One of the dangers of a cold streak is that your growing anger can begin to cloud your ability to evaluate hands. This might seem impossible, that you could literally lose the ability to look at your cards and tell if they are any good or not, but it can happen. It’s possible for rage and confusion to mess up our vision so much that we can’t see what we’re looking at anymore.
A second problem with a cold streak can be vanity – our pride kicks in and convinces us that we’re good enough to ‘play our way out of it’. We’re different from other people. When other people have cold cards they have to tighten up and pull in the horns – but not us. We have the skills to play our way out of it. This kind of thinking can be a trap.
And finally, the third problem with going through a rough patch in poker is that you can’t turn to your friends for sympathy because they’re usually the ones who are doing it to you.
Take a break. Take a walk. Change your game. Change your pants. Tighten up your play. Chalk it up to experience.The good thing is that cold streaks never last.
