I'm a donk

[sandbagger223]

Taj 10-20, I burn through 25BB's in 2 hrs. This hand pretty much tells the tale of how badly I'm playing of late.

I'm MP with K9s. 2 limpers to me. I limp (meh?) SB completes, BB checks.

Flop the flush draw (not nut). SB bets out. BB raises, folded to me, I call 2 (meh?). SB calls.

3 to the turn which pairs the top card on board. SB checks, BB bets. I call, SB calls.

River brings the flush. SB checks. BB bets. I RAISE (ugh)

I used to play very well. How can I get rid of these LAGGY tendencies? They are killing my bankroll. Do any of you pro's go through periods where you play like s%$#? How do you get yourselves re-focused?

Thanks in advance for replies....

[swede123]

You're playing badly as of late. How long of a period is that? Maybe you just need a break?

Swede

[sandbagger223]

I'm gonna say 2 months or so. (50 hours live, 100 hours online). In addition, I've pissed away my Party account. It was over 2K few months ago. At $0 right now.

Don't they say everyone goes broke at least once? I guess this is it for me.

: (

It sounds to me that you're getting a bit tilted (not overly from the hand you described as it at least was not ludicrous) and your bad play is begetting more bad play. It sounds like you are very worried about the money that you've gone through and that is bad in itself. It starts to make you do things that you wouldn't do if you were winning in the attempt to get your money back.

In the hand you described you played a marginal hand, which is not all that bad if you will play it well, and it seems to me that you did it hoping to get lucky. Once I start to think that *maybe I'll get lucky* it's usually time to leave.

A couple of suggestions:

Drop down in limits for a while. That may take some of the pressure off of you.

Take some time off if you can.

Let someone sweat your hands so that you'll be embarrassed to let him see you play bad.

Look at your cards and count to 5 before you decide what to do.

Realize that there is no *getting even*. You are even right now. If you try to *get even* it puts too much pressure on you. If you're always thinking of what you used to have and that you must get it back (esp. quickly) you won't be concentrating on the task at hand.

Hope some of this helps.

btw: What is *meh*?

[lighterjobs]

It seems like you are desperate to catch cards and replenish your roll.

[BoogerFace]

If you are playing too many hands too far because you are bored, the solution is to take frequent breaks and walk around.

Maybe take a break from B+M all together for awhile.

[Yarney]

This happened to me a couple of months ago. I lost $1000 in a day and it was a major wake up call. What I did was I took a week off from playing, then spent another week re-reading some of my favorite poker books. I found that this really got my game back to where it should be and re-aligned my focus.

Now all I have to contend with is being card-dead...

-Yarney

[pyedog]

Was this hand really that badly played? I'm far from an expert but this seems pretty reasonable to me. The preflop call might not be great against good tight opposition, but I think that's a good call against 2 mediocre limpers. I probably would have 3-bet on the flop with the flush draw and taken a free card on the turn if possible.

If the BB was tight and observant then I guess you'd just want to call on the river since he didn't seem to be scared of the flush completing after you'd both been calling along. I'd probably raise here against a typical opponent of mine at 5-10 who would probably pay off with trips.

I agree with everyone that you probably need to step down a limit if you're stressing. I know I've lost close to 25 BBs in 2 hours before. And I've definitely played hands more poorly than this one.