The swings of tourney poker often bring this question into my head. Getting knocked out of a tournament is never fun, even if you had no choice or you made the right play, blah blah blah etc. It still sucks to have to get out of your chair, or to see that notification on your screen. But it's that leaving that makes sng's and tourneys seem less likely to bust a bankroll right away. Not only do you have the option of leaving a tourney...but at some point you're going to have to. How you let that situation affect you is where this question comes from.

"Running bad" in tournament poker is really a bit of a misnomer. Yeah you can run big hands into bigger hands, take beats on the river and whiff with every good draw...but in the end getting in those situations isn't where the advantage comes from in a tournament. The real edge in a tournament, I believe, is how you manage the tournament. Managing the tourney mostly refers to the ability to adapt to the changes that happen accordingly. I started seeing this more when going over a knockout hand with my girlfriend. I realized after a while that I wasn't really talking about the situation i was put in card wise but rather the situation i was put in for that tournament. The amount of variables involved in a tourney decision makes them seem infinitely more complex than ring games. But,nn then once you've made the correct decision time and again, you become a bit of a robot. We'd probably all do well to have the robot's emotional capacity right after a tournament. As long as you made the correct decision for the situation, you should be completely satisfied. It's actually being satisfied that I need to work on.