Encouraging Tilt?

Hey all,


I've had a recent problem in one of my games and I'm wondering how you all feel about encouraging a disruptive player to go on tilt.


My general feeling with most other players weaker than me (or anybody for that matter), is that I am a gracious winner and gracious when I get a bad beat. Let the guy feel as good as possible either way so he keeps playing me and I get paid. Keep a good game going, everybody's having fun, keep it loose, keep it easy.


However, I've recently come across a couple players who are just jerks. We all know them. They bitch and moan about bad beats, criticize bad players (which only encourages them to play better), and generally turn a fun (translate: easy) game into a freakin' war. I've talked to these guys aside and suggested it doesn't help but they don't wanna hear it. So it occurs to me that when they start complaining, for me to stick up for the guy they're bitching at, tell them they shoulda played smarter that hand, and generally be unsympathetic to encourage an "us against him" mentality at the table. My thinking is that this would encourage him to tilt or get the hell out and keep the game loose and easy.


Like I said, I try to be gracious win or lose in general, but when one guy can wreck a game, is it smarter to act in ways to ecourage him to tilt or leave?

Isn't it amazing that these players exists. Most are pretty good and seem to be winning players to me. It is unthinkable to me that they berate weak players all of the time. It's like they don't have common sense built into their knowledge of a poker game and how to maximize EV. I guess it just goes to show that despite being a thinking player, they are very emotionally attached to their immediate results.


Then you have the generally clueless thinking player. I was sitting next to this guy tonight. The loosest, weakest, most prone to tilt player in our club comes over from a must move 10-20 with almost 3 racks of chips and sits down on my right (cha-ching)!!! he normally blows off $500-$1000 in a given session. Well Mr. Clueless on my left suggests to the fish that he color up 2 of his racks for green chips so that he has more room. the fish says "good idea" and proceeds to do so. Of course when he gets down to his last stack of red he starts to tighten up considerably. I just don't get why these players don't think two moves ahead. ugh.


rob

"tell them they shoulda played smarter that hand"


I think that this might be a serious mistake. You need to understand that many players tilt because they think that they are unlucky. If you emphasize to them that their play could use some improvement, you might make them realize that there is more to this game than they ever thought. If that happens the live one may not be a live one that much longer.

" ... an "us against him" mentality at the table."


I get that feeling a lot. Typically the "us" is me and the Asians, and the "him" is a whiney white guy. The whiners are extra tilt-prone around here because there is so little talk about the play of the hands. It's gotta be unnerving to make all that noise and be completely ignored.


There are two kinds of whiners. The ones who impersonally whine about bad luck, and the ones who comment directly on the betting decisions of their opponents. It's the second kind who IMO deserve whatever devious pyshological ploys that are contrived and implemented to cause harm.


Here's one I use now and then when it's me and one other (unfamiliar) white guy in a table of non-whites. He's playing a solid game and sees me doing the same, so he figures we bond on race and approach to playing, creating an "us against them" feeling in his mind. I can feel him feel it. But he doesn't realize that in this grouping, I'm one of them, because my bonding to non-whiners far supersedes any other types of bonds that might exist or form. He gets his first big hand cracked by trash, he stays quiet for a minute or two, then he can't stand in any longer and eventually makes a comment to me about the "idiot" who sucked out on the river. Well, it's kinda rude to start right out ignoring a guy who is talking to me, so I say, "I was never much into history."


Then ignore him after that.


This leaves him utterly alone and surrounded by eight people who will not react in any way to any bet or comment he makes. If he's never been in that environment before, which I believe is the case for passers-through who are obviously used to making belittling remarks, then the place where he customarily blows his steam has been removed, and it can only spell one thing: t-i-l-t.


Tommy

Omg I was just coming in here cause I saw some people at the table last night being just down right mean to this one player. They keep asking him do you have any money left in your back account and stuff like that. I was like first of all that is uncalled for. I know we are all trying to get paid but being just an all out asshole to someone isn't going to help. Second this guy blows and yes he does blow at least 500 in a sit down. So why would you be mean to him if anything I would just build his head up more and more good hand, nice play. What ever it takes, he would think I was a nice guy, but I wouldn't want to take it to the "buddy level". I mean we ALL get bad beats. I'm only 21 and manage to keep my head in any game. Getting mad and pissing off the table isn't going to help at all.

You should attempt to put any experienced or addicted player on tilt. There are no prizes in poker for being a gracious winner.


The only reason NOT to put someone on tilt is if you think they are a live one and that they will leave the game if you put them on tilt. There's also a lot of different kinds of tilt. Keeping bad players loose and crazy can be defined as a way of putting them on tilt (for more on this, you should read some of Negreanu's articles available on www.cardplayer.com (http://www.cardplayer.com))

I think I phrased that awkwardly so it was confusing, though you make a good point I hadn't thought of. I meant telling the a-hole that he should play smarter, not the fish.


It didn't really occur to me that tilt among knowledgable poker is related almost exclusively to the luck part of poker, though it's obviously true when you put it that way. I just read The Psychology of Poker a few weeks ago (I'm pretty new to the game) and many of the tilt-related discussions the author has are related to that very topic. What a cool game this is.

Dave, I'm a little curious about something.


The way you play, especially in the TNT (Tuesday Night Tournaments) games, how would you even recognize tilt?


Just wondering.

I say bring it. You wanna put me on tilt?? Buy me a case of beer and make fat jokes about my ex-wife. hmmmm, nope, that won't do it. But I tell you what, I'm gonna be watching for you tilt tactics. As you get distracted from your game, I'm gonna go on tilt, but luckily your chips will be nicely stacked in front of me so that I will have something to lean on. You wanna play tilt wars?? BRING IT!!!!!!!