playing "not to loose" mentality

for the last couple months ive been playing the live 1$-2$ nl tables at the casino every chance my money will allow it.that has worked out to be 4 days a weak mostly and 3 days of the weak when i am on a down turn or in an a "barely breaking even" rut.all toll for three months im down a little under 200$ and that's due to yesterdays roller coaster hell game. ill get to the point though when i was down to my last 15$ and looking to get that all in when ever i got the hand to due so i realized that in all the big pot hands i had played that day i was not comfortable being in most of them.i was fine with the cards that i was playing .they were mostly solid hands .but the bets i was facing were really bothering me. for some reason i was focused on my money to much and big bets were scaring me because i would start thinking about how much i didnt want to loose that money rather than thinking about do i have the hand that will beat the other hands in play.for some reason money meant more than usual and it crippled my play i think.is this something players go through periodical?have any of you gone through anything like this?i really hope i was just having an off day and can shake this off.playing not to loose and worrying about my stack all the time will not be productive at all.that is no way to play poker im sure you all would agree wouldn't you?

It's lose not loose.

Playing scared is bad and may prevent you from making the most profitable plays. I would guess you are either not properly bankrolled for 1/2 or you can't afford to lose the money?

Don't know if this is the case but have always live by the creed don't bring money to gamble that you can't afford...and scared money will not make money...

Yeah good bankroll management will help a lot.

Play tight and get up some money and then u got to gamble ,remember its gambling ,u cant win every hand or it wouldnt b fun.

tree88 said:

for some reason i was focused on my money to much and big bets were scaring me because i would start thinking about how much i didnt want to loose that money rather than thinking about do i have the hand that will beat the other hands in play.

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Hi Buddy. I'm new to poker but i can give you few hints when it comes to risk and money management.

1. It's very smart that you are playing tight - it's better to earn less on long run then earn A LOT and lost it all in one deal month later.

2. Do not sit to table with all your money. For example if you have 300$ in the account: don't sit to table with more then 15$ - In such case you will never risk more then 5% of your capital, and it will be much more easier mentally to go into all-in bets.

3. There is something called "pot odds" (google it). It will show you risk to reward ratio of given game. For example: it's very OK to go all-in with 15$ when there is 400$ in pot. But it's silly to risk 15$ to win just 20$.

4. 1$-2$ is a little-bit too much for 200$ capital imo. Go and play 0.50$ tables, use above rules and you will be able to mentally play without taking much risk and exposure. Idealistically you never should sit to table with more then 2.5% of your entire money. Try it.

It's way easier to recover from loosing 2.5% of capital (u just need to recover 5%) then 10 (need to recover 20%) or 20% (need to recover 40%!).

So in your case you should not sit down to table with more then 7.5$.

ps. Its mathematically possible to have very very very very long loosing streak even if you are great player. So don't worry too much about that.

ps. Hi, It's my first post