I'm pasting this from my blog (Operation, whatever...) because I find this very very embarassing but I think it's important that I face this. If I don't I'll never come even close to making the money I'm capable of making at poker.

All comments are welcome, as always, but to be honest, I know what I have to do and I know I'm capable of it. It's just a question of doing it. I'm a very happy person who lives a very rewarding life outside of poker (knock on wood) but I don't want to pass up the opportunity to make life-changing money because I'm emotionally weak-sauce.

This is the second time I make a long-winded post about my problems accepting the swings of aggressive poker. Many highly respected posters here have already gone out of their way to discuss this stuff with me so I hope they don't feel any need to reply to this, I'm not particularly interested in becoming FTR's #1 basket case.

This is more a question of me calling myself out in front of my peers than me looking for attention and encouragement.

(post from blog) :

I think I have some serious self-management issues to overcome.

Most of the money I made at nl400 (15 buyins or so in past few weeks)came from playing short, ***perfect*** sessions. Usually that just means that I didn't get called in any big bluffs and finished with a profit.

Today I continued playing nl200 (plan is to play 5k hands before going back to nl400) and quickly made about 750$.

I then dropped at least 1k in the space of about 140 hands.

1 buy in was CLEARLY due to tilt. Blind vs blind I got limp-reraised by a 24/6 who had stacked me on the very last hand when I shoved on his river blocker (after raising UTG and firing 2 barrels on J high board) and he snap-called with TPTK.

I insta-shoved over his limp-reraise and his AK held up over my AJ.

Nothing... and I mean NOTHING, tilts me like spewing away winnings. I ALWAYS tell myself "well, if you'd only stopped"...

What this suggests is a basic gambler's mentality. It is COMPLETELY irrational. It means that I am playing poker for emotional fulfillment. It feels good to win. I always want to be happy. Booking wins feels good.

But the need to feel good has gotten in the way of my long-term profits. If I look back over the past 12 months or so of play, I can count the sessions where I've played very well for more than 1k hands on the fingers of one hand.

This is a very very bad sign and means that, while in a bubble I may have some sort of poker proficiency, I lack the emotional discipline and the equanimity necessary for poker.

It's funny, because this isn't something I really feel like I'm lacking in other aspects of my life ("handling your ups and down" lol) but I've somehow managed to never get over this hump in poker.

When I was grinding up my roll playing the Back 2 Back in the good old days of their huge bonuses, I was a very very aggro regular at the nl100 euro games.

My old laptop with the results of those days is shot, but I think I made about 15 ptbb/100 over about a 40k sample. Back then, I had maybe 1/3 of the poker skill and experience I have now, but I had a much much better approach to variance. I would regularly get it in light vs other regs and just accepted the fact that the swings would be huge. Most of the regs ended up just giving up vs me since they were only there to nit their way to the bonuses so I was in a great spot. I also had the comfort of knowing that even if I spewed a little bit too much, I had big bonuses waiting for me at the end of the day.

Nowadays, I'm playing solely for profit from the tables. For whatever reason, I get extremely tied to results. Like, it's just fucking unbelievable. If I run a bluff that works, then it's brilliant and I feel great and I'm on top of the world (and vice-versa obv).

What's stupid though, is when I'm losing, I often have no problem rationalizing what appears to be a good play that didn't work out. I just chalk it up to variance that some dood make a crazy call or I got kicked in the nutz by someone rivering a 3-outer when I was trying to control the pot.

If, however, I'm winning and one of these marginal plays doesn't work out, it drives me off the deep end. I start telling myself that I should be "holding on" to my profits and not spewing and this just puts me on huge tilt.

This is really really bothering me right now and I have some serious soul-searching to do before I continue with anything poker-related. At the very least, I have to try to start playing with a bit less intensity and less focus on short-term results.

Fuck me. It's very hard to be patient when I've been struggling with this for over 12 months.