Why am I getting creamed at these games?

First thing. It has been said, but I am very sure you are making your fair share of mistakes that are costing you money. The good news is, the people you are playing at .5/1 will make much more than you. The high rake dampers your win rate as well.

Running bad sucks, it makes you qustion you game and other things. Realize that!! You will very often have a losing session. I have had a 5 days of losing sessions before, that were made up for on one day where I ran well. Over that increadibly small stretch of time I feel I ran close to even, and my winrate represented my long turn rate.

The best thing you can do when this happens is realize that you can't do anything about it. All you can control is how you react to a bad run. If you cry about it, you will feel like a victim and compound your badluck with bad play.

Just make the best plays you can, and if you are as good as you think you are you will win.

And yes this happens to us all, and i beleive it has happened to others worse than you and I . I have had a 10 hand stretch where my pocket Aces got cracked. But still that hand is my biggest winner. I have had the same with Kings, still it is my second biggest winner. AK has missed more flops than it has it (that is supposed to happen) and still I am showing a profit.

Bad players play bad! If a bad player plays bad and draws out on you, congratulate him, tell him he is a great player, or say nothing. Don't get angry because they are doing what you want them to do, play bad. What you should be doing is getting excited. I have been in rooms with total morons that were just taking my money. I lost 20BB over an hour and kept my cool and refused to leave because they were so horrible. I figure it this way, if this is gonna be one of my bad runs, why not hav against bad players whom don't get enough value on thier hands, but give me too much on my winners. To end that story, I played for two more hours and left -3BB. My cards were pretty bad, and I won 6 out of 300 hands. The lucky part for me was that 5 of those 6 winners were massive pots padded by bad players doing what they do, playing bad.

Minimize your losses on your losers, and maximize your winners. Thats what gets the money.

Good luck

Finally,