[faustusmedea]

I think this is an interesting post because obviously all poker players can relate to at least some degree. The replies all tended to hone in on the "punch or hit things" angle and correctly point out there are some larger clouds here that cry out for a break.

OTOH, the poster remains frustrated because he is seeking an "answer". And this is the zen of the problem, because there is no "start doing this at the table and all your bad beats will go away". You can take up kickboxing to relieve your frustration, but if you sit down and take some terrible statistical variances in your next session, the problem still remains.

The truth is, the only thing you can do is try to become humble. Continue to seek answers to areas where your play is not optimal so that the benefits of improvement there can offset the drama created by tough beats. Set some session limits; both time and dollars in order to prevent a single session from becoming a killer.

Finally, try and make sure you play more B&M poker. If all of your play is online, the civility of the game goes out the window. You are not dealing face to face with humans and thus it gets very easy to blow up. Its a lot harder to boil over in public with other humans; though I'm sure we have all seen the occasional altercation in a poker room. Usually though when you take tough beats live, others will console you one way or the other and give you the reinforcement necessary to play well; even if it is just that knowing grin from seat 3.

I think you also have to sometimes ignore the questions about "needing the money". If you have set your mind to tackling Poker as a profession, than of course you need the money and of course it will be an ongoing issue until you pop a WPT event. Oh yeah, it will still be an issue, because you will want to enter more events and play in bigger games.

Oddly, I think an area that you might find helpful is to say for every 10 hours of poker that I play, I am going to find a way to volunteer for some good purpose 1 hour. It is too easy to get an attitude the cards are stacked against you and by giving of yourself, you will start to realize others have it worse, karma can help and your attitude will improve.