What to do :(
What do you guys do if you have been on a VERY VERY VERY bad run? I mean its been over 12 days since I last came out of the casino winning in cash games. This sucks! I have never been this cold, I feel colder than ice! At the beginning of my sessions I play very tight but keep getting suckered or not hitting my great pre-flop hands. Then I end up on tilt and lose lots of money. I try not to be but it just happends. What should I do? I mean I have lost LOTS in the past week and half! My bankroll is shrinking and I'm getting depressed. 
Comments
Don't go on tilt. If you can't handle the normal bankroll fluctuations for the limit you are playing it (whether that be $$$ or mentally) then you should consider dropping down a rung or two.
You need to be honest with yourself. Is it bad cards or bad play? If it's bad cards, c'est la vie. If it's bad play, figure out whats wrong and fix it. Post some hand histories that involve situations you are unsure about..
You have to be CONFIDENT about your play. If you're not, then that could be why you see yourself on a downward. Shrug off your losses, after all, thats poker and you can't win everytime you sit down. If you play smart, you will see an improvement.
Allow me to offer some psychotherapeutic advice (I'm somewhat qualified, being a graduate student in clinical psychology).
I'll try to address your depression only. I think someone else will be better equipped to discuss the inevitable occurrence of a dry spell and how you should analyze your play to improve.
I want you to consider, for a moment, what you are attributing your affective response to. That is, what do you think is the source of your depression? Your immediate response is probably, "I'm losing dammit." Well, yes. That is an unfortunate event. But I want you to pin-point how you are thinking about your losses. Because depression is really the result of how you INTERPRET an event -- not the event itself. At first, you most likely were able to write off your losses to short-term bad luck. However, after a while this didn't seem plausible because your lack of success extended beyond previous experiences with poor luck. Probably somewhere along the line you felt that you were somehow responsible for losing and making self-deprecating attributions such as, "I'm not playing well anymore," "I've lost my edge," "I just plain suck." In essense, you might have started to internalize your losses. This is a dangerous thing because it starts to extend to other areas of life and feeds into a vicious cycle of despair and the general opinion that "I'm a loser." Hence, feelings of depression. Now, it doesn't take a psychologist to tell you that you aren't going to play your best poker when you're depressed. It sounds like it's already started to affect your play. Emotional poker is bad poker. It's that old self-defeating cycle. Don't fall into it. Refuse to believe that this dry spell is your fault. It's just an abnormal fluctuation in probability. In time, your results will regress towards a mean that dictates your ability as a poker player. In the meantime, my suggestion would be to take a step back, analyze your play and think about what you can do to improve your results. You are in control. Also, it is often helpful to re-realize some success -- to feel like a winner again. Scale down to lower limit games that you used to murder -- and murder them again. Leave the poker room immediately after winning a huge pot. Even if it's the first hand you play. There's no shame in improving your self-efficacy by committing a hit-n'-run. Do whatever it takes to feel good about yourself and your game. And, if all else fails, quit the game for a bit and indulge in other activities you enjoy. Your well being is far more important than poker. Once you feel better and you're ready to return you might find that your game has improved ten-fold. Professional golfers often find this strategy to work well.
Anyways, that just my advice -- I don't want to go all Dr. Phil on you here.
Good luck (er, skill),
Phil
It is difficult to avoid tilt. Even when you think you're playing your best, it doesn't take much to get you off your game. Besides simply saying, "Don't do it"... there's not much advice I can give you that will stop you from tilting. People react differently to the emotion involved in the game.
What you CAN do to LIMIT the effect that tilt has on your game:
Take a break. If you're having a prolonged bad run, take a few days/weeks, off. Come back to the game with a fresh attitude. (this is what I did and it helped me regain my focus)
If you don't want to leave poker altogether, change games for a while. If your regular game is 3/6 limit holdem, play some microlimit Omaha online, or a NL Sit n Go. Keep it cheap though, unless you are proficient in that game as well.. Don't play over your head.
Examine your game. Are you playing solidly? Are there any leaks that can be fixed? (I did this while I was running badly. I determined that I *was* getting bad-beat and cold cards, but I also *DID* find a few gaps that I have since fixed. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."
Mid-session, if you are subject to emotional swings (ie, you have a quick temper and/or you are feeling yourself get MAD after a bad beat), force yourself to take a break. Sit out a round, go for a walk, go outside, get some air, have a smoke, drink a coke, do whatever you need to do to calm down. Emotion makes the game harder. Why put yourself at that disadvantage? Poker is about gaining and exploiting the edge. When you are emotional, the edge works in your opponents' favour.
Hope this helps, remember the long run is a long time. There will be swings both good and bad. The key is to minimize your losses and treat every decision as a separate play. Don't let outside factors affect your decision at each moment in time.
hork.
Cheers,
all_aces
Man that's funny!
for me, i had a horrible august and horrible first part of september (you probably heard me grumble about this from time to time)...it seemed like the vast majority of big pots i go involved in, i was ahead when the money went in (usually on flop or turn) but i wound up losing...it wasn't much fun...for me, even though i didn't actually have many losing nights, i was earning *very* low amounts for the hours i spent there (and you know i spent lots of long nights there)....and for someone like me, who is using poker as his sole income, it was a tough thing to deal with
i don't know if i can really offer advice except to just keep at it......after a bad night, try to focus on what went wrong...chances are, you can improve your game this way.....i know for me, i decided i was misplaying the turn on *a lot* of hands, and i made changes...i also decided that i was making some really expensive bluffs at the wrong time, and those 1-2 pots every night were really costing me a lot when i looked at the bottom line...i also realized i was playing way too many hands in EP, and trying to make too many cute moves out of position...
i'm not saying every bad night happens because of how you play, sometimes its just short term luck that kills you....but chances are, there are some things you can do differently to improve your play
for yourself, i would suggest maybe tighting up a bit (try playing very few hands from EP for one night) and playing less draw hands...i think you have a tendency to gamble on draws a bit too often, and make raises in the hopes you'll scare people off........i know you (and me to some extent) enjoy yourself when you are at the NL table and a lot of your friends are around, its a fun atmosphere....but maybe it becomes too relaxed of an atmosphere and you start to play less than premium hands (ie. Bronson Q2
anyways, i'm sure you'll find the light at the end of the tunnel...for me, the last ~2 weeks have been quite good, for the first time in a long time....i feel like my game has went up a notch......you'll break out eventually
Me play poker?! Hah! Don't you know you can go on losing streaks and lose a lot of money?! I'm a grad student for god's sake.
Phil