running bad/playing bad/combo of both

over my last 2 sessions i am down about 1.1k or 11 buy ins over about 5500 hands, and this just seems a little too ridiculous. my thinking is an 11 bi downswing is nothing out of the ordinary, but in that small number of hands it seems odd to me. do people think this seems a little strange to them too? do i need to seriously reconsider my approach to poker? any and all comments appreciated.

shit happens. take a break. review your sessions. start over.

always be reconsidering your approach to poker

running bad and playing bad often go hand in hand. Sometimes it's just mental (consider the flipside.. if you're running good and winning lots, you usually think you're playing pretty damn well even if that's not the case). A lot of times running bad just causes you to play worse though. Tilting and/or losing confidence in your game is AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL for a poker player.

Most people say take a break and chill out. I think that's good advice. Most people mean for a week or w/e, and that's probably also good advice but it doesn't work much for me. I like the 'man up, cool off for 12 hours, play after a good nights sleep and be damn sure you play well' approach.

I like exercise to ward off tilt issues. Go for a nice run or some other cardio activity before playing.
As for your play. I had a 20 BI down swing back in the end of October, so I can relate. I would say 60% of that was short term luck and the other 40% was tilty play brought on by bad luck and just general frustration.
Will641, I would strongly suggest looking up a number of marginal HHs and posting them or session reviewing them with another 100NL player. By marginal, I don't mean your biggest losers that everyone is going broke with. I mean your medium sized losers & winners where you could have made a bad river call or missed value.
I have played with you in the past and I doubt that you need to completely re-assess your approach to poker. You seem to have a good general game. Are you getting bluffy? Tilty? Experimenting with new theory? Straying from your starting hand range? You seem to play a ton of hands per month so I can't imagine your core game has changed much in 2 sessions.
I am willing to review hands if you like. PM me for email addy if interested.

i like to take a break and kick the dog, yell at some neighborhood kids, get a speeding ticket, or just call my brother on the phone and call him a PUSSY. but, those rarely do much for tilt. lol.

seriously, i subscribe to the "its all a numbers game" theory. if you have a good session, max it out because you dont know when it will end. if you have a bad session, power through it because it cant last forever.

if you have been around the block a time or two, which it sounds like, you know poker is about hands dealt. you win X per hand dealt. all you can do is see more hands, and the luck will turn. if you run bad, it will get better. if you run good, it will get.....

thats just poker. of course, i've been telling myself that for about 3 months now. lol.

Think about whether or not you're exploiting your opponents correctly.

If all else fails, play nitty until you're even again.