be right, but I prefer to force the smile back on my face by playing in games that are almost impossible not to beat.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's actually much to be said about that. If I have a frustrating period of time, be it a few hours or a few days, I have started to play a couple of 3/6 tables where I would think that I have a huge edge. That tends to help restore my confidence.

With respect to the OP's problem, try doing the same for a while and seriously consider getting a coach. It's possible that you are way out on the tail of running bad, but it would seem much more likely that you have several leaks of varying seriousness that need to be plugged.

A break from poker for a while, perhaps at least a week my help refresh you too.

[Enon]

About a year ago I was still a weak tight nit so my winrate was pretty mediocre too start with but I ran pretty good playing this style in the party 15/30 game. When the winter rolled around I started running bad, playing really long hours, and waking up late in the afternoon just as the sun was going down.

Every time I would begin a session, I would bring all my frustration about my bad play and bad results to the table. I would give away 10 BB pots for 1 bet on the river and immediately go on tilt, knowing it was a big leak in my game but feeling helpless to stop making the same error over and over.

I was setting myself up for failure by allowing my happiness, confidence and sense of accomplishment to be so closely tied to my poker play and results.

It is an interest paradox that while poker is a job that allows one's work ethic and intelligence to be compensated accordingly over the long haul, in the short run it can fail to satisfy our ingrained need for tangible progress. I know there are tons of dead end jobs out there in corporate management positions on down to service industry jobs but you can always find pride and accomplishment in doing your task well, even if you are not getting paid accordingly.

After 4 months straight months of breakeven poker in a dreary Seattle winter last year, I made the decision to stop relying so heavily on poker for that pleasurable yet fleeting reinforment that running good gives you. When you are making tons of money (especially if you're young like me and making this kind of money for the first time in your life), you can neglect all those things in life that used to keep you happy; friends, family, diet, sleep, excercise, school etc because the euphoria is so overwhelming and addictive.

I cut down on the amount that I played and stopped playing during the day after I woke up. I made the effort every day to do something productive that I could feel good about, whether it was going indoor rock climbing or simply cleaning my room and doing errands. During this time I improved my game and my results immeasurably but I also found a real balance in my life for the first time since I had found poker, and for a compulsive guy like me, I feel this is a much bigger accomplishment for my poker game in the long run than incremental improvments in my postflop play. Of course, finding balance in ones life is an accomplishment in itelf.

[Nigel]

That post is gold Enon.

[STLantny]

Enon, I think that posts really really sucks.







Because your timing is about 2 months too late for me. Otherwise that is spot on, I am also working on doing the same as you. I try to get errands, routine, etc down everyday. Its a slow and hard process, put I know it will pay off in the long run.

[BoxTree]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Take some time off or if you want to play
2. lower your play limit
3. set up a losing limit for a session
4. Accumulate little victories to re-build your confidence (e.g., in 15/30 level, your session goal can be set as a $200 winning or even less, you can achieve it at very beginning of the session, and then you quit from the session right away).

Confidence is very very important to poker, if you lose it, you must to find it back. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

1 and 2 are excellent.

3 is fine as long as your lower limit isn't obscenely low. (50 BB seems to be a pretty standard losing limit for live play. It may also be the right number for an online player who is trying to rediscover his game.)

4 is absolutely terrible. This is textbook, "Very Silly Topic of Money Management." Don't do it. Never set an upper limit. Ever. But if -- in one session -- you win, win, win, win, and then lose it all and another 50 BB, stop playing for that session.

Even in the rebuilding phase, I do not believe there is significant value in leaving a winner just for the sake of leaving as a winner. The psychological benefit gained here will not be offset by the psychological pain of the inevitable downswings.

Just my two cents.

[flub]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1. Take some time off or if you want to play
2. lower your play limit
3. set up a losing limit for a session
4. Accumulate little victories to re-build your confidence (e.g., in 15/30 level, your session goal can be set as a $200 winning or even less, you can achieve it at very beginning of the session, and then you quit from the session right away).

Confidence is very very important to poker, if you lose it, you must to find it back. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

1 and 2 are excellent.

3 is fine as long as your lower limit isn't obscenely low. (50 BB seems to be a pretty standard losing limit for live play. It may also be the right number for an online player who is trying to rediscover his game.)

4 is absolutely terrible. This is textbook, "Very Silly Topic of Money Management." Don't do it. Never set an upper limit. Ever. But if -- in one session -- you win, win, win, win, and then lose it all and another 50 BB, stop playing for that session.

Even in the rebuilding phase, I do not believe there is significant value in leaving a winner just for the sake of leaving as a winner. The psychological benefit gained here will not be offset by the psychological pain of the inevitable downswings.

Just my two cents.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. If you were building a robot to play poker then setting an upper limit would be silly. But we are not robots and quitting a winner 3 times in a row can be invaluable mentally to someone on a downswing. Depending on the person it may be a good idea.

My own advice would be to be super duper selective in game and seat selection. Don't sit at a table unless there are at least 2 big fish and 2 little fish. And don't take a seat until one opens that has position on both the big fish and 1 of the little fish, and there is no one dangerous behind you.

Mostly I would suggest quitting poker though. Don't forget the opportunity cost of your lost time playing a break-even game.

-f

[raisins]

I've read a number of your posts in this forum before and respect your analysis of hands so this is a somewhat shocking post.

Silly as it may sound there is a possibility that you are the unluckiest poker player in the world. I think the other possibility is that you are tilting more than you recognize.

If you don't step down in limits to a size of game that is appropriate for your bankroll you are refusing to do the best adjustment for your position. Reconsider this.

One possibility is that as you ran bad and went to smaller games you played in ways that would have been appropriate for the larger games but maybe not quite as good for the smaller games. From the hands I see posted, there are some aggressive flop raises with marginal hands in the 15-30 game that wouldn't be worthwhile in the 5-10 with more coldcallers. Is your play getting simpler as you step down?

good luck,

raisins

[AceHigh]

I don't know if you do this or not, but I set a loss limit for each session which if I lose more than that I quit. Right now it is set at about 25BB for me. I think this keeps me from playing some of my worst poker. Even taking just a small break, like 15 minutes helps prevent tilt for me.