Tilt. Stopping Early.

[Aces McGee]

Sorry for the nitpick, but it's important to note that
[ QUOTE ]
I never would've made that 60BB swing back into the black if I would've stopper playing because I hit my 30BB stop-loss.

[/ QUOTE ]

isn't really true, unless the upswing can be directly attributable to a certain player or players sitting at your game. It's fallacious to think that you wouldn't have won those 60 BB the next time you sat down to play in a game where you had the best of it. The cards don't know or care if you're down 30 BB for a session.

-McGee

[donny5k]

I have a 20BB downswing at some point in almost every 2 hour session I play.

[crunchy1]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry for the nitpick, but it's important to note that
[ QUOTE ]
I never would've made that 60BB swing back into the black if I would've stopped playing because I hit my 30BB stop-loss.

[/ QUOTE ]
isn't really true, unless the upswing can be directly attributable to a certain player or players sitting at your game. It's fallacious to think that you wouldn't have won those 60 BB the next time you sat down to play in a game where you had the best of it. The cards don't know or care if you're down 30 BB for a session.
-McGee

[/ QUOTE ]

There were a couple pretty juicy contributors [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] - but, you're correct - it's all one big life-long session. My point, thought maybe not presented in optimal fashion, is just that losing over some small stretch of hands is not a reason to stop playing.

[Bodhi]

Good question. I'm wondering the same thing myself after a bewildering 125BB downswing over 1169 hands, that's -10.71BB/100 hands! I wasn't tilting, I wasn't doing stupid [censored] like raising the turn with K-high because 'the fish are making plays at me.' I just played my normal game, missed every flop, and lost to 2 outers and gutshots whenever I had a hand. I even lost 12BB alone with KK when I had a boat, and a guy with JT for a straight wouldn't stop pumping the pot against another guy who had AA for a bigger boat! [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] I've only had such a bad downswing one other time at 2/4, and in the same way I just continued to play my session through to the end without setting a loss limit. Fwiw, I've also had the experience of dropping 50BB at the beginning of a session, only to swing back 100BB for a 50BB net. This game is f'ing crazy. So, ultimately, to answer your question, don't stop early if you're not on tilt.

[SeaEagle]

Feeney's "Inside the Poker Mind" has some excellent essays on subtle tilt and when to recognize it. You might want to take a look at it.

I tend to tilt slightly (playing a few hands I shouldn't; peeling on the flop because I give myself bigger implied odds than I should) when I'm losing. Feeney's book helped me a lot with that aspect of my game.

[Derek in NYC]

[ QUOTE ]
I've just finished my first 8K hands at 2/4 after moving up and at the begining, I was running hot. I was up 1100 in my first 7500 hands and this created an unrealistic baseline for my expectations, therefore when I got on a 50 BB down swing in my last 500 hands I started tilting..

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

Take time off. I am on a 300 BB slide over 17k hands, after beating my game for 3 BBs for 50k hands.

I took two weeks off, and am playing better, and hitting my draws.

[TheHammer24]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've just finished my first 8K hands at 2/4 after moving up and at the begining, I was running hot. I was up 1100 in my first 7500 hands and this created an unrealistic baseline for my expectations, therefore when I got on a 50 BB down swing in my last 500 hands I started tilting..

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

Take time off. I am on a 300 BB slide over 17k hands, after beating my game for 3 BBs for 50k hands.

I took two weeks off, and am playing better, and hitting my draws.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol, nice FYP

[jat850]

Tilt is tilt regardless of how you get there, good reasons or bad. I forgot the source, possibly Psychology of Poker, that pointed out that it takes 20 minutes to restore mental and physical disorder from a state of steam or tilt.

And there was lots of good advice here - takes breaks and make them long enough to restore order. Watch yourself for open or subtle signs of tilt- more than watching short term fluctuations in your results. Watch your play - if it is different w/o articulable reason - tilt? Watch your game - is it still a good place to play at the moment?

But at the end of the day - I've met the enemy and he is me! lol.

[SeaEagle]

[ QUOTE ]
Tilt is tilt regardless of how you get there, good reasons or bad.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this isn't so black and white and that there are gradients of tilt.

Everyone's aware of the "I can't believe that SOB just hit his 2 outer in a 23BB pot!" tilt. It's pretty easy to recognize, and it may well be that a 20 minute break is a good remedy for this one.

But the "I'm tired of villian raising me off my blinds. I'll 3-bet him with this K8o and show him I can't be pushed around" and the "Laggyguy is raising me again? How many times is he going to catch lucky and beat my TPTK? Well, I'm not 3-betting this time. I'll just call him down and see the SD" tilts are much harder to recognize and generally can be fixed with less than a 20 minute timeout.

Feeney's book deals with the latter gradient of tilt.