Losing my killer instinct, what do I do?

I have been living proffessionally for about 8 months now, and lately, I just can't do it anymore. Maybe it is because I lost alot at once, maybe it is because I have stress elsewhere in my life, but every time I sit down at a poker table, at some point I find myself making a criticaland costly mistake that I know I shouldn't be making. It's been costing me alot and I finally had to completely cut myself off from poker. I took a break, and thought I was refreshed or whatever, but came back and made the same mistakes.

It's weird, it feels like money dosen't matter as much or maybr that I am not playing to win as hard or maybe I am impatient now. Has anyone else gone thru something like this or know of some way that I can get over it?

It sounds like you just need another break, you sound burnt out on pok3r.

Also, you are letting non-poker issues transcend their way into your "poker time", and you are never on you're best game unless you are thinking poker 100%, i.e. What is this guy doing? Why is he betting this much? What should I do? etc.

You made poker your job, I cannot go to my job and perform @ 100% if I think about that fight my girlfriend and I just had, or about how I ran over that kid on the way to work, how I got sucked out on the river for $3k, or why I made such a bad play (with that girl during spring break in Cancun). Thos things effect my work so I shut them out, if I can't shut them out then I deal with them, solve them, resolve one problem and you've just eliminated two (the problem itself, and now it won't effect you).

I'd play some lower limit games I could beat to get my confidence back up too.

Money will st@rt to matter when you can't pay the bills, so get your A Game /\/\@|\|!

Best of luck to you.

{Moved from the community}

Your problem is huge and I don't think we can give you "The answer" you're looking for...

You simply need to get the passion back into your game or else you'll simply continue to lose.

I don't know how you would go about doing that, though.

-'rilla

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

{Moved from the community}

You simply need to get the passion back into your game or else you'll simply continue to lose.

I don't know how you would go about doing that, though.

-'rilla

Go back to playing bridge or cribbage or whatever you played before you started playing poker and remember how bad those games suck. While you are not playing poker and wasting your time playing whatever else it is you play, you are likely to remember all the reasons why you began to play poker in the first place.

I just finished reading Poker Nation, and while its an OK book, there's one pretty keen observation... the author was studying to be a doctor and when he cut into his first cadaver he threw up for an hour and decided it wasn't for him.... Obviously, a doctor has to shut off his sense of compassion at least a little bit, even though they spend 10+ years studying to help people they have to shut down or they won't survive the first time someone dies under their care or they had to cut a guys arm off because their suture technique wasn't working.

He extends that to poker, that eventually all good players, for better or worse, stop valuing money or don't value it as much. Pure and simple you can't lay into the blinds with a quarter of your stack w/ 72o in a 10k tournament if you value every penny you've ever earned, like a doctor you've got to disconnect yourself from it or you'll murder yourself when you get called or you get knocked out. In the long term, that improves your game.

Anyway, doesn't really help your situation, but I think being a bi-product of playing poker is that you have to de-value your money a little bit, it is a bit of a good thing, because if you valued it you'd never be stealing bilnds or making calculated risks (Like measuring pot odds.)

Not to say that can't go too far, and you can be taking uncalculated risks and simply not valuing money at all instead of devaluing it a little bit.

Yeah, I supose there is no pat answer. Alot it seems to be from the fact that I can't adjust to the new party poker blind system, too. My good hands never seem to get action now.

I guess I am going to take a month off though, I probably burned myself out because I didn't set limits for how much I let myself play during the week. It totally sucks to stop having income though.

Objectively identify the mistakes your making, and then set up a chicken hanging from a rope in your kitchen. Stick a giant knife into the chicken while chanting "I will not chase overs, I will not pay for runner runners, my pocket 2's are no good"

Say it over and over while sniffing your armpits and it should help.

Originally Posted by Superstar

Yeah, I supose there is no pat answer. Alot it seems to be from the fact that I can't adjust to the new Party Poker blind system, too. My good hands never seem to get action now.

You just have to accept the fact AA and KK are no longer the bet x amount preflop and the push the flop no matter what type hands. With the new stacks these hands have to improve postflop a lot of times if you want to win the pot.