Ugh, make it stop

Here's another one of the things that ticks me off about being a small-volume player...few hundred hands here, few hundred hands there, few thousand hands for a month:  downswings can go really long on the calendar.  My last 15k hands I've run way below expectations.  That in and of itself is frustrating just because I hate to lose.  My play has been pretty poor in spots, so I'm making it wore than it needs to be for sure.  But the biggest frustration is that for me, this represents almost 2 months worth of play.  Over the last couple months, it's been a steady stream (seemingly) of getting  all-in as a 3:1 or better favorite, and then they get there...and all the usual stuff that we whine about when running poorly.  Intellectually, I know it's going to happen.  Even emotionally, I'm OK with it.  I'm pretty sure I've gotten a little gunshy and too cautious, but the whackiness isn't majorly affecting my play or even steaming me too much.  I more laugh about it, to be honest, and I'm trying most of the time to not even look at how the hand plays out once the cards flip up, and I make whatever note on my opponent is appropriate.

The problem is that while I've gotten good at making my decisions relatively unaffected by results, I haven't yet conquered getting my enjoyment at all unaffected by results.  I played a really long session (for me -- it was 1200 hands) last night.  4 tables only, no distractions, and did a great job thinking through decisions and putting villains on ranges, and was pretty close, a lot of the time.  But after AKs < AQ, AK < AA, AA < runner-runner straight (he had 2 overs, backdoor flush and backdoor straight on the flop and bluff-shoved in a 3-bet pot, LOL), and assorted other shenanigans, I finished down a third of a stack. 

I reviewed all hands with any sort of money in because I actually had no question during game time.  I thought maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the tables/hands to form questions in such a long session.  Gasp, that does happen sometimes!  But everything seemed standard even when I reviewed.

Discounting for the moment that I'm sure I'm missing my mistakes in review as well as at game time, I should be pretty happy that I got the money in good and that I feel I played really well and didn't make any (obvious) mistakes for this session.  But because I basically broke even, I just found that I didn't enjoy it.  These sorts of sessions have been enjoyable when I'm on a heater or even when I have a mix of good and bad results, but because it's been so long -- on the calendar -- since I've run well, I just feel disappointed.  For guys who play 15k hands in a week, they just have a bad week.  I know they don't enjoy it either, but at least for them, they're bound to play through it pretty quickly and at least get back to breaking even ;).  No guarantees, of course, but I'm still holding onto the conviction that I'm capable of beating the game at these stakes, regardless of the last few months :P.