So it's not just me then? Whew.

It's like every day I spend an hour or two watching videos and feel really pumped up for my session and then within 15 minutes I'll be down two buyins wonder how the hell I keep getting all-in with the nuts and am outflopped time and time again. I need to verify with Poker Tracker but I'm pretty sure that most of my largest pots lost last month was in hands where I flopped a set verses the nut straight or the villian caught runner runner to outdraw me. I'm not sure of the last time I filled up to a boat either. Oh wait, that was today when the villian flopped top set on AJ9 and I sit there with 99 on a final board of AJ9JK wondering what the hell happened and how did it happen AGAIN.

Somehow I'm not tilting. I think it's experience telling me to stick it out and my next heater will be around the corner.

Great thread guys, just what I needed.

amazing OP, thanks

interesting bump.

Wanted to add this about the psychologies of being risk adverse.

Posting this for my latest Downswing I just exited.

seems like when I am winning, poker seems simple, when I am losing I feel like the game is super complex

Pokers is hard.

Hi. I'm resurrecting this thread because I just lost the entirety of my (rather small) bankroll in 2 days at the lowest stakes after having my best single day of play the day before. Talk about tilting. Unfortunately, I came to this thread somewhat too late for it to do any good in this instance, but I'm sure it will help going forward. Thanks for the valuable info. I'm going to take some time off, do some reading and some analysis, and redeposit and try again.

Downswings have been some of the most profitable things that have happened to me. Good luck.

"1) Game select. No shame in playing for easy money."

Perhaps not the best thread for this question, but can you offer any advice for doing this?

^^ ddawd i wont lie if downswings could like come once a week where i magically lose 5-10 buy ins in 1 dramatic session but win the rest i would love it cause it always forces me to revamp my game & focus more on things i do incorrectly or need to pay attention to... even when those things were not the only 100% reason for the negative swing in your graph

it sucks though however when your a breakeven reg(myself) & experience these downward spirals just as much as your winning sessions ...

There's a COTW on game selection.

yeah, it was probably my third fail at 50NLFR that really got me to completely overhaul my game. I could get up to that point by table selecting like crazy and bleeding the total fish and avoiding the regs and getting lucky, but that could only make me a losing 50NL player. I just gave up on online poker for a while and would just watch and read a lot. Then I started reading some stuff which just made everything click. I completely rebooted my style of play.

As for the big losses, you might be surprised, but your big losses aren't likely due to big mistakes. Unless you are doing something ******ed like 3bet shoving 27o over a 3/3 UTG open. A lot of those pots, you are probably only making like a 20bb mistake, not a 100bb mistake if even that. But so many people are petrified with being on the bad end of even a medium pot without the best hand that they are just making tons and tons of mistakes.

I know everyone says that you should focus on your biggest losses in session review. I think you should, but you'll probably find your mistakes in those pots are relatively small. That you're not going to be making any glaring mistakes.

My advice, 1) work on your hand reading a lot. Just go through every hand that goes to showdown and replay them and work on ranging.
2) think about your own hands as a range. Most players think about their hand as a single hand rather than as a part of a range. Just like the way you think about what cards your opponents could have, you need to think about what cards you would have in any given situation and think about how your particular hand fits into that range.

Both of these things makes playing effectively much much easier. They take practice and you will screw up a lot at first, but be patient. I think you'll pick it up faster than you realize.

bump