Tilt= lack of understanding of the game.

Over the holiday weekend. I played at a 10-20 game at the Taj in Atlantic City. The game took place on the Wednesday night before the 4th of July. A drunk played in the game. He went to the river with EVERYTHING. Unfortunately for an acquaintance of mine he got a set of aces cracked by this drunk who rivered a flush and the fourth suit landed on the river. The drunk held an A2 the two was of spades.


Needless to say the acquaintance steamed away $600 trying to get even with that drunk.


Had my acquaintance understood that these plays are why the live ones sit down he wouldnt have steamed. He would have taken great pleasure to wait again when he had the best of it and punish the drunk.


Instead the acquaintance went on full tilt and started playing almost any two cards. Later when I ran into him into him in the lobby for a smoke break, I asked him what happened in there. He said that he figured he might get luckier than the drunk. I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away. I thought this player had more intelligence than that.


I believe Mason has written an essay or two on this topic and I agree with his philosphy that steaming or tilt comes from ignorance. I agree.

I feel delighted when my opponent draws to his 14.1 shot in a head to head pot. I don't feel as delighted when he hits it, however I understand that the probablity exists that my opponent will hit. Thats part of the game. When I have the best of it, I will win x percent of the time however y percent of the time my opponent will hit. This what keeps the live one coming back.


Not getting cards also tilts many payers. Again, I have played hours upon hours straight without even seeing paint. I understand this is part of the game and I just enjoy watching my opponents go to war. In these dead periods I try to learn more about the game. Again, this has to do with understanding the game.


John Feeney also has some great essays on steaming in his book Inside the Poker Mind.


Just my observations. I would like anyone elses ideas of what sets a player on tilt. And for the record I usually never steam or tilt /images/smile.gif

Best Wishes MK

I completely agree that knowledge about standard deviation and the role of short-term luck can take a player far in terms of how he is able to handle bad beats and losing streaks. This knowledge is an absolute nescessity if one is to keep his emotional balance and sanity in this game. The fact is, luck plays a very large role in the short-term and a realistic knowledge of what to expect can help the player to easily shrug off these short-term events and to focus instead on playing well with a high level of confidence that doing so will assure a win in the long-term.


Players who are ignorant of these all important things will tend to overrate the impact of skill in the short-term and consequently steam a lot more than those who don't.

But what if a player is not ignorant yet tilts regularly none the less. When this is the case, he can follow the process that I describe in the "Maniac" thread below.

I known a lot of people, and some of them were poker players who were constantly waiting for something to set them on tilt. This could be in poker or in life. If they didn't get promoted at work, it was a conspiracy; if a sales call didn't work out, the prospect was a dead head. If they got a DUI, the cop was an asshole... etc. etc. etc.


I think a lot of these people are at the poker table. They are just sure the world is against them, and when the fish hits his 2-outter on the river to crack their aces, KABOOM!!!!!


I try very hard to stay level, but I've had days like this. I'm just thankful, I don't have every day that way.


Good luck all,


Fitz

That's exactly the way I see it. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you were able to win every time you sit down, there would probably be no games to play in.

Not tilting nor steaming means you probably have good control of your emotions. IMO that gives you a big advantage over opponents who do. Unless theyre acting, those who exhibit negative feelings such as anger are probably not doing their best creative thinking.

for my sake and the other, even though that guy went on full steam, don't ever ask him "what happened in there?" PLEASE!!! He is just going to give you an illogical answer.

It may make him play better.


Now with that being said.... I'd like to add to your tilt subject......

Sometimes I look around at the people I play poker with regularly and others and you have to understand why they play. I play to win. I used to play "always wanting to win" Some people have to understand that always winning doesn't happen, it cannot happen. It is very hard, when i see someone make a real stupid play against me and lose I laugh to myself of course, but you see, when i see someone make a real stupid play against me and WIN, i don't laugh, but i do smile.


Last time I was at the Taj playing 10-20, I was dealth KK, a man followed me all the way to the river with Ax and rivered a straight. Needless to say i did not pay off his river bet and I was a little ticked. Did I go on tilt?? NO!!!


Not even 4 hands later go by, and I'm dealt AA.

OHH YES!!! flop came up Queen high with two clubs.I was up against the fish who everyone was feeding off of. Now I check raised him on the flop. The turn came with no help at all, complete rag. I check raised. AGAIN!!! ON the river fell the Ace of Clubs. I check raised again, and he called.... he held the 67 of clubs.. but the jist to the whole thing was when I raised before the flop he reraised, and I capped it. OHH MAN THAT BEAT made me upset. Did I GO ON TILT!!??? NO!!!!!!!! I got up and left, why did i leave you ask....because a series of beats like that would probably have set me up on tilt. That's right, me who hasn't went on Tilt since I'd say January of this year, could very well have went on tilt that night...because when things like that happen or shall I say when a series of things like that happen it does set you up on tilt. So I left, and honestly started laughing to myself in the car about how funny that guy was, and what an underdog he was.


I honestly say that I play poker to make the right decisions, these little clay things we throw in the pot are just to be captured by the player who makes the best decisions and least mistakes. NOT TO WIN MONEY!!!! TO MAKE DECISIONS THAT MATTER!!!!


