Some interesting points here.

B~

Reading your post helped me realized something crucial about my game. Specifically, about my tilting. When I play "poorly," it's rare that my play becomes outright fishy. I don't typically experience complete regression.

What happens is that I stop putting myself in situations in which I expect to win, and start putting myself in situations where I hope to win. Calling down when I know I only have a few outs, that type of thing. I still evaluate my chances of winning each hand. But my play ceases to be rational, given those evaluations.

I start telling myself I just need to hit one big hand and then I can get right back in it, and start playing smart again. Occasionally, this works, and I'm true to my word. I get lucky for a big pot, and I start to play well again after that. Most of the time, however, I go broke before I make that big score.

I guess, to sum it all up, my tilting usually consists of me getting in a hurry. I want to win a big pot NOW. This often happens when I lose a big pot right before I have to leave (because I have to be somewhere else). I try to make it all back quickly, and that's not good poker. I end up losing even more, and then I walk away just fingering the lint in my pockets.

So I have a few things I'm going to try to stop me from going on tilt. Once I'm on tilt, it's over. There's no coming back, unless (as I said) I get really lucky on one of my chases. Here are my strategies:

1) Allow myself more flexibility with regards to time. Trying to squeeze in playing time before work or before a big appointment is not the way to go. I need the comfort, in my mind, of knowing that if I take a bad beat, I have plenty of time to make it back the normal, intelligent way.

2) Whenever possible, go gambling with a buddy. I don't know what it is, but for some reason I play a lot better when someone's watching me (someone whose opinion I value). Maybe I get embarrassed if someone sees me playing poorly and throwing money away. When it's just me, I become temporarily numb to the losses. So I'll try to drag someone along from now on.

3) After taking a bad beat, get up and take a walk around. It doesn't make sense to totally stop playing after getting bad beat ... otherwise I'll always leave a session on a downswing. But if I take a break, I can cool down, come back, and play my game well.

I'll let everyone know how these things work out. Thanks for listening.