TILT!

[twosevoff]

Going on tilt is by far the biggest leak in my game. I estimate I've cost myself at least $8000 in the past year by playing on tilt, including busting out my steadily growing new bankroll this past weekend, which was at one point on friday was at almost $2300. I lost $1500 of that in one two-hour tilting session of epic proportions on Saturday.

Every time I tilt, I tell myself it's going to be the last time I throw away my hard earned money like that, but then lo and behold, a couple weeks or month later, I'll be raising every hand, bluffing at almost every pot, making chasing or ill-advised calls, and just generally making things worse because I'm too upset to play winning poker.

Here's some advice to avoid tilt; I hope I'll be able to follow it myself in the future.

-If you feel yourself starting to tilt (b/c of a cold run of cards, bad beats, bad folds, bad calls, whatever), you should tighten up, sticking to only premium hands and not making substantial sized bluffs at pots or trying to make big calldowns. Become a rock. Playing too many hands or trying to steal pots to recoup your losses is a recipe for disaster.

-If you are unable to tighten up and get off tilt, stop playing, before you lose too much. If you're still on tilt the next session or went on massive tilt, it may be a good idea to take a break from poker for a while; take a few days or a week or two off from poker. You can use this time to analyze your stats and the leaks in your game, read up on strategy, or, if you're feeling burned out, live a poker-free existence for a while.

-Don't play if you're impatient, angry, or in any kind of emotional distress. If you've just had an argument with someone (as I did with my parents right before I went on tilt this weekend), don't play. If you do play in such a state, realize you're not playing your best game and tighten up.

-If you go on tilt and win, recognize that you just got lucky so it doesn't become a habit everytime you take some bad beats.

-If you begin to tilt or are having especially lousy luck, it may be helpful to take a short break to lift weights, go running, watch tv, take a nap, etc. to calm yourself down.

-It's generally not a good idea to play while drunk or tired. If you do, know you're not playing at your sharpest and make an effort to be conservative.

[Excalibur]

Handle bad cards, handle a loss and handle a bad week...

So we have 'em all at the same place... 8-)

//Ex

[ArcticKnight]

There is another way to deal with a "potential" tilt that helps me.

If I have lost big to some bad plays and bad breaks, I know that I should cut my losses right away. However, I still want to play. POKER....right?

What now??.

I simply enter the next multi-player tourney for $30 or $20 (or whatever value suits you). In doing this I accomplish 4 things

1. I still get to play
2. I can quantify my loss as a mximum $30 over the next few hours
3. I re-establish good starting requirements, because we all know that "survival" is the key at the beginning of multi-player tourneys
4. The slow pace of the beginning of a tourney allows me to relax and reflect on what I was doing wrong prior to the tourney

In short, I can both unwind and play poker, and not worry about my bankroll.


There is also the chance that I could win big, but I don't want to frame this as a key reason because then I might look at tourneys as a way to recoup my losses, and that's not a good stretegy.

Anyway, this helps me avoid losing more than I should when on tilt.

[whileone]

My 'potential tilt' cure is to play as many .01/.02 cent limit tables as I can handle. Once I hit four, I just don't have time to screw around. I get to see tons and tons of cards. I risk about a buck a table.

I may actually lose a few bucks, but with enough tables running it becomes easier to fold rather than bluff. With so much going on it becomes tough not to play tight.

Usually I get tilty from waiting and waiting for a good hand then see it go nowhere. By seeing 200 hands an hour, I get to see some good cards.

On the other hand If I’ve been drinking, or I’m bored, I go play halo. Blowing stuff up helps a lot too.

[twosevoff]

My 'potential tilt' cure is to play as many .01/.02 cent limit tables as I can handle. Once I hit four, I just don't have time to screw around. I get to see tons and tons of cards. I risk about a buck a table.

That reminds me of the most important thing to avoid tilt: if you're starting to steam move down in stakes, or for the love of god at least don't move up in stakes.

