How to shake loser mentality?

I've been on a pretty bad run. I thought I was over it as I had a nice 4-5 day stretch, but I am right back in the rut.

I can feel that my confidence is shaken. Everytime someone bets, I feel like I am behind. I have become very passive preflop and weak post flop because over the last month or so, I have run into some pretty sick losses. I am afraid to raise unless I have a big hand. I've become very predictable and I can see that others are exploiting it.

Should I just take a break for a few days. Or are there any mental tricks to try to get over the gutlessness?

Lets look at it another way, when you loose hands, are you loosing the likes of.. example you have trip aces and loose to quad kings or the like? Or is it just bad hands overall?

I go through that alot, (the bad hand part). Ill go through 10 tournaments and sit there and get delt crap hands all night. You have an Xbox or something? Take a break when you're getting bad. I play some Modern Warfare or Resident evil or something. Kill some zombies, eat some energizing food, drink some coffee, go outside for a smoke, etc.

Take a break a day! Get out, call up some friends, if you like partying then go out and drink or whatever and come back.

I heard from someone somewhere once as well, If you fold a 9-3 off suited and 3 nines come out on the flop and everyone goes all in and you loose all that profit, laugh about it and say inside your head, "Yeah and if that didn't come out I would have just lost my blinds and whatever else I invested looking dumb".

To the point, just don't let anything get inside your head, otherwise you've beaten yourself.

To me it kinda sounds like you are actually worried about losing, this shouldnt be the case as you should only be playing with money you can afford to spend, what stakes are you playing? What size is your BR?

It sounds like you dare not play with your hands unless you know your infront, incase you lose your buy-in, make sure your buying into correct sized stake tournys. (100th of your BR, maybe 50th for micro).

If you are spending low amounts, then you need to stop worrying about not having the best hand (within reason), and be confident, be aggressive and play like you would play if you had just got 1st place in your last tourny. You have just got to tell yourself that bad streaks are a big part of poker...everybody has them and they will keep coming back no matter how hard you try keep them away, but when you have a good streak you'll forget about the last bad one.

I must say that it sounds like you play very well after suffering losses compared to others, many would bet big and quick and try chasing their losses, this is how bad streaks get really bad, make sure you stick at your normal stakes or even move down if you have to.
Many people say take a few days off, i dont like staying away for more then i have to lol, id reckomend half an hour sulking and then back on the tables. GL on the felt- because you'll get some soon.

Last couple of days I have hit sets but run into flush draws hitting on the turn all three times.

I just had a hand where a guy kept calling with bottom pair and hit his 2 pairs on the river. I lost just two bets here but it's like I just can't win a hand.

The length and consistency of the losing is getting to me.
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PS, just as I was typing. The same guy chases his gutshot straight, but not only ends up with the best hand with J high on the turn, but hits his river J on the river.

(I had 66 on a board of 7799J) I only lost one small flop bet. A one time occurrence is no big deal, but day after day, table after table.

Your desire to win must be greater then your fear of losing. Scared money is losing money. The greatest poker players in the world are just that because they put their opponents on tough decisions. If you're playing scared and betting small you just might be inducing calls from chasers especially if they're getting value to call therefor just magnifying the tilt you're already experiencing if they catch.

Holycrap! i just had a sick hand. I had 33 on BB in a limped pot.

The flop comes A23 all hearts.

Everybody shows strength on the flop and I am not feeling so good about the set anymore. After a bunch of reraises, the 5s comes, and SB comes out firing. I folded the set.

The final 3 hits on the river which has me yanking my hair out UNTIL both remaining guys shoved in. One guy had hit a str flush on the flop. The other guy also had made a flush on the flop.

With a flopped set, I actually had the worst hand.

Thank god I slammed the breaks on. So I only lost the bets on the flop. Lady Luck really has it in for me lately.

blueskies said:

Holycrap! i just had a sick hand. I had 33 on BB in a limped pot.

The flop comes A23 all hearts.

Everybody shows strength on the flop and I am not feeling so good about the set anymore. After a bunch of reraises, the 5s comes, and SB comes out firing. I folded the set.

The final 3 hits on the river which has me yanking my hair out UNTIL both remaining guys shoved in. One guy had hit a str flush on the flop. The other guy also had made a flush on the flop.

With a flopped set, I actually had the worst hand.

Thank god I slammed the breaks on. So I only lost the bets on the flop. Lady Luck really has it in for me lately.

Click to expand...

So you defeated the evil LUCK MONSTER (not a whole lot different from the LOCK/SMOKE MONSTER).

Congrats, your karma has been increased for the next 2 months.....

Ok. I give up. This has gone on for way too long. A month of this.

I cannot win.

I am not sure what else I could have done here. I raised to 25c from BB with AA. He calls with 34os. Hits bottom pair. I bet. He calls. Nails a 3.

I definitely didn't have him on a 3 here, so I kept betting and handed my stack to him.

Many way sicker losses have happened during this run. Nut flushes on the flop no good. Top set on the flop no good. Nut str no good.