If you can't handle losing like you do winning, you'll never become a winning poker player.

Put a stich in your gash, buckle up for the variance and play YOUR game, not some ABC/Sklansky/Harrington poker taught through a book.

If you start playing other people's styles then how are you supposed to perfect your own?

G-Quit...... I don't think so!

I'm gonna have to side with Drizz on this one. You have always known that you need to take a loss as well as you can take a win.

You need a sports analogy here I think. Let's see.... Yeah, this'll do. You're in the 3rd. inning and get hit by the pitch. You get back up to bat in the 6th., and the bastard hits you again. It's a tie game in the 9th. with two outs and the winning run on third. You're up to bat G, what'cha gonna think about? I see you as the get the runner home kinda guy don't you? I'd hate to hear that you went down without at least a swing.

Hey.... That's good advice. Hell, I think I'll take it too! LMAO.

Confidence can only come from good play. Not counting wins as a measure. If you play a good hand and lose. YOU PLAYED A GOOD HAND.

I say it all the time and I believe it in my heart, the glass is ALWAYS 1/2 full, never 1/2 empty.

I had a really, really shitty stretch not long ago. Sessions where I was up but crapped my money away on unwise plays and bad reads. One thing that MASSIVELY helped is that I decided I would play a couple of tournaments, different from the cash games I usually play. Having only the chips in front of you (and usually in different denominations) instead of cash was liberating and I played MUCH better poker. It gave me the confidence I needed to get back on the horse.

After a half century of serious poker, I am still wrestling with that self-confidence thing. Without an incredible amount of proof, I am pretty sure that it is the huge missing element in poker. Poker is this individualist game where it is really you versus you. Many things in poker seem to defy the underlying math. You have to believe you will win. You have to believe that you are better than most of the players at the table. When I was in my early twentites, I played poker and bridge against well-class opponents. I was brimming with table presence and was overly self-confident. Now, I know a ton more about poker but I lack that same level of self-confidence, self-belief, self-efficacy. The field is much tougher. The escalating level of aggression make it harder to play without swings. The win big/lose big people have made life for a grinder harder. People are playing poker for glory. To me, poker is about money. Nothing else comes close as a reason to play. It always has helped my game to lay off awhile and forget poker. Playing seasonably has always kept me fresh. The last time I played, I made a play so dumb, it raised issues of old timers disease. Went broke on wired tens and a head-locked read.

Lay off awhile, then read a new poker book, then just do all those things you have already promised yourself. Look in the mirror and say, "Self, we have been playing too many trash hands."

Do what I do about once a year. Go on a nice long vacation and don't even think about poker. Then when you get back, don't play poker until you really have a big urge to. Being away from poker is ok. Trust me. Then when you do play, warm up a bit at lower levels then build back into it. It will only take one win to get you back in the mood again.

Here is my two cents.

You know how to play poker. You don’t have a hole in your game. You have a hole in your focus. Focus on the game and your opponents. Not on your stack or your self image.

Bring 3 buy-in’s to the game. Don’t bring 1 buy-in and play with borrowed money.

Don’t play testosterone poker with the deep bank rolls. They have wanted to make the great call against you for years.

Build your confidence by challenging Mr. Blood to a hair contest. Or, challenge Mr. Otis to a standing contest.

All of the above are good advice. My little contribution, the thing that helped me with confidence, is to take a long, hard, daily look at the odds tables, make sure you're making the right calls and bets, and go get 'em. I don't know if you're playing LHE or NLHE, but I also found that I can't play limit -- if I get the chance, I want to drop a ton of bricks on the drawout artists. Limit doesn't let me do that, and NL does. Yeah, I'll take a pounding when they draw out, but I know I'm making the right play. That makes me a nut peddling old fart of a rock, but you know what? The aggro kidz are going to keep calling and betting and bluffing into you. You'll get it back, and they'll go on tilt, and then you'll get the rest because they're too stupid to change their game, and probably could't do it if they wanted to. You, on the other hand, can.

Keep getting on that horse, son...you'll be fine.

Sorry to hear about your gran. As for the lack of confidence in your poker games, it's something I have been dealing with lately. The dry period usually comes after an untouchable period. I put it down to the cards starting to go against you when you are on a high. Once that starts and you hit a few bad beat, it starts to ebb away at you. Yes, i agree that it is a lack of focus but I consider it as a passive form of tilt. I feel the best way to change it is get a competitive game with friends & put a limit on your playing time so you start to feel the eagerness again. funnily enough I snapped out of it last night, a 20 hour session at stars (not advisable). It works for me. I'll usually go through these waves every few months or so. I also put a lot of it down to burnout. Its a pain in the ass at times but nothing to worry about.