Never give up!!

Wanted to share this story for everyone who's had a bad run of cards and feels like the gods are just against them.

Right now I'm on a high, but even so I think I'm gonna swear off poker for a few days... my bankroll hit an all time low today. Down from a peak of $850 and an average of $550, today it hit $111! For the past month I've just not been able to make any headway. I've been loosing cash games, sng's, even dropping down two levels hasn't helped, I'm just bleeding money everywhere.

I figured it was time to go back to basics, limiting myself to depositing around $60 every month, withdrawing anything I make over that each month and just playing the low limit tables to see if I could get my game back on track.

I was about to withdraw my last $50 of profit so I at least had something to show for the last few months when I thought "sod it, I might as well have a bit of fun & de-stress". So I entered a $55 single table sng.

Well, an hour later I finish it in first place... amazing how much more focused your play is when you're playing with 50% of your bankroll! Later in the afternoon I entered another with the same attitude - I was planning to withdraw down to $60 anyway, so this was again just a bit of fun with my winnings. Yet again I finished first.

In both sng's the cards were there when I needed them but I felt I was playing a different game. I was folding hands instead of taking risks, for the first time in weeks I probably was folding more hands than I was playing. In each one I came back from bottom place at least once, purely by being patient and waiting for my opportunity. In the first at one point I was holding 1250 chips heads up versus the chip leaders 18750!! (I had to apologise to him for winning that one).

In just one afternoon my luck has completely turned around, my bankroll's back at $500, and my confidence is way up. I'm still going to withdraw the bulk of it so I at least have something to show for the past few months play, and I'm still dropping down to a lower level, but it's so reassuring to have a good run after loosing for so long.

What have I learnt from this:

- Concentration is vital. I hadn't realised how distracted I'd let myself become, looking back I've not been paying even half as much attention to my games as I did today.

- Analysing your own play is harder than you think. I thought I'd checked my play and made sure I wasn't playing worse. How wrong I was.

- Bad luck can be expensive, bad decisions makes it far worse. Because I've been on a bad run I think I've been making some horrible river calls. I've been desperate to win something and I've been calling bets on the river I should have folded. Yes it was bad luck the cards didn't go my way, or that my opponent sucked out, but the bulk of the money was lost because I just wasn't prepared to let go of my cards.

- Never give up. Bad runs can last for ages, but nothing lasts forever.

Myx

nice post and congrats on the turn around

Nice turn around my friend.

Thanks Zowzza. Just seen my stats for the 2nd tourny - 97 hands played, saw 20% of flops, won 70% of hands where I saw a flop and 100% of showdowns...

Heh, no way I can claim luck didn't play at least some part in that