Poker thoughts made while in a rut…

Last week was not a good week for playing poker, either in the cash games or at the #TPT tourneys. In fact, even a “home” Sit N Go played in the Boston area was a bust for me. Hopefully this does not entirely sound like “whaaa whaaa whaaa”.  When I play poker, I like to have an expectation of winning and when I don’t, I try to analyze why I am losing and see if I can correct it.

Right now I am starting to run out of ideas. I have read some of the best books available about the subject of poker; all the do’s and don’ts, all the correct strategies, all the ways to maximize your wins and minimize your losses. None of that information seems to be working at the moment.

There have been times in the last few months where everything started working for me. I would play almost any hand dealt brilliantly and would extract a win out of a losing situation. This was true of both small MTT’s (multi-table tourneys),  Sit N Go’s, and Limit Cash games online. But of late, nothing I do is effective. In fact, my biggest problem now is that I no longer have a style of play. I have been playing either very tight or very loose or somewhere in between.

I am still struggling with finding out what game I should play? How I should play it? At what level should I play it? And what style of player I should be? This is a case of finding myself and knowing myself.

Do you ever have times in your poker career where things are not clicking and you are not clicking? How do you work yourself out of that rut? What actions do you take to change things around?