Dealing With the Downs in Poker

Oh, I’ve had them. One of my down periods in poker, lasted two full years.

Call it running cold, losing your edge, losing your game, tilting, getting unlucky. If you play poker long enough, you will hit this wall at some point. Sometimes, all of the above hit you all at once.

But it is what you do when you are running badly, that really defines you as a poker player. Anyone can play good poker when the deck hits you in the face. Even your poorly timed bluffs work when you are running ‘hot’. But, the money you save when you can’t catch a break is truly what separates the good poker players from the average one.

Do you panic?
Do you chase action?
Do you ‘move up’ in stakes to recoup losses quickly?
Do you maintain your card discipline or do you expect ‘luck’ to even out and plunge in more often in marginal situations to catch that good luck ‘rush’ you are due?
Do you risk what’s left of your poker bankroll to ‘get even’ fast?

When the cards are not kind, it is easy to fall into this trap. You doubt your game skill, your mental abilities, your concentration level and even your karma in the universe.

The first thing you have to do is RECOGNIZE you are on a cooler. Something has changed. It might just be the cards and luck. But it might be something else. Things like;

• You play has actually developed some leak (you stopped doing something or started doing something that is hurting you)
• Your play has become to readable
• Your table selection has become looser
• Your competition (whether you moved up in stakes or not) have improved
• You are not at 100% for whatever reason

After you recognize you are a little tailspin – take a break and re-evaluate. Maybe you just have a little poker ‘burnout’, and stopped working hard at the game. Maybe you have gone on auto-pilot – at a slight downward setting.

Read a poker book, read some poker blogs, rent some poker (porn) movies and rest a while.

When you no longer need to play or are just killing time playing – and instead truly WANT to play – things should improve. There is no guarantee mind you (see the second sentence of this article), but almost always your game, and “normal luck” returns.