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Tilt

Tilt  (tlt)  tilt·ed, tilt·ing, tilts -   To play emotionally driven poker, devoid of reason or rational thought. 

We’ve all done it.  It doesn’t matter who you are or how good you think you are, whether you play micro for pennies or sit with the big boys tossing monstrous stacks of chips into the pot.  In your mind you may think you have Spock like control over your emotions, able to say “NH” to the same fish who repeatedly rivers your monster five times in a row within 10 minutes.  But eventually it happens to everyone.  It may be at the end of a long day at work.  You may be tired, frustrated, sleep deprived, drunk?

It could start from simple boredom.  You’re at Pacific and haven’t received a playable hand in literally two hours, and well, this K4 off might be ok to play just once from early position.  It may start from nothing more than a downswing due to normal variance.  Or it could begin after your set gets busted by some idiot who rivers his backdoor straight and then tells you he “knew it was coming,” and proceeds to brag about his “skillz” after which the sob rivers you again!  I especially love it when players use the excuse “well I’m holding your chips aren’t I?” like it justifies the moronic play they just made.

This is when the downward spiral begins.  You may simply play a few hands too far and then quit in disgust and be done with it.  Or you may have a full on tilt-o-rama, blowing you’re entire bankroll and then some within a couple hours.  I’ve noticed that very very bad things happen when guys that are normally solid limit players tilt and head to the no limit tables in order to “make up” some of their loses.  They’ll reason that they’re tired of idiot fish and will be better able to “punish poor play” at the no limit tables.  I’ll tell you who’ll be punished, and it’s not fish at the no limit tables…     

And we’ve all seen it happen to the other guy.  You’ve been sitting next to the classic nice guy for over an hour.  Every hand it’s “NH,” “VNH,” or  “nice fold!”  Gag me.  Then his donkish play finally catches up with him and his chips begin to bleed.  His cheerful façade fades and he starts spouting off either profanity, or profanity mixed with “poor me” tirades. 

Recently I had one guy at Full Tilt tell me he was literally “sobbing in his office” at that very moment.  This is of course just ten minutes after telling me I was a lucky “F@$#” after my set miraculously beat his pair of 3’s.  How very very lucky.  “What am I doing wrong?” he’d whine repeatedly.  I’d been at his table for roughly two hours and would estimate that he was down at least 70BBs.  My response?  “Hey it’s not you man, it’s just bad luck.” I told him.  “You just need to keep playing, to get through the unlucky cards ya know.”  Yeah, keep re-raising those middle pairs jack-ass.  Am I evil?  Yes.     

For me the tilt begins when I do something stupid.  Last month I was multi-tabling Prima.  On one table I was slow playing the nut-flush.  The pot was monstrous and on the river I happily went to click “raise” and hit “fold” instead.  It felt good inside, watching my chips being given to the undeserving fish across the table.  Kind of like a long painful bowel movement after having consumed several large burritos speckled with fine glass shards.  Needless to say I tilted and it wasn’t pretty. 

Being rivered doesn’t bother me too much any more.  I’ve been around long enough to see that the variations really do even out and that it’s actually beneficial to the game when fish draw out on you.  If they never got lucky we’d only have good players left at the tables.  Also, being drawn out on doesn’t hurt your long term pot equity and that knowledge helps keep me level inside.  I think some of the frustration resulting from bad beats comes from players that are actually quite good, but haven’t been around long enough to experience the swings and learn first hand that bad beats are just part of the game.

So how do we avoid tilting?  The solution is short, simple, and easy to remember.  Unfortunately it’s also extremely difficult to enforce upon ones self.  The answer?   Stop playing before you tilt.  “Well Duh!” I can hear you thinking.  “If I could do that then I wouldn’t be reading this article.”  Exactly! 

But you can force yourself to stop playing before you tilt.  Just like some people have financial stop limits.  I have an emotional stop limit.  I rarely tilt anymore because I simply stop before I hit that point.  Train yourself to recognize the warning signs.  Maybe hands that you wouldn’t consider an hour ago start to look playable.  Perhaps you start having difficulty folding decent hands that you know are losers.  Or maybe your set just got rivered in a monster pot and you feel like putting your fist through your monitor, (or opponents face if you’re in a live game). 

Figure out EXACTLY what sets you off, then when you encounter that situation, feel those emotions, or recognize the patterns signaling an approaching tilt...  just QUIT!  Turn off the computer, or walk away from the table at a live game.  Go outside, go for a jog, grab a beer, whatever cools you off.  It’s that simple.  Like the saying in Rounders “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle.” Because when you’re playing emotionally driven poker, you will lose.  Develop an emotional stop loss point.  It takes practice, discipline, and a bit of the type of inward reflection that many people just don’t seem to be capable of.  Find out exactly what makes you tilt, recognize it, then quit playing the second you feel a tilt coming on.  Your bankroll will thank you.    

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