Mental Fortitude

I don't think there's a question that for me, the hardest part of playing poker is getting through the long dry spells. I had to return my Bar Review books from the summer (or forfeit my deposit) and am now waiting for the new materials to arrive (I am expecting they will be the very same books) so I have had time the last three nights to play a pretty full schedule which for me usually ends up being about 8 tourneys a night. I have been playing well but have not had any real good results. Of course I realize that this is expected - as a top player I am only going to make the money in a tourney between 15-25% of the time and am only going to make the final table somewhere around 3% of the time and the top 3 of the tourney (where the real big payouts happen) maybe 1-2% of the time. So a streak of 25 tourneys and no big cashes is going to happen repeatedly....

But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I don't know what it is about my mental make-up but I expect to win every hand I am in and when I don't, I get upset. When I lose over and over and over again, I get frustrated. And for me, making sure that that frustration does not make me play bad in other tourneys that I am still in and making sure that I don't try and chase my losses by playing in cash games (which I have proven I am a loser at) is the most important part of protecting my roll.

So here's to staying on top of my emotions and waiting for that next big score...