FIRST POST

Hi guys,
Long time reader, but I finally decided to sign up so I can participate more actively. Anyways, a little background, I'm a 19 year old college student (Washington University in St. Louis) who has played online a little under a year (I played some live for about a year before that with high school friends). I've read both HoH books, and thanks to that, browsing this forum, and my incredible set of skills and instincts :roll: , I have done pretty well. I started with 50 on stars and worked it up to 2200 on the site after withdrawing 300 of it. I did so mostly playing SnGs, but decided to switch over to primarily the 20 180s since i was playing 20 dollar sngs anyway. i had some initial success, but the last few months or so I've been in a bit of funk. That cumulated tonight where I managed to blow off 200 dollars of my winnings (mostly in the 180s) just playing poorly and getting frustrated. So my question to all of u guys who worked through reading this mini-essay is how do u handle bad streaks in mtts. I make 8.00 an hour at my summer job, so finishing out of the money in 10 straight tourneys in a 2 day period makes me go Holy Shit looking back at it. I've read a lot of postsand strategy articles on similar subjects but decided to see if any one of u has great advice how to mentally handle it. I know some of u will say bankroll management but I am playing within my bankroll (around 100 buy-ins), and I have no problem losing one, two, or three mtts. But when it gets to 10, it starts to add up on my conscience. Thanks.

How you handle the bad swings probably defines you as a poker player more than skill. I don't think there's anything wrong if your conscience starts to hurt or if it makes you doubt - you'd have to be one icecold mofo to shake that off without a second thought - but as long as it doesn't really ruin your game, it's ok I think.