Survivors

The higher I've moved up in my poker career the more stressful poker has become for me.
I think a lot of people will agree with me when I say that having the perfect poker mindset isn't realistic, but I definetly think an approximation of it is possible.
Maybe I should summarize briefly what I mean by the "perfect poker mindset".
What I think about when I say this, is a poker player that is emotionally unattatched to the money he is dealing with and will at all times be able to make the decision that maximizes his expectation in the long run.It would be great to be able to play like this. We wouldn't have to worry about emotional tilt ever and could just keep on playing in good games assuming we are not ill or tired.

I'm sure a lot of you are aware that Phil Ivey once said that he thinks all players play worse when they're losing. I never used to believe in this, but I was also playing lower at the time and as I said it was less stressful and ergo easier to manage emotions. I certainly think that this now holds truth for myself. My game does deteriorate slightly when I'm losing. It is harder for me to keep the pressure on when I'm down 11 buy ins as the line between tilt and good aggressive play becomes thinner and harder to determine. The result of this is that I subconciously protect myself by playing on passive tilt.
As the word says it's tilt, but it's passive the best kind of tilt some say. It is however tilt after all and I think it is best for me to just take a break after I think I could be tilting passively and then come back in an hour two.
I think that the way people deal with there emotions in poker will vary from player to player and shoudl vary. Not all people are the same and knowing your own limits is vital to being a successful poker player. If you have problems with this, maybe you should try getting a friend to sweat you and tell you when he thinks you are doing something unheard of.

Now to the title of my post, survivors. I chose this title, because I think the best and most succesful poker players in the long run are suvivors. Imagine the best player in the world who beats the game for 10ptbb/100, but has know sense of tilt control what so ever. A small downswing of say 7 buy-ins could destroy him and eradicate his existence off the poker network he was playing on if he were uncapable of managing tilt and would monkey tilt off the rest of his bank roll.
In contrast to this take a 14/12/3 rock who plays 8 tables and beats them at 1.5ptbb/100 and never tilts.
Who will be more succesful in the long run? I am by no means trying to encourage people to be rocks, but I think you get the drift.

These were just kinda random thoughts I had floatin through my head and I thought somebody might find them valuable.
Dodgyken sent me this really cool link of an interview with Samoleus, punkety on Poker Stars, the other day. You should check it out it's pretty good imo.