dunno what to think rly

sounds like this is a great time for vacation, after it you've forgotten about the beats and have great motivation again ^^

i am on 3 month downswing, dropped 3 stakes down and lost 90% of my roll. being 3 stakes down and being unable to win a single pot.
I bet your situation is that bad

it is similar

Wish I had the roll/skills to be able to goto Thailand, everyone seems to be going there now and it looks great!

lost 5more bi

this is so bad....

are you flying to thailand to stay in a house with poker players and going to grind some? sounds like you need a complete clean break from poker, you might begin every session fresh but every time you begin the session with running bad it fucks with your mind in a very unhealthy way

drop down...

naz is 100% right
dunno what to tell you about making it through the downswing, i got through mine mostly due to helpful friends and just pretty much making up my mind that im far too good to let a small stakes downswing push me out of poker. treat it like something to fight for i guess? but mostly you need to stop playing for a little bit to clear your head and if you decide it's not worth it then drop it entirely

your story sounds like what hapened to me night. I went busto, and quit poker.
so be careful.

just move down. play smaller smaller stakes just so that you dont think about the losses too much and win some easy money aswell, forget about moving up for the meantime(that alone causes 80% of the stress anyway) and enjoy ur trip.

Forget about poker until you come back. Enjoy Thailand, I hear it's sick.

On January 13 2010 05:15 KeanuReaver wrote: naz is 100% right dunno what to tell you about making it through the downswing, i got through mine mostly due to helpful friends and just pretty much making up my mind that im far too good to let a small stakes downswing push me out of poker. treat it like something to fight for i guess? but mostly you need to stop playing for a little bit to clear your head and if you decide it's not worth it then drop it entirely

naz and keanu are very right. Take ur thailand time as time to relax, not think about poker.

Hopefully I'll see ya in thailand! I'll PM you before I leave korea and see where you're at

How many BIs do you play for current level? If you got like a 100 BI bankroll, I really cannot see how you can be affected by "bad beats." However if you are palying with like a 20BI roll or something, 5BI is gonna soul crush you.

Also if you are always on a downswing, perhaps it is not all just bad luck, but the possiblity that you are playing poorly. Maybe because you are thinking you are on a downswing you just keep thinking about results and shit. This in return, leads to spewing shit loads and not playing objectively. You begin to play to get even, and this is just all bad.

It is quite possible you have no idea you are doing this and have not realised it. Have you tried doing a few things like;

1 - Record yourself playing a session (say 4-6 tables), and watch the video back the next day before playing any Poker, with a complete objective mind, taking shit load of notes on your own play. Like any bad decisions, work out why you made this decision? What was your logic? Any pots you thought you played well, but maybe you should not have won, or pots you sucked out on, did you spew and get lucky? Perhaps this will discover things.

2 - Warming up and warming down before/after playing sessions. Do you do this? If you don't, look into it, it may help.

3 - Decrease your playtime and increase your "learning/study" time. I think a good ratio is 4:1, but on a downswing, maybe 3:1 is better. (ie 4 hours play, 1 hour study etc)

I am no expert, and even I am a poor cash game player. You play higher stakes than me, and I am sure you play a hell of alot better than me, but what I have noticed that alot of your posts for your blog are all so "emo". I dont mean this in a detremental way, but I mean you always seem to be complaining about something alot. It just seems that your emotional part of your brain takes up alot of your poker decisions, when in reality you want no emotion when making decisions. I hope that makes sense :/

I could be wrong, but maybe you will find something in this wall of text.

Good luck and enjoy your holiday.

cliffs at bottom
first, thanks all

on taking a break.. I've been tossing the idea of not playing any poker during my trip back and forth for a while. I'm 95% sure that if I bring my laptop I'm going to end up playing SOME poker, and I feel like bringing my laptop will be a good idea just so I can utilize my camera better and for when I'm bored etc. I think I will bring my laptop.. but make a conscious decision not to play poker for a while.

So naz's point is really true. I've also felt so 'beat up' lately that I'm afraid of completely extinguishing my fire for poker... which isn't something I want to happen. I'm not sure if I will be meeting any fellow poker players in thailand.

Chewits, thanks and you are correct on some accounts here..
No, it hasn't all been bad luck, I have been tilting off cash by the end of many of my sessions. But I'm very confident in my normal nl100 game.. which is why I start each day feeling 'ok' or even semi-good, I keep starting with nl100.. every session just starts shitting on me and I tilt quickly lately
I do study:/
I really do need to baby-sit myself for a while though and make sure I'm 100% ready for every session as your point 3 says though.

Yeah I mostly post when I'm upset about something lol. I hate how it presents me to the community but tbh I have nowhere that I'm comfortable going in my real life to talk anything about poker, so I lean on this community a lot for everything poker related. I do have to admit I have a certain whiney aspect to my personality.. and I've always been extremely hard on myself in unhealthy, self-confidence harming thought processes whenever I feel like I'm failing at something (or succeeding..). Nothing in this paragraph is something I'm proud of but I do make efforts to improve.

Anyway, as of tomorrow I will be in thailand. I will take a break for 7 days, when that day comes I will have about 3700 in my poker account (bonus that is basically cleared + rb). I will win a couple of buyins at nl50 before playing nl100 again.

cliffs
- scared my passion is fading
- tilting quickly
- taking 7 day break
- winning some bi at nl50
- must fix thought processes towards myself
- embarrassed

:D
thanks again friends.

Your thoughts about yourself could really be assoicated with your performances in poker. Alot of top coaches and pysch coaches etc will say that Tilt is not just in a poker form, but has alot of deep roots with lifestyle and other things. You could be on to something there and I hope you can work something out.

Enjoy your holiday.