Okay I have been on the worst streak of cards ever online the nutz is not even good and in my home games im busting out 1st or 2nd when im know for always cashing out. To some of the good tourney players what do you guys do when you see hand like j-2 9-4 2-7 8-5? I know you have to play through it but do you raise more preflop when the cards dont fall in your favor? Or do you sit back and hope things get better.

"Is it true that if you don't use it, you can lose it?"

Uhh, i think i've been running worse as far as losing hands that i'm an amazingly huge favorite.
not too mention i havent won a race in about 3 weeks.

i dont understand your question about J-2 9-4 2-7 8-5?
do you mean u continue to see these types of garbage hands?? if so thats just the game brother.
I've sat in cash games where i'l easily go through 60 -70 hands that were complete trash

Screw you.. I was on the wrong end of high hand jackpots in Vegas 4 times in about 400 hands a week ago. I've been scared to play poker since.

yeah, just fold these hands. If you can't reasonably fold these hands, then the structure of your guys' tournament is messed up.

I just went through a complete 12 hour day in the biggest tournament of my life where I saw a grand total of 3 'very good' hands. Poker is just like that. I think your question was more, what do you do when you feel like nothing is working? I think it depends on the type of player you are. When things aren't working for me, its usually because my opponents have decided that I'm always full of crap and they are going to look me up with anything. So for me, getting out of a slump involves just relaxing for a bit, not playing a lot of pots, and making hands. (reverting to limit strategy for the most part)

But since we're talking NL here, many times the winning hand is the hand that is played the best, not the one with the most strength. So if things just aren't well, you can always try and find a more beatable game, etc...

Poker is cyclical. The hardest thing I think to learn on our journeys is weathering the bad storms when they come. Sometimes poker is just disgustingly brutal, and waiting for it to even out when you're broke and feel hopeless takes a lot of internal strength....

Mark

Patience is a Virtue

Ah yes, but is VIRTUE a virtue?

Why would you consider raising more with crappier hands?

What you should do depends completely on the structure of the tournament and the nature of the competition.

If big blind to stack ratio in the first few tiers is less than 1%, you should probably see almost every flop.

If the group is passive, you should be raising a lot pre-flop.

If the table is a bunch of calling stations, it's not wise to raise with garbage.

80% of poker is identifying and pigeon-holing opponents, then reacting appropriately.