Not a fun part of the game or a particularly fun thing to admit but these last couple of months with all the crazy tournament action due to the WSOP and WCOOP I have been on a massive losing streak. Its taken an emotional toll on me and I am having trouble resetting and finding that place of zen so that I can play my best in the bigger tournaments. I know I need to go back and study and sure up my leaks again, but do you have any techniques to help reset yourself the times that you are on a huge downswing? And if so what are they?

same to me.. since the start of the pandemic.. I could not win a single dolar.. and all this big prizes and MTT specials.. and Im just loosing.
very hard to keep your head up.
best thing is focus. give it some days. forget about past and focus on the new future.
yesterday I got my first good result since april. long time

Thank you ptracco. Good to know I am not alone, best of luck on turning things around. Hope we both get things going in the right direction again these next couple of months.

Originally Posted by cardartist85

Not a fun part of the game or a particularly fun thing to admit but these last couple of months with all the crazy tournament action due to the WSOP and WCOOP I have been on a massive losing streak. Its taken an emotional toll on me and I am having trouble resetting and finding that place of zen so that I can play my best in the bigger tournaments. I know I need to go back and study and sure up my leaks again, but do you have any techniques to help reset yourself the times that you are on a huge downswing? And if so what are they?

Thank U 4 Posting.

When we are at our best is when our emotions are not influencing our thinking. Instead we are focused on the rational aspects of playing poker. The math- the player reads- the betting strategies based on the first 2.

The problem with losing is the emotion starts leaking in more and more and we start thinking about will we win- not- hand 2 x must be done -hand 3 x must be done- hand 300 x must be done.

In order to purge our brains of the emotional baggage we must spend time off table focusing on rational only poker activities. Diving deep into hand reviews and focusing only on the strategies applied retrains us to use the rational part of the brain. Learning new skills also causes us to use the rational parts of our brain.
Learning knew techniques or improving old ones often reignites our desire to play as well.

Think about emotional leak like twisting your ankle. We have to let it heal then retrain the muscles to be as strong as they were before the sprain. We do that by not using it to run for example but by stretching and strengthening it with specific targeted exercise.


Hope this helps

Very helpful! Thank you for taking the time to respond

I just do something, what I "not supposed to do". I tried many things and this is the only one which works for me. Because, if you sit again after "losing streak", after 4-5 bad beats or set ups, you will tilt so hard. Only for this small loss. Let's say after a big loss, I smoke a joint and watch movies. Or play PC games. Or drink, cigarettes, garbage food. Then I try again. And if I lose something, again...Little "bad things". And again. And again . Waiting for this to over. I know it sound stupid, "weak". The volume will "suffer" as well. But I tried everything, I am very emotional person, I just can use this "dzen buddhism". I know, someone will say "U fcking idiot, sissy boy". But I had a very ugly downswings. The people even can't imagine this, can't start to imagine. They will not survive like me. 95% will not...

Everyone will react differently but I believe when you are on a big downswing the best thing to do is walk away from the game entirely for some period of days (this could be anywhere from 3-10 days imo). When I mean walk away I mean completely away, no studying, no thinking about the game, not anything to do with poker. This can help you get refreshed and when you get back to the tables your mind will be starting fresh instead of thinking about the losing streak. Sometimes when we are losing we start to press more and try to make things happen instead of letting them come to us. A break should calm you back down and will let your normal play take over.

Originally Posted by cardartist85

Not a fun part of the game or a particularly fun thing to admit but these last couple of months with all the crazy tournament action due to the WSOP and WCOOP I have been on a massive losing streak. Its taken an emotional toll on me and I am having trouble resetting and finding that place of zen so that I can play my best in the bigger tournaments. I know I need to go back and study and sure up my leaks again, but do you have any techniques to help reset yourself the times that you are on a huge downswing? And if so what are they?

Hi Cardartist,

Thank you for posting. Downswings are part of the game that everyone struggles to deal with, even the pros. I find that the best way to avoid tilt is to review my hand history. This will normally tell me one of two things (or a mix of both) and removes the tilt immediately.

It may reveal that I have been playing badly or getting myself in difficult spots and losing large portions of my stack in these situations. By discovering this, I can focus on avoiding these spots, or improve my post flop strategy to turn it into a winning spot.

Or it may reveal that I have just been on the rough side of variance way more than my fair share and actually I have been making the +EV plays, but getting unlucky, in which case, I just need to carry on playing great and variance will swing back my way at some point.

Take a few days to evaluate your game. Be honest with yourself. If you have a friend who you respect their game, have them go through your HH as well; they might notice something you do not.

I'm sure that upswing is just around the corner.

Good Luck!

Do something else temporarily to forget the bad. And then with renewed vigor into battle.

Originally Posted by Matt_Burns88

Hi Cardartist,

Thank you for posting. Downswings are part of the game that everyone struggles to deal with, even the pros. I find that the best way to avoid tilt is to review my hand history. This will normally tell me one of two things (or a mix of both) and removes the tilt immediately.

It may reveal that I have been playing badly or getting myself in difficult spots and losing large portions of my stack in these situations. By discovering this, I can focus on avoiding these spots, or improve my post flop strategy to turn it into a winning spot.

