Overcoming the Beats

So since I've been running so bad, I think now is as good of time as any to go back and look through the big hands I've lost over the past week or so. Looking back on them, everytime I've been stacked except for twice I either got my money in as a favorite or in a coinflip situation. Oh well. I think things are starting to turn around. I played a few shorter sessions tonight. I think I might start doing this for a few days to make myself take breaks. I think when I put in sessions of several hours, I stop concentrating so hard.

I read an old blog of a 2+2er named Bruiser tonight. He said something that hit very close to home. When he was going through a pretty long downswing, he said something along the lines of "losing has changed the way he views winning." His point was that when he was losing, instead of trying to concentrate on the small pots, he would try to get them over as fast as possible to try to move onto the big pots. In the meantime he was just giving away money in all the small pots. Also, AA vs KK and hands like that end up being zero-sum in the longrun because you will have them setup against you as many times as they are setup for you, and that the difference between winning and losing is how we play the small pots.

Well tonight I tried harder to focus on the smaller pots and not let the beats get to me. I was tested VERY early in the session.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?665291
This is exactly how I've been running lately, and for the past week I have really let this get to me. I mean afterall it is extremely discouraging to lose buy-in after buy-in from hands like this, but oh well. Tonight I just moved on rather than semi-tilting. I ended up turning a profit at this table even after this brutal hand.

In 378 hands I ended up making a profit of $77.15 running at 20.41PTbb/100. VPIP/PFR numbers are 24.34/16.4. I am MUCH happier playing this style.