Running Bad ..

So what do you do when you realize you are running so bad with cards that you should literally not even attempt to play? It seems its gone that way for me for a significant amount of time. Besides an occasional bright spot, things have just been awful. By this I mean having KK run into AA, having AK/AQ vs 99/88 and not catching, running absolutely card dead at the wrong times in tournaments, consistently being one notch below on the best hand. There's only so many times that these situations can come up in a tournament or cash game and you avoid going broke. Obvioulsy in a tournament, there comes a time when you have to catch or be able to play cards in position and not have other people catch.

So what do you do? Do you just take a significant amount of time off, or do you try to 'play through it'? Do you believe in 'rushes' and 'coolers' etc. Do you believe in running hot or cold? Personally it seems that when I run hot, it's hot, and when it's cold, it's the very depths. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, or maybe others play in such a way that the ups and down aren't nearly as dramatic. Granted, I know that the style of play I choose tends to make the mountains higher and the valleys lower, but eventually you have to come out of it, right? You start to question whether or not you should ever play again. So you take a step back and try to examine how you play the game, you start to question every move you make in a tournament, things you have done repeatedly in the past that have succeeded all of a sudden no longer are working.

Well, I have to try to figure it out in the next 3 weeks, as my Vegas trip is coming up then. By then, hopefully things will have turned around, otherwise it will be one long trip ...