Thanks AOK. Reading this and your post on the psychology of losing has explained quite a few things to me. About a week ago I lost almost my whole bankroll (which wasn't very big) through what I thought to be horrible luck and not through making bad decisions. As well as that, I lost most of it to players who I had judged as morons who were getting lucky. This put me on what I recognized to be serious tilt, but I COULD NOT leave the computer. I mean that I stayed up ALL NIGHT until my eyes and fingers were aching. When I lost hands I swore and hit myself, and when I won I gave my virtual opponenets the finger. It was really crazy. And something happened which NOW I recognize might be the most dangerous result of all - I made back all my money.

Your posts have made me think about positive and negative reinforcement and how we do it to ourselves, and getting that positive reinforcement for playing through the night on tilt might have been a very, very bad thing for me as a beginning poker player. The consequences didn't matter too much this time because my roll was so small and I was prepared to lose it. But if I somehow "learned" from this that when I am losing I should just push and push until I win again, that could put me at serious risk when I am moving up to playing with larger stakes, and when my bankroll is big enough to make me cry to lose half of it...

So anyway. Thanks for these posts. I feel like my head is a bit clearer about it and I have resolved to apply your advice about walking away when you recognize the symptoms of tilt. By the way, your describing them as physical emotional responses which I can't control was VERY helpful. Can't explain exactly why. But knowing that something is HAPPENING my BODY somehow makes it easier to deal with...rather thank thinking of the whole thing as an exclusively mental process. My body doesn't much like sitting in a chair for 8 hours straight while my head plays poker...and when the stress chemicals come pouring in it takes the opportunity to say to my brain "Right, I told you you couldn't do it, let me take over, I can play tennis pretty good can't I?" and everything (sometimes) goes to hell.

I don't know if I'll ever be a pro, but I actually think I'd LIKE to be, purely because it would be such a curious and hilarious and unexpected turn of events in my life. But I know myself quite well and I know that my biggest of all problems is self-discipline. So it's good to be aware that discipline is so important for a professional, because it makes me more realistic about what I would have to do if I was ever to get to that point.

Thanks again.