Iv been having a prety tough week, Iv dropped almost 1/4 of my Bank roll after 4 days of play. Iv had more than my share of suck outs this week, and im sure its affecting my decision making process in subtle ways that are further affecting my play.

After 2 weeks of winning play @ the $50 tables I had a serious discussion about poker w/ my wife and where it could go, and on a subconscious lvl i think thats affecting my play as well, becaus the very next session i played was a loosing session, as have 75% of my sessions since.

So in the interest of my sanity and Bank roll, I will drop a lvl and go from there

Theres no shame in moving down. On more than one occasion Ive moved up, played for a little while, got spanked and then moved back down.

Later on when I got back up to that level again , I played much better.

althoughl I am new to the forum, (HI all, Great site!!)I am not new to poker. Moving up and down in limits will make you a much better player in the long run. I have found that the higher you go in limits (at least for no limit) the tighter you will need to play.


But with a little perserverence I have yet to find a limit I can't win at.

Good luck.

See this is a good argument for not talking about poker with your wife. I see this along the same lines as not mentioning a no-hitter in baseball while it is going on. When I am all through with playing poker, then I will discuss it with my wife.

I've dropped to the very bottom and played nickel dime and penny poker. Currently have worked my change in my stars account to playing a dangerous $50 game for the amount of money I have in the account.

Moving down is fine and sometimes necessary just to get a grip on your game again at lower stakes. Sometimes getting comfortable with new concepts should be done on the cheap, such as experimenting with a different style, gaining confidence in raising abnormal hands, getting comfortable with short handed play. When the game starts looking like a stupid game of chance, I step down for a bit, until I can see the skill and the best hand actually holds up.

When I'm running bad which is usually 50% cards 50% me, moving down and stomping the living crap out of a $10 game will restore my faith. Sometimes I play a progressive game starting at the bottom and every time I triple up I move up. It is kind of like playing a tournament against yourself to see how far up the ladder you can move, and you may make it further in limit than you have previously played. If you lose a buy in you move back down triple up and repeat. You will not lose any money if you lose, but you will have the opportunity with a goal oriented mindset to win.

Last Sunday I played the nickel dime game and in five hours had a $120 stack, never once doing anything tricky or out of bounds for my stack size. This was very confidence rebuilding, allowed me to get back to the fundamentals and was fun.

Right now I float between .25/.50 and 1/2, based on my mood, current roll, game selection and how much risk I'm willing to take on any given day. There is nothing wrong with playing a smaller game, nor should you feel embarrassed to be sitting in the cheap seats.

I'll tell you a little story. A long while back , I moved up to $200NL for the 1st time.

I was doing well in the $100NL game. I started winning here too, but then dropped $2000 in 3 days. I had dropped from $7000 to $5000 in my bankroll. I was not in a great mood to say the least. Obviosuly I wasnt good enough to beat the $200 game and my ego was bruised.

I still had enough bankroll wise to stay at that level, but I decided to move back to $50NL to regroup. I started wining again. I moved back to $100NL and won also.

Eventually I was back to $200NL and now when I play this level I think "jesus christ these guys stink". I mean theres a few good players but 95% of them dont have a clue how to REALLY play. That was me back then. Its amazing how much you think you know, but later find out there was so much you didnt even know that you didnt know.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that almost everyone moves up, then back down, then back up before getting comfortable. Theres no shame in it.

For any of us who can read and think, the above post is probably worth 1000's (at least)...Thanks Ice...