I thought about coming in here and posting for a couple of hours last night, and even woke with the subject on my mind, then came across PTE's first two articles “Game-set-reset” and “On-Tilt” and thought it was ironic to come across those and thinking similar subjects.  I wanted to ask a question to the pros….

Do you ever get conditioned to going really deep with lots of anticipation in your mind, only to end up short?

The reason I ask is because I think emotionally the hardest thing for me has been getting down close to the FT or on it, and I have a huge chip stack, and I find myself constantly thinking about what I am going to do with the money or the impact it will have on my bankroll so I can move up in stakes successfully.  The entire time I am sitting there that is all I am thinking about and totally focused on the money.  It doesn't have an affect one way or the other on how I play to any degree, but it's the aftermath that I don't want to go through anymore.  The bigger the prize pool, the more crushed I feel afterwards.

As the years have gone on, I have become better conditioned to it over time, but I am still not where I want to be with the whole thing.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I am going to go jump off a bridge or anything (at least not over poker), nor is there any type of emotional outburst or anything.  But the scenarios I run through in my head over, and over, and over, again for hours sometimes is just completely draining.  Usually after I sleep it's completely removed, but sometimes laying down and trying to sleep is a bitch.

I have one friend who is an up and coming star in the industry right now, and I watch him “still” go through it beyond anything I would ever do.  If he gets really close and takes a beat and out, he loses his mind, cursing about the other players, suddenly signs of skype for the rest of the night, and I couldn't even imagine what his wife goes through dealing with him when he is like this.  Kind of surprises me for how popular he has gotten now and he still continues to act this way, although his following would never know it.

So like I mentioned, the more experience I have with the whole thing, the easier it has become to deal with it, but I am wondering if there is anything I can do “now” to help speed up the process of getting over this stuff mentally.  I did notice last night in the midnight madness I started doing it again,  but I was able to talk myself down from it based of my experience the prior couple of nights in the event.  I didn't stare at the prize payouts, and pulled myself away from thinking about playing in higher stakes if I hit it.  I just kept reminding myself of what had happened the previous nights, and then came here and did my little bitch, and went to bed without it on my mind. 

Does it get easier through trial and error?  If it's this bad now when I am starring at a $6k payout or something, I can't imagine the anxiety of what it will be when I am playing at the stakes you all are playing.

Thoughts?