Tilt.
 

OK, I admit it, im prone to tilt after a horrible beat or even towards then end of a bad session. Its costing me a lot of money. I know im tilting, but that still doesnt stop me from playing poorly.

The first stage in correcting that is acknowledging it, the seccond is to ask for advice. Ive seen any *very* good advice for correcting this, apart from the same old "take a break" etc. Wondering what people think.

Cheers.

Re: Tilt.
 

I find that listening to music keeps me from tilting in the first place. Do you listen to music while playing?

Re: Tilt.
 

Most players go on tilt at one time or another, that causes bad decision; its just part of the game. As soon as you feel this way just step away from the table for 5-10 mins. It won't do any good to stay and play the game with a bad beat still on your mind, if its causing you to chase and call down second pair and so on. Hehe i've done this plenty of times too [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] If the bad beat still bothers you quit for the rest of the day and do something you enjoy other than poker that is. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] "can't control the result, only the process" (i read that somewhere on here, forgot who wrote it though, but its a very good line.)

Re: Tilt.
 

Best way for me to avoid the type of tilt you describe? I look at my BR and ask myself how I'd feel if got smaller very quickly. I hate losing money to bad players and bad luck, but that is infinitely better than losing money to my own bad temper.

Bug

Re: Tilt.
 

When I first dealt with tilt successfully, I would make an effort to "tilt" at something other than the poker game. I would write something repeatedly on a pad of paper. Like "what does check-raise mean" when I called down with an obvious loser. I'd do that until the crisis passed. Or beat up the plastic garbage can in the room. Do anything, but don't play poker.

Now, I'm much better in dealing with the short term fluctuations. I curse my fate once or twice, and then get on with it. I do notice that if I have an extended session of beats or lousy cards, I cannot stay off tilt. That is, I start to play with impatience and a need to win a pot. So I keep my sessions short enough to avoid the problem on bad days. I have a hard cap on the number of hands on a day when things are not going well. I know that my play deteriorates because of tilt when I go over that limit. On a good day, I'll allow maybe 20% more hands if I'm playing well and the games are good.

The key is to know, "I'm blowing steam", and to choose "I'm not going to do it with poker chips".

I hope that helps.

Re: Tilt.
 

[ QUOTE ]
OK, I admit it, im prone to tilt after a horrible beat or even towards then end of a bad session. Its costing me a lot of money. I know im tilting, but that still doesnt stop me from playing poorly.

The first stage in correcting that is acknowledging it, the seccond is to ask for advice. Ive seen any *very* good advice for correcting this, apart from the same old "take a break" etc. Wondering what people think.

Cheers.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds exactly like the kinds of tilt I've been known to go on. I still do every once in a while, but I've decreased the frequency a lot.

The most important thing for me was to always play within my bankroll. I play NL and I always keep at least twenty buyins in my online bankroll. When I have a full buy in bad beat, or I'm on a bad session of say three buy ins down, it doesn't affect me as much.

Another thing that has helped me is that when I feel like I'm going on tilt, I play freakishly tight preflop. This seems like the easiest decision to make and it will keep you out of tough decisions that you'll screw up on later in your tilting state.

The hardest thing for me has been realizing that I'm tilting while it's going on. Sometimes I'll be playing and thinking I'm playing fine, but then I realize that I'm calling too much and making lots of marginally bad decisions. This is the point when I really tighten up and play hardly any hands. Sometimes the hardest part is realizing I'm on tilt, because it can be very subtle.

One other thing I do to help myself is I refuse to look at the cashier and see how my session is going. I can usually tell when I'm doing badly, but if I can't put a number on how much I'm down it doesn't have as much of an effect on me.

Hope any of this helps.

Justin A

It\'s about playing with money you can\'t stand losing.
 

My understanding right now is that tilt depends on how hard you weigh your losses (no surprise). But also that that mostly depends on two factors. Namely, how well your understanding of the game is, and you what stakes you are playing for.

Regarding the latter, if you are playing at stakes where losing 3 full buy ins drives you crazy, move down a little. Not to the point where you REALLY don't care anymore, like the .01/.02 level, but low enough where you don't mind losing that kind of money. I mean, I wouldn't mind losing 30 bucks in one night.

The second point gets a little more interesting. First of all, I found that confidence in my skill reduced my tilt. I knew I'd make the money back over time. I knew when I sat down I was making money by the hour and not winning or losing sessions.
That also introduces the second aspect: thinking over the long haul. Not just about this hand.
Gift of Gab once typed the words:

"Once good players push money towards the middle, they don't care who it goes to". (not an exact quote).

And that left an impression on me. It's the decision that counts, not the result. You always hear about not being too results oriented, but those words landed what it truly meant for me.

In practice I had a losing session in which I lost 2 buy ins due to bad beats. And it didn't bother me because I made the right decisions. At the same time I knew, that had the stakes been double what they were, I wouldn't have slept.

Re: Tilt.
 

I tilt when I get sucked out on many times in a short period of time, either for big pots / stacking me.

If I get sucked out on a few times, I tend to plod ahead and play the same aggressive manner but the more bad beats and the more tight weak I tend to play.

For example, two days ago I lost about 6 buy ins within an hour and a half. I took a break for the rest of the day. Then yesterday I spent most of the time playing weak tight, however after checking my PT stats for yesterday (about 2,500 hands I know) I actually had a 6% PFR and 3.59 total aggro rating. Surprisingly yesterday was actually more aggressive than the day before.

But yeah, long story short I need a few bad beats and then I'll take the rest of the day off. OTOH I have come from 3-4 buyins down early in a session to end up net positive, so it may just be how mentally fatigued I am.