I've realized my mental game is horrible.

A few months ago I came back to poker after about 8 years off. I never was much of a live player, I played a lot of hands online for a year and made about $30/hr crushing 2/4 and 3/6 limit. It was approx 150k hands so I was pretty sure I was a winner.

I played maybe two hundred hours live of 20/40 after black Friday but then hung up the semi-pro life to go to graduate school. Live was fun, but I had a 80 big bet cooler and wasn't sure at the time if I had the mental game for it, was too aggro for live, or what.

Now I'm back in it for recreation. I'm learning to play NL and I just played a 6 hour session live 1/3 where by the end I was down just one buy-in, but tilted and tired of playing. I probably should've called it quits at hour 4 when the table got less juicy and I was starting to get frustrated. I lost my first buy-in around hour 3 stacking off with only 99 flopped overpair because I thought the only other tag was playing back at me because I was the most aggressive player at the table. No she was just playing straight up poker and had QQ.

My second buy-in suffered death by two blows with my overpair running into a mega combo draw that binked it (think I actually played that hand well) but then I was steaming and shoved over with top two pair when there was 4 to a straight out on the board even after I check called the flop telling myself "this flop is great but crazy wet, I'm on the edge of commitment so shove on safe turn fold on nasty one of he bets big". Turn was horrible for me and I check shoved anyway over a big bet hoping he was just playing back at me because I had raised so many hands preflop that orbit, I thought he was capable of just having top pair in a big pot anyways. Villain snap calls and everyone at the table when villain called: "oh it's a chop". Me in my head when he shows the one card for a nut straight: "no, I just obviously should've gone home a while ago".

My limit live play is not going great either. I'm down about 50 big bets in 8/16 after a couple hundred hours. I think I'm running into the same issues there where deep into the session I don't want to book a small loss so I stew and push too hard.

I'm thinking of rereading elements of poker, finding a coaching site to watch NL videos, and taking it easy from actually playing for a couple months. Plan is to then play shorter sessions with a hard time stop and really slow down in big pots.

TL;DR real rusty online player is a live tilt monkey with no session length stamina. Would like some advice.

I’ve made the same sort of mistakes regularly in tournaments ever since I started playing a little over a year ago. If I had always done what I really knew was right then I would have had so much more success.

I’d be very interested in any decent responses to this thread.

Sounds like you have quite of bit of experience so it isn't the knowledge component and therefore it is a mental issue as you believe.

Think back to mental issues you had in the past and what helped you then.

What helped you then should help you now.

Online poker I would take a short break or just stop for the day if I got tilted. I don't really have as much live experience.

Maybe my issue is that each hand is much bigger and fewer hands while online was many smaller hands. The variance is higher and I just haven't adjusted for that. In online limit maybe I would book a bad session but with so many tables I could look at one table and say "well this one did ok" or "well I made some good reads and adjustments despite booking a small loss". In 8/16 it's been swings of +/- $500 every session (small stakes limit gets maniacs and big LAGs often). NL 1/2 and 1/3 I've blown maybe 5 buy-ins.

Previously I actually had a bankroll, which I think helps mentally accept the variance. Right now I have no bankroll, my income is high enough now that each paycheck I slice off a couple buy-ins and go play.

So, I'm not taking breaks like I used to. I don't have a bankroll like I used to. And the variance is higher on a $ level than I've experienced before.

Seems like this all points to:
1) take a month or so off and learn more to bring me back to a calm analytical state.
2) get a bankroll together from my income instead of taking a couple buy-ins to the cardroom each month. That way I won't feel like I have to pull out a winning session each time so I can build up.
3) accept that variance is double or triple what I have experience with and the cost of tilting is much higher. Thus, pull the ripcord early if I start to steam.

Would playing lower stakes help?

I operate in exactly the same way, slicing some of my pay check rather than building a roll. I've never considered that this could be a major leak but maybe it is?

No lower stakes possible for NL. For limit the rake is so high below 8/16 that I refuse haha

There's a lot that can be talked about here.

Firstly, one glaringly obvious point to make is to look into the language being used when recalling hands that you played.

And going a little further it's imperative to ask: Is recalling the results of what occurred beneficial? Or does recalling the results of what occurred cause the mind to fixate in a continual movement of thought?

Looking into what's going on with the mind is imperative. Precisely because it is the root of the issues that you describe in your post.

Trying to unpack what you're saying here... If I'm thinking about a hand I should ask myself: "Am I thinking about what useful information I can gain from that hand or are my thoughts simply racing". If my thoughts are just racing then I'm not focusing on the next hand and should take a break or end the session completely because I'm essentially not thinking about my play anymore.

This isn't exactly what was being made reference to but you have certainly put forward something of worth here.

What was being referenced is the exact language used in your initial post.

When you look at it objectively, you see that your mind is currently patterned in a way to think in a way that is results-oriented or beat yourself-up-oriented.

Neither of which, in perfect honesty, is healthy or useful.

Hopefully, this is not taken as a personal criticism. As what's uncovered here is an issue practically all poker players have to deal with day-to-day. Those that play frequently anyway.

You have to understand the variance is very high when your 1 tabling live. So every session is going to be a roller coaster ride. If table has to many regs find a new table or take the night off. Poker is not going anywhere. It will be waiting for you the next day.