Hello.

I'm kind of a new to this site and this is my first post here, so I would like to start it by saying thanks to everyone for amazing content here in RIO. I've been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot of great threads here lately and I really enjoy it all. Sorry for confusing text and grammar errors in advance. I'm just gonna go ahead and pour my heart out.

I could really relate to the "Striving to break the vicious circle." by taaazz (http://www.runitonce.com/chatter/cant-break-the-vicious-circle/). I just quit yet another losing session after having 4 days off from poker and I feel like breaking my monitors into million pieces and giving up. I've been in this same state of mind at least a 100 times before and I can't seem to change it. Yes, I am a tilter, a bad one too. Sometimes I get furious when I lose and other times I just get depressed and I think of what a loser I am and I'm just wasting my time playing this game. Sometimes I can stand the bad run for as long as 50k-100k hands but eventually the tilt will accumulate to a point that I will just snap and hate life. Don't get me wrong though, I really love the game and I still enjoy playing it. I just can't stand the losing. It has always been my biggest problem in life too. I've always been into sports and games and I'm so competitive that it's almost ridiculous. Ofcourse, it has gotten better over time and I know better now. I don't tilt over a friendly game of bowling nowadays for example, but it used to be really bad. Ofcourse, ego is something to leave completely out of a poker table. Still, it is not good to have to quit session after 500 hands because I feel like I'm gonna tilt bad soon.

I've played poker on and off for about 10 years now, can't say professionally since I play microstakes 6max NLHE, but it payed for my studies and I'm up from the game so I guess that's something. I've studied the game in the past year a lot. I've read Applications of NLHE byt Matthew Janda partially, bought some coaching, watched a lot of videos and read a lot of forum posts. I feel like strategically I am able to beat these games, but my mental game is so bad that I will start to question every decision when I run bad and eventually start playing bad, which makes me tilt even more. It really is a vicious circle. I am yet unable to climb up from nl20 (and never will if I can't fix my mental leak) and currently I've forced myself to go back to nl10 to find my game and confidence. I've been losing since September 2014 and I've only been able to play 134k hands in these past 5 months. I have a 9-5 job so my grinding takes place in the evenings and weekends and I can put in maximum of 30-50k hand volume in a month (if I run good).

I've read Jared Tendler's MGOP1 and developed a good routine when I play. I like to watch poker coaching videos and listen to my favourite songs before the session. I close all of the instant messaging software and social media including my phone. I like to write down and concentrate on some area(s) of the game that I struggle with and need to improve. I listen to relaxing music and I keep my sessions about 60 minutes long. I don't stare at the results after the session, and I rather evaluate with the area that I wrote down before the session. I use BRM of 50-100 buy-ins and try to be as not-results-oriented as possible. I exercise almost daily and like to eat healthy. I have a lot of hobbies and a girlfriend. I also have friends that play poker with whom i can talk about poker hands and swings. I feel that my life is well balanced and I am doing everyhing right, but still I keep on losing and tilting. I've lost all my confidence at the tables and I think I have a million leaks and I can't help feeling blue after 50minutes of playing. It has gotten to the point where I'm just thinking of giving up. By giving up I mean admitting to myself that I can't be a winning player and that I need to do other things with my life. I don't even dream of playing professionally or anything. As a matter of fact, I don't know how you guys do it. How do you deal with losing day after day, week after week. Or maybe you don't have to, since you are better players than I am, you don't have to deal with losing a 134k hand period? I don't know, it might be possibe if my winrate is so low that it's really hard to beat rake even with as good as 50% RB.

Why would someone as tilty as myself keep on playing then, you might ask? Poker is not about the money for me and I've never been the guy who starts to chace losses in higher stakes. I simply love the challenge and I think that poker is like self development. If I can beat this game, I can do anything. Anyways, this post is too long already and I'm gonna wrap it up now. I would like to hear from you guys how do you deal with losing and how do you develop your mental(and strategic) game. What do you think of my situation? What should I do? Someone suggested developing daily meditation routine, anyone with experience in that? Should I keep grinding or should I just give in and play recreationally? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!