[cincy_kid24]

I have the same problem, only my problem is magnified 100 times b/c I dont keep my mouth shut, at all [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
In a way a little berating every once in a while, ON A RARE BASIS (i cant stress that enough), is therapuetic believe it or not. keeping all that frustration bottled up w/o some sort of solution is just turning up your noise filter and it will eventually do you more harm than good.
I remember sitting 3-6 at my local cardroom and picking up AA in second position. I was sitting w/ the worst group of donkeys on the face of the planet, the player on my right was wearing sunglasses...AT 3-6!!! LOL. Of course on the surface i didnt mind b/c there was a great EV b/c these guys were making ridiculous mistakes that were rare even for 3-6.
So anyway, AA sec. position, raise get 2 callers behind and the donk wearing glasses reraises which at the time i thought was perfect b/c i could reraise and drive out the original callers but that didnt work out, i reraised and everybody called behind.
Flop was bad for me, came off K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], with the 2 hearts and re-re-raised huge pot there was no way i was driving out any kind of weird draw, I didnt like the K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] b/c i was thinking right away that the reraiser flopped top set.
on the flop - reraiser bets, i raise and everybody calls. On the turn is the 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], so im done raising, and of course the limp-caller right behind me bets after i check the turn, (by the way I also had the A of hearts so i wasnt going anywhere) everybody calls, river is a blank, limp-caller bets again, i show down, everybody else folds and he shows 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] for small two-pair.
Now, I know how to act in a cardroom, I have been playing serious hold em for about 3 years (which i know isnt too long) but even w/ all the knowledge of why i shouldnt berate this guy, there was absolutely no way I could stop myself and I let this guy have it for 2 minutes after the hand.
It was incredibly bad form, I'm the one who ended up looking like an [censored] but it still helped me, it didnt help my play, it didnt help me become a more complete player, it didnt help anything - it was simply anger management.
I'm just not the kind of guy who can take an awful beat like that and say "nice hand" b/c it wasnt a nice hand it was a garbage hand.
But the thing is berating will only make you worse as a player. After a while if you get so worked up about every bad beat you take then you will start to expect it to happen every time and i have found when you are already thinking something is more than likely to happen, it usually does.
If you approach the game itself viewing success as money earned on one hand or any small number of hands then you're going to be a failure more times than your a winner. My definition of "sucess" at poker comes directly from good decisions opposed to bad decision and how I let those decisions affect my bankroll over the course of a year or several years. I think of it as managing luck - my luck and the other player's luck. And that doesnt mean protecting a good hand w/ a timely check raise in order to force out draws, I mean managing luck over your entire poker career, absorbing downswings, upswings, sideswings and everything in between.
Anyway, sorry to ramble. I am getting better w/ the berating, when i do go off (which is not very often anymore actually) I realize that it's for me, and only me, its therapy. I could care less about letting the other guy just how "good" i am and how "bad" he is, in the end nothing changes and it's just wasted energy.
Hope this helps, good luck