How to Stop TilT

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
NO one is immune to tilt, when you start losing your cool, close the games and take a 15-30 break.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup. I couldn't agree more. Close these SSNL 'games' and open up a bit of 15/30. Always makes me feel better, too!

[TheCat]

I don't think you ever can totally avoid tilt no matter how disciplined you are. My tilt threshold does raise over time and it takes far more before steam comes out my ears now.
Personally my only solution to tilt is just to take a break for at least a couple of hours and sometimes a whole day. Some folk need even longer.
I dunno what your game is but I been practising 6 max NLHE of late, boy is that Tilt City.

[PinkSteel]

The hard part about stopping tilt is that you need what you obviously don't have at that moment: rational thought, and a little self-discipline.

Rational thought always stops tilt for me. "He drew out on me. Yep, I made the odds properly, yep, I made the proper play, he just drew out on me. No problem. If I play this hand 1000 times, and then we swap hands and do it again 1000 times, all against him, I take all his money. I'm on the right track. Next hand."

And the more I play, the better I am getting at catching myself when I am incapable of thinking rationally -- when I'm tired, distracted, whatever -- and exercising the bit of self-discipline required to stop right there.

We all know what it feels like to play mindlessly, even to WIN mindlessly. That's STILL tilt. When you're capable of catching yourself being mindless, you can stop your tilt until you get your mind back.

[Gustavo]

Most of the people is this thread , says that everyone at some degree will tilt. I tought with experience and self discipline , you could become immune to tilt.

[PinkSteel]

I think "immune" is a very strong word. I would say "ever more resistant." One of the most important things I do to help prevent tilt is to admit that it can happen to me, that I can in fact lose control.

I find that words describing absolutes -- like "immune", "never", "always" -- don't help my thinking. It's a game of judgement and gray areas. An issue may be 99.9% white and 0.1% black, but that's still gray.

[salloch]

couple of thoughts...

-I play my best poker while walking on my treadmill. I'm not sure why, but I think that doing something physical while playing keeps my mind from stewing too much.

-I have noticed that some on-line players will click the "sit out" button whenever they're involved in a big pot. So whether they win or lose, they can't play in the very next hand.

-I will unclick the auto-post blinds button when I feel sketchy. Then I have a second to re-evaluate my prospects at the table. I hate to leave the table before my blind comes up, and this helps to remind me that I need to think for a second about whether I want to keep playing.

-Saying "get up and take a break" is kind of like telling a fat person to stop eating so much. The real problem is not how to avoid tilt, but how do you get yourself to get up from the table when you need to.

-Just when you think you are growing as a player, and can control your emotions, the poker gods will deliver some perverted horror show of beats that will make you want to set yourself on fire. That's what's so fun about poker.

-salloch

[jacknine]

When I notice I begin to tilt, I like to open up a $5 heads up game where I can cheaply splash chips around untill I calm down. Mind you, you got a good chance of winning the heads up like that too.

[Ghazban]

Read everything Tommy Angelo has ever written (articles on his website: www.tommyangelo.com; he also posts here, mostly in the mid- to high-stakes limit forums).

[TheCat]

I hope we do, your first post is good stuff.

[jacknine]

the introduction of Schoonmaker´s Psychology of Poker is also quite good to get your focus back.