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This only happens to me when I play live, and with tournaments more than cash games. I see the other players lining up to register, or hanging around the tables before the start, and I immediately develop a vicious loathing for each and every of them. I feel like I can't wait to sit with them and check-raise their mid pairs and call their bluffs and generally exert my superiority. It's quite different from a healthy, positive drive to compete and excel, it's a "negative" emotion. Which also happens to extend to ridiculous lengths: last night I was playing a rebuy crapshoot where a bracelet winner and a sponsored player were in the field (one of them at my table) and I couldn't help but thinking that they were overrated delusional luckboxes and that I would show them what hold'em really is about (in the end I lost four coinflips, got pissed and left before the rebuy period was over).

Does this happen to anyone else?

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I have similar feelings as you, but mainly when I am playing online, rather than live. I think it is a form of self-loathing. Like if I am having a losing session I feel like "why the f*ck am I wasting my time playing this stupid game on my computer?", however, something gets lost in the translation in my brain and instead it might come out in the form of virulent hatred for various players at the table, even though they are nothing more than a screen-name and perhaps some random chat in the chatbox. If someone outplays me on a hand - pure hatred. If someone sucks out on me- hatred. I used to express this hatred in the chat box, but finally all of the sites banned my chat and I have not bothered to bug them to let me chat again. Generally, it's a good thing that I can't chat.

I will say that only occasionally will I get these feelings at the casino. Fat people tend to tilt me. If there is a fat person at my table, that is a bad thing for me. However, it is harder to hate people when you are sitting at table with them - they are more human. It's easy for me to hate them when they are just a screen name on the computer.