Dealing with ugly downswings and running badly

[dcb777]

I am interested in opinions of others who play poker as a main source of income on how they deal with long streaks of running badly. I have evaluated my play for the past month and have identified a couple of leaks, but overall my play has remained solid. I have noticed though that my attitude in certain hands has become "how am I possible going to lose this one" for instance flopping top set and coming in third in a huge jammed pot on the river. I have decided that a two week break should change my "negative attitude" and get me back on the right track. Any opinions on what helps you get through running badly would be greatly appreciated.

[canada_dry]

Martindale your losses until you get your money back.

Otherwise go broke.

Start again.

[Maize]

[ QUOTE ]
Martindale your losses until you get your money back.

Otherwise go broke.

Start again.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't know if this guy's serious or not. If he's just pulling your chain, he's VERY cruel. If he's serious, he's
one of the stupidest people on Earth.
Besides; it's spelled Martingale, with a G.
For those who don't know what martingale is;it's a betting
system whereby; every time you lose, you double your bet size. In effect, it means: "throwing good money after bad"

[Freelancer]

Go broke and restart.



Ps. This has been posted a gazillion times, check the forum...

[canada_dry]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Martindale your losses until you get your money back.

Otherwise go broke.

Start again.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Don't know if this guy's serious or not. If he's just pulling your chain, he's VERY cruel.

[/ QUOTE ]

Time to have your sarcasm metre checked.

[WhoIam]

When dealing with a downswing, the best thing to do is just try to keep a positive mental attitude and just barrel through. If you're prone to tilt/getting frustrated, taking a break from poker might be a good idea. If you depend on poker for a large part of your income, have a larger bankroll than normal. A 15-buyin downswing doesn't sting as much if you start with 50. Evaluate the fundamentals of your game to make sure you aren't playing scared or calling/raising when you shouldn't.

Everyone who makes a lot of money from poker is essential bipolar as the result of the inherent swings. While most everyone knows intellectually that downswings happen and are no big deal, it is the rare individual indeed who can shrug it off when his source of income dries up and he starts losing money. To not care about losing, one has stop enjoying winning, and I don't know many people who could do that.

[Maize]

[ QUOTE ]

Everyone who makes a lot of money from poker is essential bipolar as the result of the inherent swings. While most everyone knows intellectually that downswings happen and are no big deal, it is the rare individual indeed who can shrug it off when his source of income dries up and he starts losing money. To not care about losing, one has stop enjoying winning, and I don't know many people who could do that.

[/ QUOTE ]
VERY well spoken. Personally, I'm NOT one of these people. Poker HAS been good to me over the years. I've HAD my share of these downswings, maybe MORE than my share. It's allowed my to raise a family, even send my children to college. However,when you have OTHER people who depend on you, then the pressure to win makes it MUCH more difficult to shrug off the swings.
I'm NOT suggesting that an aspiring poker player should
abandon his family & responsibilities, if I had to do it all over again,I'd take the same path. But it does make you wonder....

[rory]

All professional players should have at least one major activity they do outside of poker; if you start running bad and it is bothering you then go do that activity for a while until you are ready to come back to poker. It might be a day or a few weeks or whatever but eventually you will feel all right again and come back.

[canada_dry]

When you aren't playing your best, or finding yourself getting stressed out, then take breaks. Take your mind off things..This won't necessarily change your downswing, but it will likely help you maintain composure, and certainly help your stress level.

I don't know too many people who can lose pot after pot after pot and not have this affect them in some way. Especially when most of these losses are by people with inferior hands getting unbelievably lucky at your expense.

[As armas]

For me, not caring about the results is impossible. Like an ealier poster wisely said, how can you not care about losing but have a smile on your face when you have a great session? The key is to channel those emotions. Ok, so you lost 1K playing a card game. That thousand could of paid alot bills, groceries, etc, but instead its gone. The fallacy is that you would of never had that 1K in the first place if it werent for poker. Downswings are like dark comedy, you need to have a sick sense of humor to succeed in this war. If you go to BBV and see 2 threads, one says "sick upswing" and other "horrendous downswing" most of us click on the downswing one (why is that, but thats another issue). And if its really bad, we laugh at it because its so ridiculous. When its your downswing, make sure its bad luck and laugh along with everyone else. Try and be at peace with the fact you are a WINNING player, one of the 10-20%. You wanna switch places with the losing player who stacked you on some stupid decision? That donk is too chicken shiit to look at his lifetime PT stats, why does he need to be reminded he sucks? Whatever, we're playing with his money anyway. And dont ever ever forget to type in nh.