Or it may reveal that I have just been on the rough side of variance way more than my fair share and actually I have been making the +EV plays, but getting unlucky, in which case, I just need to carry on playing great and variance will swing back my way at some point.

Take a few days to evaluate your game. Be honest with yourself. If you have a friend who you respect their game, have them go through your HH as well; they might notice something you do not.

I'm sure that upswing is just around the corner.

Good Luck!

Thank you brother. I need to take time to review my hand history more for sure

My advice:

** Take a break of at least a few days, longer if needed!

** Study and session reviews more often

** Put in a couple sessions at lower stakes where there's less pressure to win

Good luck!

I try to take honest inventory of myself and ask questions like: "Did I play my best? ", "Could I have done something differently/better?" or similar.

If I played my best and took the best possible course of action in each circumstance then there really is no problem. Like you said, it's just a downswing, a bad run, luck of the draw. It happens to us all.

However, I generally find that there is something I could improve on. For example, if I am responding negatively emotionally to currently being on one end of a bell curve, I need to take a reality check. (I never respond negatively emotionally when I am on the other end of the bell curve). The whole problem, for me, is really the ability to be 100% honest with myself.

A national newspaper editor explained something powerful to me. He told me that all 'front page' news, good or bad, lies at one or other extreme end of these 'bell curves'.. for example; the person born without eyes or the person (recently reported in China) who can see in the dark just like a cat. Everything else lies in the middle and, as being just 'average', is not newsworthy, just the 'humdrum' of normal life. He said 99.99% of all life resides here, but that the other .01% makes up life's biggest 'winners' and 'losers'... Except that they are not really... just 'victims of circumstance', or chaos/randomness/probability theories, either being in the right or wrong place at the right/wrong time.

For example, there will be one or two people who turn up heads on a coin flip one hundred times in a row, and those that do the same for tails. Are they really very lucky or conversely, very unlucky?

Statistics, chaos theory, and randomness probability would all say no. If 50 million people enter a lottery jackpot competition, a 'lucky' few will usually win. Again, are they really lucky? Is everyone else unlucky? Logic says no, it's just probability laws in action.

The problem, for me, is when I think with my emotions rather than my head, and having weighed up all my actions, still believe myself to be 'unlucky'. Science says no.

However, maybe (in all probability) I do need to improve in certain areas. That means it is under my control and I can do something about it. I need to constantly recognise those things that are within my control and those that are not, and not to lose any sleep or worry over the latter.

Hope this sorta makes sense and helps. I've written this as much for my own sake as yours, getting my thoughts on the issue down on paper so to speak. Was it Phil Ivey who said the great thing about Poker is that any two cards can win? It just sucks when it's a 5,2 unsuited filling a straight against your pocket Aces all-in pre-flop. (True story, lol).... Good 'luck'!

Originally Posted by Brogue

I try to take honest inventory of myself and ask questions like: "Did I play my best? ", "Could I have done something differently/better?" or similar.

If I played my best and took the best possible course of action in each circumstance then there really is no problem. Like you said, it's just a downswing, a bad run, luck of the draw. It happens to us all.

However, I generally find that there is something I could improve on. For example, if I am responding negatively emotionally to currently being on one end of a bell curve, I need to take a reality check. (I never respond negatively emotionally when I am on the other end of the bell curve). The whole problem, for me, is really the ability to be 100% honest with myself.

A national newspaper editor explained something powerful to me. He told me that all 'front page' news, good or bad, lies at one or other extreme end of these 'bell curves'.. for example; the person born without eyes or the person (recently reported in China) who can see in the dark just like a cat. Everything else lies in the middle and, as being just 'average', is not newsworthy, just the 'humdrum' of normal life. He said 99.99% of all life resides here, but that the other .01% makes up life's biggest 'winners' and 'losers'... Except that they are not really... just 'victims of circumstance', or chaos/randomness/probability theories, either being in the right or wrong place at the right/wrong time.

For example, there will be one or two people who turn up heads on a coin flip one hundred times in a row, and those that do the same for tails. Are they really very lucky or conversely, very unlucky?

Statistics, chaos theory, and randomness probability would all say no. If 50 million people enter a lottery jackpot competition, a 'lucky' few will usually win. Again, are they really lucky? Is everyone else unlucky? Logic says no, it's just probability laws in action.

The problem, for me, is when I think with my emotions rather than my head, and having weighed up all my actions, still believe myself to be 'unlucky'. Science says no.

However, maybe (in all probability) I do need to improve in certain areas. That means it is under my control and I can do something about it. I need to constantly recognise those things that are within my control and those that are not, and not to lose any sleep or worry over the latter.

Hope this sorta makes sense and helps. I've written this as much for my own sake as yours, getting my thoughts on the issue down on paper so to speak. Was it Phil Ivey who said the great thing about Poker is that any two cards can win? It just sucks when it's a 5,2 unsuited filling a straight against your pocket Aces all-in pre-flop. (True story, lol).... Good 'luck'!

Wanted to take a moment and say thank you for that response man, extremely thought provoking and its a fascinating perspective. I am trying to review hands more often the times they either cost me my tournament life or even cripple my stack. Removing the emotional response to it and honestly assessing it is difficult but I am realizing how necessary it is and that it might be preventing me from winning a lot more money. Each day is another chance to learn something new and put it into practice. Thanks again for giving such a well thought out response.