I've been pretty good with tilt in the past but for some reason I broke into monkey tilt yesterday. I found it disturbing that even though I knew I was very tilted I allowed myself to tilt off like that and didn't stop myself.

I was having a bit of a downswing and what set off the monkey tilt was losing 250bb in a set over set hand. Normally I would have taken a break but for some reason immediately after I called a bad River shove knowing villain hit their outs, and shoved a hand against a 3-bet that I shouldn't.

This worries me because while I only lost a few buyins I felt like I lost control for a few minutes. I've heard of people who develop serious issues with tilt and if this is something I can't control I don't know that I want to play anymore.

Why was I not able to stop playing even though I knew I was angry and tilted? I just can't understand why I couldn't stop myself from making those two bad plays even though I knew what I was doing was wrong. How do I learn to take control in that moment?

Well, tilt happens to everyone, even to people who dont want to admit it. I think what matters is how you play while you are angry, frustrated, or sad, or whatever you are feeling. To me, i can usually still play well when im feeling tilty, but what happens is that it becomes harder to play in the "gray area", meaning making marginal calls or marginal folds in tough spots. Usually when im on tilt it becomes really hard to fold like a set for example when i think my opponent has a nutty hand. So in that scenario i think its good to just stop and take a break then go and start a new session, or go to sleep if its late at night and perhaps play earlier the next day.

Also what ive changed in myself is that i got rid of the " sessions by day" tab. I would always pay attention to that tab and if i was in the red earlier in the day, i would play bad to try and catch up. So now i pay more attention to just the "sessions" tab on hem2. So when i end a session and come back to play i think of it as a fresh start. So hopefully my tilt doesnt go into the new session.

Aside from all of the above, martial arts (specifically brazilian jiu jitsu) really helps me out. Theres nothing like a good roll to get rid of all those negative emotions during a downswing. I highly recommend picking up brazilian jiu jitsu, especially if you are an aspiring poker pro. Balance in ones life is soooo important. Im almost a brown belt in bjj and its helped me loads with learning and dealing with poker.

I used to do kickboxing and brazilian jiu jitsu and I've been thinking about getting back into it so this would be a good motivator. I could actually see that helping because I was mentally at my best when I was doing martial arts 6 days a week.

It's freaky how poker can bring out the worst in me. I'm not someone who explodes or gets angry and yet the other day I threw away two stacks in a fit of rage. I do want to be a poker pro or more like semi pro but there's no way I'll be profitable if I don't learn to stop tilting off stacks like this. During those few minutes where I made those two bad decisions in my head I was saying "Don't throw this money away, end the session, I'm so tilted" and did it anyways. It was like I couldn't stop myself.

I'm reading up on tilt and it's helpful but what I haven't learnt yet is when I'm telling myself to stop but I'm doing it anyways and how to override that. It may just be that I have to learn to not tilt that bad in the first place as opposed to learning to shut off mid rage.

As hard as it is you just need to get up out your chair and walk away to gather your emotions. There's always another day or hour to win back the money

I wish my tilt sessions were 3 BI losses...

3BI isn't a tilt session. Losing 3 BI is basically the trigger to start getting tilted, the other 5/6 BI make up the session

The important thing is to recognise tilt, how it affects you, and then do something about it. Stop playing, go and take a piss, have a drink, a snack, watch some youtube, whatever it is you do to take your mind off things. The only thing that matters is not staying at a table while you spew stacks. Develop the discipline to stop playing when it hits you. You become desensitised to bad beats and coolers over time, although the frustration of down swings is really hard to deal with and the mental toughness required for poker is a big part of what makes me love it.