HOW DO YOU PREVENT TILTING

[Klepton]

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TYPING IN ALL CAPS USUALLY CALMS ME DOWN

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i was gonna do this

[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.

[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.

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.

[DesignProdigy]

"buy one of those pregnancy test kits...after you receive the negative results, you can always mumble the phrase... 'hey, atleast i'm not pregnant' and you know better days are around the corner"

[lozen]

Hers a trick I used. I bought a set of poker chips. Everytime i play hand i know i shouldnt preflop I have to throw the chips in a pot. Also the ones on turn and river. If I win i can remove the net profit from the pot. Rarely happens by the way. Funny thing is those bad hands that you should have thrown away dont usually just cost you one bet. At the end of the session I see how much in the pot.And at the end of a bad session If you played your A game you still be up its the bad hands you play on tilt that kill you. Cured me immediately next session.

[CORed]

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Like I just flopped a straight and I put this guy on a set then the board was running 3's on the turn and river and I knew he just hit a set and rivered a boat but I check called him anyway cause I was pissed off

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Nothing wrong with the way you played this hand. (Except you should have called because you had the X:1 odds, not because you were pissed off.) He'd have to turn his cards face up for me to fold here. I don't know how big the pot was, but you will get shown a two pair or something often enough against most opponents to make laying down the straight a big mistake. Besides, getting a straight beat by a set that fills up isn't really a bad beat. The guy with the set is behind, but he has 7 outs on the turn and 10 on the river to beat you. He was almost certainly correct to stay in the hand (In fact, he should have been raising. He had a very strong hand with a very strong redraw if behind and he didn't know you flopped a straight.) He has more outs to a better hand than somebody with a flush draw or an open end straight draw. I think you have a lot to learn if you want to be a winning poker player. I would guess that a lot of the "bad beats" that put you on tilt aren't really bad beats.

On the general tilt issue: Beats (bad and otherwise) happen. You have to take the long view and accept that the person who laid the bad beat on you is giving you money in the long run. You don't deserve to win that particular hand. You do deserve to win over the long haul if you are playing better than your opponents. Bad beats are frustrating. But if you can't keep that frustration from causing you to play stupidly, you should quit now.