this game is infuriating sometimes

I know that poker is up and down and tons of variance. But the past 3 weeks ive been crushing. and im down nearly 9 BI in about 36 hour period. Now i know this isnt that much but. Being new to this whole thing im still being way to results oriented. Trying to get past that and just get better. Reading articles on here everyday, reading books, soon to get a GS membership. How can i avoid getting soo frustrated with losing??? A buy in or two and im fine any more and i start tilting which we all know ruins your game. Any tips to help avoid this??

Keep your head up

On to the technical side of things, you should implement a stop loss so you will never drop that many buy-ins in such a short time period if the results are somewhat devastating to your mood.

I had the same problem. How'd I solve it? Well...in Economics it's the idea of sunk cost. In layman's, you can almost think of it as "don't cry over spilled milk."

You're probably wondering what the fuck I'm talking about right now. Well, one night I was dwelling on the ridiculous amount of money I just lost this session (4 buy-ins). I was pissed off and annoyed...and I knew that was digging the hole deeper. I stepped away from the computer for a second, went downstairs, and chilled out a little bit. Watched a little TV, etc., etc. While doing this, I was running the situation over in my head.

I lost 4 buy-ins...and they're gone. In Economics, I learned never to make a decision based on money that was already invested and lost. The money's gone...and the money you can make on future investments has NOTHING to do with that lost investment; that lost investment only fucks with your emotions.

The milk has spilled all over the floor...why sit there and dwell on it? Clean that shit up! Hopefully you're kind of understanding my analogy.

Well, to finish my story, I went back upstairs, got PokerStars going, and grinded my way to the best breakeven night in history (felt so good to be even rather than down those 4 buy-ins). So step away, take a breather, and understand that the money is gone. There's nothing you can really do about it but get back out there and play the best poker you can play (because that's all you can do). And remember, these small ups and downs mean absolutely NOTHING in the grand scheme of things.

Go to the high limit NL forum, and find one of the March graphs from some of this sites best players.

it looks from the original snapshot, like it's a pretty steady line heading north in the good direction.

save it to your desk top.

open the picutre and zoom in.

then zoom in again

then zoom in again.

And look at the kind of swings they have over a very short term, say 1500 hands.

Then look at your 2 buy in swing, and compare.

That's how *I* got over it.

Take a break after you lose that 2 buyins, since you start tilting afterwards. Your table image usually isn't that great, and the fact that you're tilting means it's likely you won't be playing well and you won't be putting good hours in. Sometimes you just run bad, and you just gotta plow through that and hope for the best.

But if you're losing 9 BI's, you should really go review some of your hands to see if you're playing bad or just running bad. If you have any questionable hands, it's always good to post them, give your own analysis, and have others give you constructive criticism. Posting hands also allows you to get opinions from many points of view too, which is always good.

I'm feeling your pain schya. I'm going through the same stuff, but we just gotta keep plugging away making +EV decisions. I've missed with 3 15+ draws on AI on the flop 3 times in the last 2 days for full stacked pots. Those hurt lol. But I know I'm getting my money in good (or at least as pot odds dictate) so I know it will be profitable in the long run. Nothing we can except to ride the high's and the grind out the low's.

Good luck on turning everything around!