Slump busting

Despite the vast amounts of talent and skill we all possess as poker players, bad beats and bad streaks are, inevitably, going to occur from time to time... We have all had our share of really bad beats

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Obviously luck, particularily luck of the negative variety, plays an undenyable role in down swings. How many times have you found yourself asking "How can so many 2 outters hit on the river in one day?" (more than enough to require some extra medication to be sure) , and, as we all know, sometimes the bad run lasts for an excessively long amount of time. Naturally an extended run of bad luck is going to have a negative effect on your mindset and in turn your overall play.

Well, today I came across an article on Part Time Poker that offered 3 tips on how to deal with, and more importantly try to correct, the emotional ride that can accompany a bad run.

If you want to read the full article , here's the link

Poker strategy for weathering bad runs | PartTimePoker Strategy

but here's an excerpt to whet the pallette..:)

Tip 1: "Want" to play
"Only playing when you really (or maybe even absolutely) want to and when you really feel capable of executing at a high level for an entire session can help you sidestep a few frustrations that you?re a bit more vulnerable to when the cards aren?t running your way. First, it helps you avoid allowing losing to become a habit. No matter how strong you are mentally, there?s a number of consecutive losing sessions at which you?re going to start to expect to lose ? clearly a terrible starting point for any session, even if every other condition is optimal."

Tip 2: "Resist the urge to change your style of play during a bad run".
"If the urge to power through a bad run is alluring, the urge to overhaul your game as a method of escape is nearly irresistible. The tricky bit of the overhaul solution is that it rests on a logic that seems fairly unassailable: a bad run, in theory, should increase the contrast setting on your game, making it easier to discern which plays are winners and which are losers. The fact is, that logic is absolutely solid ? but only to a point. A bad run does force focus on -EV habits that you may have slipped in to while times were good, but it also creates an environment where plays with smaller edges that are long-term winners start to seem suspect as well. The frustration that accompanies bad runs also increases your desire for ?quick-fix? solutions, raising the troubling possibility that you will over-correct parts of your game that required only a minor adjustment (if any at all)"

And Finally,

Tip 3: Vent and mentally reset
"Have you ever been in the middle of a bad run and you realized that you were starting to think of poker (or luck) as a sentient being that had something against you personally? Have you ever, in a moment of frustration, uttered a sentence along the lines of ?It doesn?t matter what I do ? I just can?t hit a draw!?? Both states of mind reflect a type of accumulated frustration that has resulted in you feeling like a passive victim of bad luck, a perspective that makes it pretty much impossible for you to have a winning session via any route save sheer dumb luck. Strenuous exercise, lengthy reading or writing sessions, time in the workshop ? whatever allows you to wash off the emotional grime bad runs pile on your psyche, that?s what you need to do."

tyty for reading...hope ya liked it...

M & M....:D