The Importance of Perspective

I'm not on a particularly good run right now, since Thursday evening I've managed to drop 5.5k which is not overly good. Have dropped the majority of that during a bad run at 3-6 omaha where I ran badly and played badly which managed to make things worse. Sadly this puts me at the stage where I feel I 'need' to win just to get my confidence back and losses start bothering me a lot more than usual. Because of this I have withdrawn down to 2k in my bankroll so that I don't play 5-10nl for a while (depsite the fact this is my best game and that it isn't where I lost most of the money) and I'm going to gring omaha 2-4 and see if I'm going to be profitable. At least this way the individual losses won't hurt too much.

But to put this in perspective I'm actually about level over the last week! However it really doesn't feel like that, all I remember is the losses and the bad bits of play. My concentration is wavering and I've taken to overplaying when I go on bad runs which doesn't help anything at all.

The problem with runs like this is that I start second guessing myself, questionning the way I play, and wondering very seriously whether I am capable of winning enough to make a living (which is ridiculous). I'm not sure what to do to avoid the emotional swings - the monetary ones are ok and this is something I'm going to have to deal with when this is my only source of income.

Although I try not to I think I put a lot of pressure on myself and expect a lot more than is realistic - when I was playing well I was having days where I'd lose 2-3k and then win it back the next, this is part of the game and I need to get back to a point where I can look at things in perspective and realise that I am a very successful winning player, I've made around $35-40k this year (so far) and I love playing poker.

Somehow I need to remind myself of these points and not remain awake when I'm not entirely healthy until 4.30am and then get out of bed for work at 8am - it's just stupid and unecessary and I should know better.

Within a week I'm quite sure I'll be posting all about how well it's going etc but right now I'm over-tired, feel poor and am questionning whether I can make this work - my mind is a stupid place sometimes.

Steve