HOW DO YOU PREVENT TILTING

[MicroBob]

some people liked Zen and the Art of Poker and maybe it could provide you with soime help

(I'm not as big a fan because there are MANY parts where the author indicates that you have to leave BEFORE the cards turn badly on you...somehow yo're supposed to know when this is I suppose).


But you really seem to have some crazy anger-management stuff going on.

Everyone loses individual hands whether they played them well or not.
Everyone loses long stretches of hands whether they were playing well or not.
You are going to be no different.


you are partly frustrated because you think you are smarter than everybody there and not winning all the time (perhaps...it's just an idea).


There is some other stuff over in the psych-forum on this topic all the time.
And Al Schoonmaker wrote a pretty decent article about tilt in the July 2+2 internet magazine (the upper-left corner on the green bar) that may give you some ideas.


I do know one thing though...it is pretty unlikely that you will be a successful, winning player if you continue to behave this way and if the occasional lost hand upsets you this badly.
I mean...Hellmuth and Matusow go pretty ape-[censored] yet seem to win some of the time. But they are the exceptions imo...and you sound like you might even be more anger-prone than them anyway.


I don't have an=y specific advice on how you should get your anger under control. I can just say that if you don't find a way to do it then you are extremely unlikely to find long-term success in poker.

[SoftcoreRevolt]

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I tilt midhand when I know they just caught something and call out of spite I can't help it.

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Out of spite you give them more of your money?

Can I be your enemy too?

[josh3336]

Haha yes the list is slowly growing. I know its illogical. I mean not spite towards them but the dealer, ha.

[blatz]

Breathe deeply and slowly. Poker can be ridiculous, enjoy the laughs.

My friends (and me too) are amazed that ever since I've started making a living from poker, I've actually become much more calm and reasonable; no more starting arguments at bars with strangers, I don't need to flip off every driver within a 2 mile radius, sometimes I even go a whole day without beating my dog now.

Inner peace can reached through acceptance of bad beats...and way more fun than that boring meditation stuff.

[lil feller]

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I mean that was really proffettic don't get me wrong but how does one truly do that? DO I have to read "Zen and the Art of Archery" that Howard Lederer is always talking about or what.......

[/ QUOTE ]

Zen and Art of Poker is great.

Unfortunately we can only give you the "what". The how is the hard part and it can't really be explained. I know its easy to say "stop expecting", and thats probably frustrating for you. It is, however, impossible to say "how to stop expecting". Its like a switch that flicks in your head, and one day, you just get it.

lf

[dirty moose]

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I throw [censored] at the wall. That makes me feel better.

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[image]http://604poker.com/images/culprit.jpeg[/image]



That's an actual imprint of a TI poker chip in my wall do to... well... let's not go there. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

For some reason the pic won't post. Link below:

http://604poker.com/images/culprit.jpeg

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i have holes in my wall as well from throwing chips at it, i should take pics

[Huckle]

A (really bad) way would be to play for money that actually matters. If you lose, and actually lose something that's worth anything, it might make you feel that you really have to learn self-control, because you just can't afford more mistakes.

Don't try this at home.

[Klepton]

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TYPING IN ALL CAPS USUALLY CALMS ME DOWN

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i was gonna do this

If this is happening, then you do not truly understand poker. That, and you are arrogant.

The absolute best poker players suffer bad beats and pretty much all but one tend to understand that it is part of the game (I don't think there is anyone who doesn't know who the one exception is).

To start with, go back to the fundamental theorem of poker. Your objective is to play as close as possible to how you would play if you could see everyone's hands. But even if you COULD see everyone's hands, you would still lose a decent percentage of those hands because you would still be lacking information about the future - about what cards are going to come up on the board.

Lets say, hypothetically, you have AA - the other players at the table have 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, and TT - while you may have each of them dominated, against ALL of them, 18 out of the 32 remaining cards in the deck will beat you - that means you are an underdog, despite holding top pair pre-flop.

While I recognize that this is an extreme example, it highlights the point that you WILL lose some hands that you think you should win - and you WILL lose some hands even when you are an extreme favorite - even a 99% favorite loses 1 out of 100 times.

My suggestion is to focus less on the outcome and more on your play. If you go all in with AK and some schmuck calls with 72 and the flop comes 772, you lose, but you know you played the hand correctly - and THAT is all that matters.

[droolie]

I use a level.