Have you every moved up in stakes and had a rough run of cards forcing you to quickly move back down and resume the grind? Or even worse, did you stay where you were and try to win it right back…

When moving up in stakes and learning how to play at the higher limits with tougher opponents, I have had to take almost as many steps back as forward. This can be very frustrating and can damage your ego and most painfully of all, it can put you on tilt. Inevitably you will find a time when you move up in limits to face tougher opponents and the same tricks and plays that were golden at the level you’ve been playing just aren’t working at the new level. This is to be expected in poker, the average player at your table is going to be tougher every time you move up in stakes. It can be very difficult when you move up and experience an immediate downswing. Sometimes it will be just a bad run of cards, but if you experience the same thing each time you try to move up, it is more likely that you haven’t figured out how to beat the tougher competition. It is imperative that you don’t allow this to cause you to tilt. Players will sometimes want to play even higher to recoup their losses, or they will let their ego get the best of them and continue to play long past profitability (even if the table was profitable at the sessions’ start). This is poker suicide.

“I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you’re done for.” - Al Alvarez

A great way to help yourself handle the inevitable blow to your ego that comes with trying to move up in stakes is to detach yourself from the results. There is more than one way to do this, personally I noticed that once I started recording all of my results in a spreadsheet and reviewing all of my sessions in poker tracker, I was less invested in the emotional side of my downswings. I was able to detach and simply focus on the process of ending my session… specifically on recording my results, reviewing my sessions, and posting my trouble hands on the 2+2 forums. And of course this is merely an indirect benefit. The direct benefit of making these tasks part of your poker routine is even greater. But I think if you do these simple things following your sessions, you can expect to see the added benefit of being able to more easily detach yourself from your bad beats and return more quickly to the business of poker. Check here if you want some basic bankroll management guidelines.