Don't go on tilt. It is so hard hard to make that tilt money back. -Dewey Tomko

When you mentioned getting up after that bad beat, it struck a chord, because I recently lost a large sun of money (for me) by not going on tilt. I try to constantly evaulate my mental fitness to play, whenever I am at the poker table. This is extremely important when a bad hand comes your way. I had aces full cracked by four eights. Of course I had to take a short breather, but decided I still had the better of it. I went back to the table feeling fine. I was maintaining the right attitude. The sucker with the eights proceeded to draw out on me on almost every hand I made. Two hours later, and 200+ down in a 1-5 game I drew K7s. Flop comes K7x. Turn is unmemorable (exceot for the betting by me). River comes a nine for the pair the sucker has in the hole. That was enough for me. I went home having maintained a good attitude til the very end, at which point I decided god hates me.

Would you want the pilot of your plane to lose his cool for any minute? Particularly in a crisis when you need him to be level headed the most?

So why when your playing and you need your wits about you more than ever, would any educated player abandon proper strategy?

Just my thoughts on the dangers of tilt.

Nice post.

Yesterday, well Sunday afternoon I had a No-Limit Tournament at my house. It was a table of 9 people. Yes I tilted, throughout the entire tournament, I made every single mistake possible.

Why do you ask I went on tilt?

I was soooooooo exhausted I had 2 hours of sleep the night before after being up for over 20 hours the day before and I could not even think straight, my senses were way off.

My resolve was totally worn out, don't get me wrong had I been in a ring game, I would have definitley gotten up, but I was in my home and I seriously tilted out!! Put it this way I won a big hand with 4h7h, by turning trip 7's....and I wasn't even in the blind.

It was all down hill from there.


I had no energy. I was so tired. I wasn't even watching the other players. I was just really really out of it.


It made me realize something, when your stamina wears out, sometimes there is nothing you can do when you are still at a Poker Table, but there is something you can do when you get your ass off of it and that is not play poker. But I was in a tournament and had no choice but to play.


-Please don't let this happen to you.

It's not just ignorance about poker. Ignorance is extremely important, but we all know that World Champions have gone on tilt. You can see it on television. These champions clearly understand the game, but can't control their emotions.


The belief that understanding alone will control emotions is one aspect of the "rationalist fallacy," the belief that rational thinking is the driving force for most actions. Yet everyone takes irrational actions.


One of Freud's most important contributions was helping us to understand the extreme importance of irrational and unconscious factors. Before Freud these factors were rarely considered by anyone other than novelists and playwrights. Going on tilt is the most obvious example of irrationality in poker, and it occurs for a variety of reasons.


One of these reasons is arrogance, especially for highly skilled players. Even though they know the game better than we do, they believe in their innermost hearts: "The laws of probability should not apply to ME. I am so special that nobody should ever make a two outer against me. In fact, no mere mortal should ever beat me." When their arrogant delusion gets punctured, they sometimes act as foolishly as a drunken beginner.


Bill Clinton was a superb example of this sort of irrationality. He knew that everything he did was closely watched. He had seen how the media destroyed Nixon. But he essentially said, "It can't happen to ME."


If you want to understand why people act the way they do, you must understand and accept the importance of irrational and unconscious factors, not just at the poker table, but everywhere.

Considering that non-rational factors weigh in unconsciously when we make our decisions more than we care to admit,does it not follow then that if we are always in control of our emotions,we would therefore make rational decisions in our conscious mind?

You wrote: "Considering that non-rational factors weigh in unconsciously when we make our decisions more than we care to admit,does it not follow then that if we are always in control of our emotions,we would therefore make rational decisions in our conscious mind?"


There are two errors here. First NOBODY is always in control of his emotions. People vary enormously in their control, but nobody always has control.


Second, the unconscious is, by definition, not rational. Only the conscious part of our minds is partially controlled by reason. The unconscious is ruled by irrational forces such as childish and primitive desires and fears.


As I've noted elsewhere, one of Frued's greatest contributions was describing these unconscious drives and their effects. The goal of his and many later therapies was to make people more aware of and therefore more able to control these powerful, unconscious forces. As long as they remain unconscious, they are outside rational control.


Anyone who believes that the world is run by reason must not read the newspapers. The same irrational forces that cause people to destroy themselves and other people cause them to do stupid things at the poker table.


Alan Schoonmaker

Can the mind be trained to suppress or minimize its unconscious/irrational drives so we would be able to improve the quality of our lives? If so, how do we try to do it on our own? Do we have to go to therapy to prod our mind to make better choices? Sorry if I am oversimplifying what is a complex problem but I would appreciate an answer in layman's terms.

Mikey, really enjoyed that post.

Since Im not trained as a therapist, I'm not certain of this answer. However, the reading I've done suggests strongly that the mind cannot easily be trained "to suppress or minimize its unconscious/irrational drives so we would be able to improve the quality of our lives."

That is, some form of therapy is probably required. I do know that some therapists claim they can do it, but I have doubts about them.