Absorbing downswings/tilts

[Soulless]

Ive had alot of ups and downs the last months...HEaven and hell so to speak. And ive read everything iabout tilting/downswings and overall mentallity i can get my hands on.
From 250 to over 600 and then back down twice as fast as i won it. Time and time again.

Still, the downswings really breaks me and puts me on tilt. THe kind of tilt where i know i should stop playing, ive read it time and time again, but as the overall feeling of hopelessness gets over me i think "f**k this shit, i dont care...The kind of tilt that makes me play outside my bankroll.
And i wake up the next day cursing myself for loosing that extra 50 bucks.

This has played out for me several times. And even though im completely aware of whats going on, i keep on doing it.

Im beginning to feel that i just dont have what it takes to absorb a downswing, or the maturity to shrug of a tilt.
I love playing poker but it has begun affecting my real life. I get angry and upset and takes it out on ppl around me.

Should i just stop playing? Or what do i do?

[jackvance]

How do you manage online money? Is there some way you could transfer it to a bank account after you win some? Only keep like 2 buy-ins in your account for the next day. So if you blow 2 buy-ins, it'll simply be impossible to keep playing because bank transfers take time. No matter how hopeless you feel and need your 'fix' (win) to feel better, you can't. And the time you need to wait for 2 more buy-ins to be transferred to your poker-account will be enough to cool you off.

I could say sympathy stuff here and there, maybe make you feel a little better and it would do squat for you in reality when a downswing and tilt hits again. People are slaves to their emotions. Make sure you can't immediately get the money or this'll keep happening.

[andy-akb]

What levels are you playing at? Is that 250-600 dollars or 250-600 big bets? When you are in a downswing post hands so that we can tell you whether it really was variance or if it was poor play, people often have difficulty distinguishing the two. Just learn t take breaks, poker isnt everything, you can step away for a day or two.

[Soulless]

ive played mostely 25nl and 50nl ring games, ive tried moving up and down to stay within bankroll.

Im using neteller or visa to transfer money so deposit is instant but withdrawal is a few days. But money isnt a problem, i can always get it in and out.
And ive never deposited money that i couldnt afford to lose. And, to be honest, im not getting angry or upset because of the money i lose, but of the fact that i am still unable to break even, even though i really try.

Im just curious as to how people manage to deal with the downswing on a emotional plane? I get so aggrevated when things dont go my way, i feel used (probably is by the other players who notices my tilt) and everything feels unfair.

I know the fault is compeltely my own, and im looking for ways to absorb them. I dont wanna feel like this and so, atm, the only way i can shrug it off is not playing poker at all....which sucks....

[DaHorror]

I tend to deal with tilty situations by leaving the particular table that caused my problem...whether it be bad play by me, a suckout, whatever. I won't always do this, but I often do.
I can keep playing other tables, but I will often switch that table over to something a little lower stress - like a cheap buyin SNG, or low stakes limit Omaha (Pacific offers this, not all that many sites do - but it's an easily beatable game).

What is the cause of the downswing? If you're like me when I hit one, it's usually a combination of being sucked out on when you're pot-committed, mixed in with a few poor plays/calls. And of course there are days where I can just blind out money (never hit AA-JJ, all pocket pairs don't catch sets, no suited connectors hit anything worth a damn, AK/AQ misses in multi-way pots with no strong draw for me etc.)...those are frustrating days!

Since I can't seem to stop myself from playing (unless it's late at night and I'm tired anyway in which case I just get up and go to bed), I just try to switch things up a bit and change games.

As far as the emotional part, that's tricky. I have had the worst luck lately while bonus whoring Party, Empire, and PokerNow the last few weeks. I end up with my bonus, but have been down a bit besides that so I don't even end up with the full amount (from the Empire reload this week for instance, one hand stupid inability to lay down AA to an obvious set when normally I can, one laydown of AA when I should have pushed it against most likely just a top pair who probably figured I missed on AK).
Yet I know I can beat the game because I do win, it's just somehow that I end up just slightly down from my overall buyin to the site when I feel like I should be up 1-3 buyins + the bonus.
So how am I dealing with this? I'm trying to correct my game a bit so that I don't repeat the same mistakes. I was really down last week after not making as much money as I thought I should be able to, and last weekend I thought 'screw poker - I need to get away from it' -- obviously I took a few days off, tried to retain my patience, and tightened up my play slightly - being a little over-conservative, but when I managed to flop something good, I got paid.

Seriously I think a lot of it is an ego thing - you want to kick ass, and you know you can do better, but it's not going your way right now. You start to feel like you can't play properly anymore and it beats you down hard.
Take a little time off from poker - read a book (unrelated to poker) or partake in some other hobby that you have - sports, housework, gardening, whatever...then come back fresh, tighten up and just play your big hands like you know they are supposed to be played...get paid a bit that way before you try getting fancy (I know I was picking off some mean river bluffs, but then I started making the calls too often and doh! too many times they weren't bluffing, they really flopped the nut flush with A5s vs. your set of kings that didn't boat up, etc. - so you have to have a pretty strong read on the bluffbot before you go about routinely making these calls I found).

Now - if it's really hurting your personal life that much, you should probably take more than a few days off...remember - poker isn't going anywhere - and your friends and family are more important than the game

Best of luck.

Horror

[Buzz]

Nice post Horror.

I think one of the toughest issues in poker as a beginner is understanding whether a losing streak is just the natural rhythm of the game - call it variance, downswing, or similiar ... or whether its a function of genuinely poor decisions. Until you have plenty of experience, its hard to look objectively at your game and make a sound judgement.

