I'm a recreational player, don't claim to be the best. But I had been chugging along playing (seemingly) solid poker. I took a trip to the Wynn and was beating 2/5NL then was winning at 5/10 and then was winning at 10/20/40. Not winning a lot, but overall net up against serious competition. I was thoughtful and strategic. Then, suddenly, in one hand, something suddenly "turned off". I started to fold when I should have called, called when I should have folded. My flushes on the turn would lose to boats on the river. My flopped sets would get no action. My bluffs would get called. I suffered hours and hours of unplayable hands. I started losing session after session as if I had never played the game before, as if I had no idea what I was doing. Opponents who I regularly would make miserable were now making me miserable.

Have you ever suddenly felt completely incompetent?

yes

no

50/50

Yes and you start to lose confidence, thinking your overpairs will be cracked or you will never get there

Nothing worse than starting to second guess your decisions when you should have been snap-calling

We all run hot, but that eventually comes to an end

Sounds like you are trying to force things. Just because you fold a hand that somehow made a good hand or even the nuts does not mean it was wrong to fold it. Sometimes you go throw patches where your sets get no action - that is why you have to win pots with cbet bluffs, pre-flop raises etc. ie. to make money in other situations, and you will go through stretches where you get dealt crap hands. When that happens you fold and wait.

Yes. Lol live poker sample sizes

Yup, basically standard live variance. You start to question why you play this game when you lose session after session. Then it all turns around and you're back to winning. Then you're back to losing. Then you question your sanity.

(picks up AA in the Small Blind) “I wonder how much I’m gonna lose this time”

Yep. Live poker variance is soul crushing.

Online, you can grind out through the variance fast AF AF (as long as you don't tilt) and you'll forget it ever happened.


But live......you can do nothing but sit there seeing your 25 or less hands an hour and be alone with your thoughts.



The advice is always the same though. If you're playing properly, keep doing it.......the numbers even out. And if not, fix it or get a coach. Hell, get a coach anyway and get some homework to work on at the table while you're folding 80% and seeing 4 flops an hour.

seems a bit high

ye there are days when you can't win a hand and drop 10-15 stacks in no time 4-tabling fast fold

It's my incontinence that happens suddenly.

One day we feel like the cards are transparent and cannot lose.. Then usual service commences and we're on a one way journey to value town getting owned over and over..

Poker is fun

No

Tightened up my game, stayed positive despite a few more crushing bad beats, and the ship is righted. I understood my post was a bit silly, in the context of the reality of poker. But feeling incompetent, like the game had passed me by somehow, was a new twist to tilt that I had not experienced before. But it was just tilt. Or I really am incompetent. Or both.

When it happened to me, I just shifted by switching to a super-low variance style for a few sessions, just nitting it up, risk-free poker. No big bluffs, no thin value bets, just waiting for monsters and betting the hell out of them.

Kinda like how announcers always say basketball players in a shooting slump should try to get to the free throw line “so they can get used to seeing the ball go through the hoop again.”?

I just spent a few sessions waiting for sets and then in my mind I was like “oh yeah, now I remember what it’s like to rake in big pots.”

This thread represents how I feel right now.

Only playing mocros online, so it hardly compares really, but the emotions you describe are very familiar to me right now.

Everyone goes through spurts where they feel invincible and times where they can't win one hand - it's part of Poker. Be more concerned with analyzing your play and what is the correct move - that's all that matters.

everyone is incompetent at poker. You just need to be less incompetent.