I was playing with some guy recently who said "if your leaks are strategic/tactical, then you can learn to fix them. But if your leaks are personality based (tilt prone/get mad easy/scared money/get bored too easy/etc..) you will always revert back to them - they are too hard wired".

Is this a truism? I can be a little bit prone to tilty sessions where I play a long long time, dead tired and enraged inside because of some times I got it in very good and lost, or have been card dead an extreme amount of time... and I start feeling like I "deserve a lucky turn card from God if there is one" so I start floating all the time waiting for it... wind up playing 20 hours and losing 3 buy ins.

When I'm fresh I don't believe in luck and I think I can play very solid.

But, if I could take all my 20 hour sessions and throw them out my win rate would shoot up immensely. I just haven't mastered cutting my losses in situations like that and the more tired I get the worse this phenomenon gets.

Bottom line - are there any specific help tools for this part of the game - taking beats in stride and generally keeping your cool? It is currently my biggest leak and according to the guy I was talking with - permanent.

It is cutting into my win rate pretty badly.

Tilt control is a hard thing to over come, the thing is you are aware that you are on tilt. That is a start, now you need to be honest with yourself when it is actually happening. The best way to plug this leak is simple, quite when you are too tired and too tilted. That is it. There are no fancy tricks, and IMO not much else to be said about it. You need to be in a solid state of mind when playing this swingy variance filled game we all love.

Throw in some exercise, meditation/yoga and a healthy diet and you are good to go.

Fixing personality leaks are like going on a diet. People can offer you lots of ideas. For the most part, they will work. The problem isn't coming up with a solution, it is sticking with the solution.

Tommy Angelo pointed out that walking away from a table isn't the hardest part of avoiding mental leaks. It is getting up from your seat. In your case, the solution is blindingly simple. Stop playing 20 hour sessions. Creating the will to follow through is up to you. No technique is going to be the magic pill, up to and including having a buddy try to pull you from the table.

Poker requires a lot of discipline to be successful. It is one of the few activities where you make a positive change and you can get tremendous negative reinforcement. Few people who play have the discipline. If you can't do this, you won't be a long time winning player.

I only have minor trouble with tilt, but I imagine in your case it might be a good idea to set your alarm for every hour. When that alarm goes off just stand up and walk around the room. While walking consider how you're playing, table conditions, and your emotional/physical state. Try to make a rational decision about continuing. It still won't be easy at first, but you have a better shot when you're away from the tabler than if you're sitting in your seat.

The answer is self-awareness. The emotions you are not aware of are the ones that cause the most damage. It is absolutely possible to become more aware of your own emotions.

You have a couple of options, one of which is to hook up with a life coach. Psychoanalysts have been doing life coaching for a century now, but that's not the only path.

People do change. They do it all the time. It's called maturation.