I am 45 years old and have played poker on and off for several years now. I have always enjoyed playing and have had my ups and downs, well mainly downs lol. I have started from 2NL and ran up to 50NL and would go on major tilt and lose it all and rinse and repeat. I am more fond of playing MTT but really don't have the time to commit to consistently playing those. I recently deposited $250 back on Ignition and want to focus on getting better fundamentally, so I can work myself up the stakes. I don't have any aspirations of being a pro or even making supplemental income from playing. I just want to conquer my tilt and improve my game. I am starting from 5NL due to that being the lowest stake on Ignition. I wanted to start this thread for my own accountability. I would deeply appreciate any advice that would be given! My current BR is $301.25 and I am continuing to play 5NL and mixing in a MTT occasionally. What training site or books would you guys recommend for someone like myself?

How do you plan to tackle that tilt problem? Something that helped me a lot is to pay attention to my thoughts and spot the red flags. For example a classic one of mine is "WTF give me a break!" At this point i know I need to stop and "take a walk" and I make sure to do it.

I am currently reading "The Mental Game of Poker" with the hopes to gain some pointers on how to handle tilt. I also am setting time limits on how long I play and stop losses for my sessions as well. I found that most of my tilting would come from too long of sessions and after I began to chase losses. I appreciate the advice!!!

I have continued to play with ups and downs and I have decided that I absolutely hate playing cash. I can play for 2 or 3 hours and play really well and even be up several buy ins and then see all that go away, because I would get sucked out on and then go on monkey tilt. I would lose it all and I have tried to keep from doing it, but just can't help myself lol. I have always loved playing MTT's better, but I have not had the time to commit to playing them. I have had more success playing MTT's and ultimately love playing them more. I have decided to change over to just playing MTT's and not playing any cash at all. I have at least broke even playing the past couple of months. I have paid for a subscription on TPE and I feel that I have learned a lot already.

I am going to play 2 nights a week and will devote the rest of the week to purely studying. My current BR is $346 and I am going to play a strict BI rule of 100BI. I will make an effort to blog here at least several times a week even if I am the only one reading it. I need to have accountability with myself and others. I believe that I can be a winning player and I am willing to dedicate the time necessary to improve.

Tilting/spewing away one buy in (100bb) every 1000 hands is equivalent to reducing your winrate by 10bb/100. Your primary focus should be working on your tilt issues. You have to be able to understand you're tilting/about to tilt, think about why that is occurring and then being able to just stop playing.

I also had really tough tilt issues, and the only thing that really helped it was going through higher variance formats and learn how to deal with the swings the hard way. I spent a year on spins, and several months on PLO2, see suckout after suckout after cooler, one after the other until your skin grows thicker.

Some tips are: take a break after an hour or two, don't worry if you lose a "juicy" spot on a table, there are countless fishes on the pools, have a stop loss rule, for example, if you lose 4 BIs the session ends, doesn't matter if it just started or if you don't feel "mad".

Be very mindful of your body, energy level, and stop, if you're feeling tired, stop, there is a sick poker culture amongst regs of gloryfying nosebleed sessions, or people that put in incredible ammounts of volume. Don't fall for it, specially since you don't care about becoming pro or having a stable source of side income, take breaks,stop, only play when you're feeling in your A game.

Good luck in your adventure! If you have the money, there are several mind coaches around that could help you, a quick search here or on google will let you find them, remember to be careful of scammers of course, check recommendations always.

Thanks! I definitely see the win rate just dropping off according to PT4 and I have identified when I start to tilt. It is just having the discipline to stop the session. I have always had a bad problem with chasing losses, which leads to more losses.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond and giving great advice! I deeply appreciate it!!!

I have continued playing both cash and MTT's on Sundays only. I had my first really deep run in a $6.60 BI 25K GTD. I know it was extremely above my BR, but I give myself one shot per week to play a little higher. I made my first FT and felt that I played well, but I made a really bad play to go out 8th for a $276 score. First place paid almost 3K and I guess I had dreams of hitting my first 4 digit score, but my inexperience showed a lot and i made a really bad error.

Yatahay Network - 400000/800000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 21.26 BB
BTN: 11.15 BB
SB: 15.13 BB
BB: 58.68 BB
Hero (UTG): 11.11 BB
UTG+1: 11.57 BB
MP: 12.61 BB
MP+1: 14.72 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Jh Th
Hero raises to 10.98 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 9.98 BB

Flop : (23.46 BB, 2 players) Qs 6h Ac

Turn : (23.46 BB, 2 players) Td

River : (23.46 BB, 2 players) 6s

BB shows Kh Ad (Two Pair, Aces and Sixes)
(Pre 60%, Flop 82%, Turn 89%)

Hero shows Jh Th (Two Pair, Tens and Sixes)
(Pre 40%, Flop 18%, Turn 11%)

BB wins 23.46 BB

Looking back now, I should have waited for a better spot to shove. My BR is at $422 now and I am playing 10NL and $3 and under MTT. I have really been focusing on developing preflop ranges and tilt control. I feel that I am getting a better handle on recognizing before I go on tilt and stopping when I feel myself losing the battle of emotions.