You say you're not having much luck. Poker is not about luck. Haven't you heard? It does help to run good - but still - it's not about luck.

You say

Your message is a tad confusing.

1st - as pinkpantherr mentioned - stick to one game and try to get good at it. Learn, study, research, play, ask questions etc. It takes a while. But play only that one game. For at least a month or so. See how it goes. If you get better at it, if you like it etc. Different games have different approached. I know it all looks like poker but it's not all poker

2nd - and I can't stress this enough: play within your bankroll! And I mean proper nitty bankroll. You can take chances later - but to learn and build confidence play within your BR. If you only have 200$ then don't play higher than 2$ SNG or 0.02/0.05 (5NL) cash games. If only 100$ then play 1$ SNG or 0.01/0.02 (1NL) cash games. Prove to yourself that you can constantly beat these low games and once your BR increases move up.

If you cannot even beat the 1$ SNG and 1 NL then what are you doing? And by beating constantly I mean play at least 500 SNGs at one limit or 10k hands at the cash games and show up with a decent +ROI.

I very often hear the cry of weak players of how they cannot beat the "donks" and the "fish" at the lower limits. Come on! If you can't beat the weak, easy to read, mistake prone, clueless low stakes player than how do you want to win against the tough regulars at higher limits? Ah ... you want to play against the donks like you see in the high stakes videos with triple barrel bluffs, representing a flush and he's calling you down with 2nd pair no kicker for all his stack? Excuse me - but that is YOUR mistake. You adjust your play for the fish not hope the fish will adjust his play to yours

The benefit of playing within your BR is the suckout/badbeat whatever-you-want-to-call-it happenings (aka variance). They are part of the game. You have to learn to cope with it. And it's MUCH easier when you lose a 2$ SNG (or even 10 of them) from your 200$ BR then when you lose 5x 12$ SNG from the same BR.

And btw if you play 500 SNGs and you're just breaking even or losing overall - then you should seriously think there is a problem with your game and not with the "bad beats", "bad cards" and other people. Yeah I know even great players can run into long stretches of break even or losing - but you should still look at your game. Incidentally - your game - it's the only thing YOU can change at poker. The rules, the cards, the other players - that's a given

But in all seriousness - it's a long process for the most of us. Not everybody gets lucky (ooops - luck again) and makes 30k from his first 30$ deposit (or whatever amount) like shawndeeb did. You need a lot of patience. You need to grind the low stakes. Then you move up.

You need to play A LOT.

PS. There are indeed certain times in a SNG/MTT when you have to close your eyes - don't look at your cards - and go all in. Because that is the best play given the circumstances. Not sure if that's what you are referring to when talking about "those guys that want you all in all the time"

I play a lot of lower stakes games because of my bankroll (just finished 3rd actually in a 360 person tourney! Yay! , and there are a lot more people who just don't know how to play and find it easier to get it all in preflop rather than try to make a good decision on how to play once there are cards on the table. You WILL get sucked out on many, many times by these guys but what I have found to be very useful in the lower stakes is to tighten up your game a lot but be willing to risk your stack with good starting hands. You are likely up against something like 10 5 suited or a trash A that they don't know what else to do with it. And the suck outs will get repaid many, many times over by the people who call their stack with nothing against your top pair or two pair just because they have a gutshot draw going on. Just don't let getting busted out affect your emotions. There's another tourney starting in a couple of minutes! Good luck!

Improvement in poker requires brutal honesty. You have to be brutally honest with yourself on how you played the hands and whether or not there was improvements to be made.

Let me start with a very clear example. You are HU in a tournament and look down at AA. The blinds are very high and your opponent pushes AI. What do you do? Of course that is a very easy, very cut and dry situation and everyone knows the answer: you push all your chips in the middle and hope for the best.

Let me give you a murky situation this time. You are at the bubble in a tournament and the blinds are once again very high. You are a midstack with about 15 big blinds and the short stack has about 5, the chipleader has about 50. You are first to act and look down at AA. You raise 3 big blinds and the shortstack pushes AI then the chipleader pushes AI behind him. What do you do? You are still mathematically favored to win, but if the chipleader beats you and not the ss, you are the bubblebaby.

I'm not going to answer that question for anyone, I'm going to let it sit because each player has to answer the question for him/herself.

Now back to the discussion of your downward spiral, are you answering these types of questions or are you shooting in the dark and hoping for the best? Betting on hope is a bad thing in poker and leads to loads of cash being lost. I believe that once you get your head back to knowing what you want to do and when you want to do it in a poker game, you will win more often than not.