how to deal with the big downswing or continuous bad luck

Speaking as someone who’s had a lot of downswings in my life but also have won a healthy amount in my life…

It sounds like you need a break from whatever your regular schedule is, and you need to evaluate two things:

1) Is this downswing so bad that it is threatening your ability to stay rolled for your game? (If so, you need to adjust your game selection.)

2) You need to try to self-evaluate how bad each of these hands is making you feel. Some of these hands are just straight-up coolers or bad luck and if you were on your A-game or in an upswing you wouldn’t think twice about them. It’s the mental overload of getting tilted by these hands that you need to try to avoid. Taking a break will help the most with this part.

3) You need to evaluate your play, too. The hands you posted that weren’t coolers were all failed bluffs. If you are in a game where people are calling shoves on AJJ with 22, maybe shelve your bluffs. When you aren’t hemorrhaging money with failed bluffs, suddenly you will keep all the money you win when you run good.

all the hands you posted have fundamental errors. some of the more obvious ones are having a $150 stack at all (either top up or just go home) and cold calling KTs OTB with a $300 stack. you need to 3b this hand preflop in this spot, or just fold it if you feel like being a nit. dont play the fish game of cold calling pre and playing fit or fold on flops.

and for the 88 vs kk hand, i would not bet pot on the flop. play the other guy's hand not yours. once he checks the flop most players's range will have some weak, showdownable hand like JJ, QJ, TT, or a middling Kx. you dont get value vs. that range by potting the flop. obviously you'd have still gone broke but your play still is fundamentally wrong.

Being down 1k at 1/3 while playing 2-3 times a week, 4-5 hours a session is absolutely nothing. Unless you mean you were up 20k this year and lost 21k and now your net for the year is -1k, its not clear what you mean.

I had a time that started back in June and went into mid-August, I play a little less than you, once to twice a week for 4-5 hours a session. I couldn't win anything. 3-bet QQ huge pre and board comes A-K-7 every time type deal. People binking sets on me. Flopping flushes. I started to get paranoid and afraid to raise a hand without seeing a flop betting smaller post flop because "I knew" their draw would come in. One night I remember in particular I was at a 6-handed table where the other 5 players knew each other and were in town for some convention, they were all blackout drunk except for their DD who was only somewhat drunk. They were shoving blind, calling raises blind, opening 50$ cold... yada yada.. I picked up KK and got it in pre for 400$ with one guy who called the 400$ blind...runout was like A-K-7-4-2 .. I show my KK.. he has AA. Its a cruel game sometimes.

What I did:

1. I walked away a bit, played less, replayed hands in my head.

2. One evening I read something illiterat said about "you'll know you're back when you get your money in good a few times and hold" (paraphrasing). This helped a lot and ended up being true.

3. I talked to the LAG crusher at my room who is a good friend of mine, actually there's two of them. They both play PLO pineapple NLHE Vegas etc etc. 1/3 is training wheels for them. One pulled out his tracker app for me and showed me he had a 11k downswing at 1/3, the other showed me his worst night was losing 3k at 1/3, then coming back the next night and losing another 1k. (Our max BI is 500). Let that sink in for a moment. I'm talking about a guy that's studied, done courses, has posted here on and off, took the game seriously and lost 3k in one night.

I think you should focus on two separate things. 1. How to deal with downswings. 2. Getting better at poker.

As far as dealing with downswings, you have to recognize that they always happen to winning players. I just went through a 354 hour downswing that lasted 73 sessions. Peak to trough I lost 25k. I went through 2 downswings of this size this year, both lasted about 3 months, and I played 1,320 hours this year. Not a great year, but I still won 77k. For a winning part time player, the downswing could easily last an entire year.

For dealing with downswings emotionally, I recommend a short YouTube video from Andy Stacks called Dealing with Downswings:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=n_BGa03LnUU&...

As far as getting better at poker, keep studying the game and look for spots to improve. Find some good winning players and discuss individual hands with them (5 hands is too many for one thread. Stick with 1 hand per thread). Watch YouTube videos. Hungry Horse Poker is really good. Consider getting a subscription to GTO Wizard or something similar to study preflop and postflop.

THANKS FOR THE ADVISE .Agree that i should not do any bluffing or chasing again fish .

Last night i went there again ( after over a week of cleaning mind ) , playing " fewer hands / no-bluffing /no-chasing " manner for 2 hours and double up 300$ buying in and leave -- just to give my self some confidence also because the table is a little too crazy .

However , on that table there was an interesting hand that i would like to share and bring my thoughts on how i should play if I were any of those three guys , or how to play on this type of table in general :

-- its a crazy table with lots of $50+ open got severe callers and lots of shove almost 25-30% of the hands they are playing .

-- the three player each has about 1000$ chips

-- 33 UTG open $25, 46 suited in middle position cold-call , AA in later position raise to $75 , 33 call then 46 call ( preflop everybody seems to play their " best and normal " but build a $225 pot preflop .

-- flop 2 3 5 with a flush draw potential . 33 bet $100 , 4/6 raise to $200 , AA cold call . 33 call .( in our casino everybody seems to have big concern on flush and one way to avoid losing too much against flush-draw is to control pot on flop and push hard if turn is " not a flush card " .

-- turn is A . 33 bet $300 , 46 shove ..... AA shove ... 33 " can't fold this hand " and shove .

-- river is a blank . 4/6 hold up and take down a huge pot of 3000+ .

All you should care about is improving your own skills, not trying to figure out how LAGs think. As others have mentioned, while you may be better than some or even most of the fish in your ecosystem, you still have some significant leaks in your game.