Two weeks ago, I was unstoppable at the poker tables. Every time I sat down to play, I had the utmost confidence in myself to walk away from the table a winner. The bad beats were few and far between. I was making some pretty good calls and some timely lay downs and my big hands were holding up and being paid off. Things were looking great.

If you fast forward to the current day, I will tell you that my confidence is shattered, bad beats are happening at most likely the highest rate in my short three year poker career, and I'm just playing really poorly overall. How did this all happen? I'll do my best to explain. <READMORE>

Anyone who knows me knows that keeping my emotions together is not my strongest quality. I often tilt like a mad man when I take a bad beat. Up until this past week, I have managed to keep it under control. So what's different now? For one, I decided to start playing more cash games. Big mistake. I was not emotionally ready to handle the swings of a decent sized cash game. I wasn't playing outside my bankroll, but I do believe I may have been a little outclassed at the poker tables. Not outclassed in the sense of poker skill (although there were times where I clearly was), but in the mental aspect of the game. It's one thing to take a bad beat in a sit n go or tournament, as you only lose your buy in, but a cash game is entirely different. I would lose a huge pot to a 2 outer, and then I couldn't help looking across at the table and steaming over the fact that some guy who got lucky is sitting there with 3k while I'm stuck back at the initial buy in. If this was a sit n go, I would buckle down and force myself to keep my head straight. Cash game? Not so much. I would begin to play faster and dumber, constantly reloading and trying to get my money back as quickly as possible. I was making mistakes knowing full well the mistakes I was making. My head wasn't right, I was playing to get lucky.

The process I just went through has happened at least 6 or 7 times in the past week. I should not be playing cash games if the swings are too much for me to handle. It is just really difficult for me to handle losing all my hard earned money to some absurd bad beat and then tilting away the rest. Online cash games simply are not for me at the moment. I will continue to play live cash games at the casino and maybe play some lower limit cash games online periodically. I know there are a lot of others just like me out there. Take my advice and make sure you are mentally ready to play online cash games. If not, you are in for a rude awakening.</READMORE>