Becuase if it is variance ... then there's not much you can do but stay strong, be confident in your game and know it will turn around if you keep making good decisions. But if its poor play then I think thats really when (at least for me) the emotional side and tilt comes into it, nothing worse than making a donk play and losing your stack, and knowing it was because you played dumb

Soulless -Software like Poker Tracker is great for this sort of thing ... get a good sample size, look at where you are losing, then post hands here that are causing you trouble, I've found so many of the good players at FTR are more than generous with their time helping us newbies

Good luck with it

[SonOfAkira]

Ive had alot of ups and downs the last months...HEaven and hell so to speak. And ive read everything iabout tilting/downswings and overall mentallity i can get my hands on.
From 250 to over 600 and then back down twice as fast as i won it. Time and time again.

Still, the downswings really breaks me and puts me on tilt. THe kind of tilt where i know i should stop playing, ive read it time and time again, but as the overall feeling of hopelessness gets over me i think "f**k this shit, i dont care...The kind of tilt that makes me play outside my bankroll.
And i wake up the next day cursing myself for loosing that extra 50 bucks.

This has played out for me several times. And even though im completely aware of whats going on, i keep on doing it.

Im beginning to feel that i just dont have what it takes to absorb a downswing, or the maturity to shrug of a tilt.
I love playing poker but it has begun affecting my real life. I get angry and upset and takes it out on ppl around me.

Should i just stop playing? Or what do i do?

Over the past day and a half, AK and AKs have whiffed on me 21 times in a row. That is, not hitting a K or and A on the flop. Statistically, a K or an A falls 1 in 3 times. So, it is about 1 in 8000 of this happening. It's totally bananas.
The point is, there are many factors to take into consideration when looking at a downswing, and this is one of them. The cards could be totally cold or dead for you, you can't help it.
The question is, how do you handle these dead periods?
Try not to get too emotionally overwhelmed, in the exact same way that you shouldnt get emotionally overwhlemed when the cards hit you in the face. Both are statistical anomalies.
Table selection is also key, whether your opponents are the type you need cards to play against or not. Playing agaisnt donks or calling stations is the worst thing to do when card dead.
Easier said than done, but try to examine why the downswing happened/is happening, it could be your fault, it could not, and is usually a combination of the two, factors out of your control leading you to make decisions well within your control... and don't tilt.

[Pelion]

This has played out for me several times. And even though im completely aware of whats going on, i keep on doing it.

Im beginning to feel that i just dont have what it takes to absorb a downswing, or the maturity to shrug of a tilt.

well you dont have the maturity to shrug it off unless yoy xan shrug it off when you know its happening. But!! you wil get there if you jeep at it. If you feel; thlike quitting then that will probably get you finacially daftetst fastest fbuti f youwant to get pokersihh then thats the way to do things. you just have to realisr that sometimes you will poose tan tha6ts the nature tof the game. Get usedto it, geyt over iot and get on with it./

[jackvance]

Ah so you're stoned rather than drunk.

[Pelion]

ok im givvving up now

[Renton]

My favorite way to fight tilt is to run really really good.

Unfortunately I haven't found a way to control how good I run.

[Buzz]

I don't know what Pelion is on but I think he should share it with all of us !!!

[Stagemn]

I know the feeling.

This weekend was crummy for me mostly, but the past week has been rather well. I played like 5 SnGs today and I think the best I did was come within 3 positions of bieing ITM on one table only (the rest I was out before the Final table).

So, I moved onto to some money games. I got a good table and made a little back, but still other tables I was doing terrible at. I've learned recenlty if I lose 30% of what I started, I flat out move onto another table. If I triple what I came in with, I also move on if I haven't it anything for several rounds (or I get hit hard on one hand and takes the triple to double).

But at the end of the day (when things get rough), I will force myself to look at my bad plays in PT and learn where I made mistakes. Today I learned one of my mistakes was not re-raising a small pre-flop raise with AKs which allowed a fish to call in with something like a 86o and hit the str8 of the turn. I lost over half of my chips on that table to this one play.

[sejje]

I've learned recenlty if I lose 30% of what I started, I flat out move onto another table. If I triple what I came in with, I also move on if I haven't it anything for several rounds .

I feel like these kind of things are poor strategies and I would never recommend them to someone.

When I sit at a table, it's because I feel like I have an advantage at that table. I'm gambling with the odds in my favor. If I lose 30% of what I started with, it doesn't change whether or not I have an advantage. If I lose 400% of what I started with, it still doesn't change.

Point in case: last night I was playing on this table with this ultra-loose passive player that would call off his stack with any pair and almost any draw. Anything as good as a gutshot was worthy. So he stacked me the first couple of times we got it in by sucking out with some two pair vs my overpair. I stuck around and ended up making three buy-ins off of just this one guy. I could have left, but I felt I had a huge advantage and I was certainly willing to gamble with this guy.

As to the problem the OP has: this is the ever-talked-about tilt. Everyone experiences it to some degree, just not to your degree. I can't tell you how to get past it, but I can tell you that you have to get past it. You can't donk off 1/6th of your bankroll in one hand every time you get upset. I also feel I should mention that $600 is not a sufficient bankroll for even a good 50NL player, especially one who goes through a lot of variance (which you apparently do). Anyway, I would just learn to walk away, or as mentioned, play a different game at a small limit.

If you don't have the maturity to shrug off tilt, then your problem lies deeper than just at the poker table. You have this problem in other instances of your life. It's interesting that you can see it in yourself when you're calm, but when you're tilting you can't control it, even though you know what it is. I'd work on that. What I mean is this: I'm sure you notice "hey, I'm on tilt." That's when you need to take care of it.

I used to tilt fairly bad; I broke a couple of mice. My tilt now isn't very noticeable, maybe I throw in a couple of extra raises, but then I'm over it. Bad beats and variance are part of the game; if you find that you can't overcome the emotions associated with them, then I would find another game. Like tiddly-winks.