This was another big factor in the magnitude of my tilting session loss: after an intial bad swing, I exited out of the NL 50 tables and started playing 3 NL 100 tables and 1 NL 200 trying to make back my money. Very bad idea. Is there anything worse than playing both above your bankroll and on tilt?

Goddamnit I want to play some poker. It's so infuriating that in roughly 7-8 hrs of play, I lost more than what I could make in 2 months of working a normal job.

[Demiparadigm]

I have a funny tilt story about last night
After losing four $30 SNGs on the bubble to bad beats- KK v AK, QQ v QK, AK v AJ and the last one AA v A3o when he rivered a straight, I started playing $10 NL rings. One table people seemed to be taking an excessively long time to make decisions, and I was feeling impatient.
Finally a hand came up where I raised a little and got reraised when I had AQs. I called ( which I wouldn't normally, since he raised about a quarter of his stack, but again, I was a little tilty.) The flop came AQ3 and Ibet enough to put him all in. He sat a while... and thought... and I typed in the chat box "I have AQ" to which he immediately called with KK!?
later I made a raise with AA on the button and got reraised from early position. I went all-in for more than his stack, and he started deliberating. So in the chat box I type "AA" and get called by QQ!
I now have over $30 and a player with about $3 raises from early position.
I have 72o on the button and I raise to $3 and type "72" in the chat box. He folds and shows JJ!
This is VERY BAD etiquette in poker, but it made me feel a little better.

[ChezJ]

sometimes when i take some beats and my chips are down, i resolve to tighten up and only play premium cards. the problem with this is that i then play so few hands that i am compelled to push them as far as possible, even when i totally miss the flop.

example: i get Ad Qh, raise, flop comes 9s 7s 7c, and i raise to "protect my draw" despite obvious evidence that the guy has trips.

it's twice as hard to fold a premium hand post-flop when you have been folding pre-flop more than usual.

i don't know the solution to this, just making a personal observation.

ChezJ

[Tenny]

I'm glad you posted this sev, I took a beating yesterday on Party for about 175.00, which was my profit over the past week. I play the 25NL and don't play enough to make more cash. I took some bad beats at 25 level, 3 full houses lost to bigger full houses, two on runner runner. So like an idiot I move up to 50NL to make it make and in about 15 minutes lost another 50.00. I need to learn to walk away. Play at the micro levels or a small buy in tourney.

[Aces]

The biggest money-saving Tilt strategy is just quit. If you happen to get lucky and make some of it back, if you're still on tilt you could lose it back and then some. You might be able to play your way off tilt, but you're almost always better off quiting, at least for an hour or two if not longer.

If you absolutely have to play, move down to where the stakes don't matter as others suggested. Play a freeroll. Or a nice long low $ MTT. This is also recommended if you're drunk, tired, or aggrivated but feel like you have to play. Whatever you do, don't move up to try and "make it up". That's a gamblers/fishes mentality and I play to win, not to gamble.

Sorry bout your luck twosev, I know all of us have lost some bucks playing when we shouldn't.

[redih]

My first month (back in august), I deposited 50 in pacificpoker. Within 2 weeks of 1on1 (3-6), I was up to 800. I then skipped ahead to the 15/30 and went up to 7k. As soon as I showed my friends how good of a poker player I was (which = easiest way to go on tilt...aka ego)..I dropped about 1.3k in 2 hrs. They laughed at me, so I took a 5 month break to get away from the bs, and now I'm back to building a bankroll on PartyPoker. Which I find a lot slower because their layout distracts me for some reason. Stupid hands like ATo look good and I can't figure out why; it ends up limiting my wins per night.


Lesson: Don't show off to your friends or your ego will get in your way.
Lesson2: Take a break, need be 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year; just don't play with your ego. Play the players/cards, not yourself.

[Spandrel]

Another good strategy, in all honesty, that I use is to just quit playing for money and pop in World Championship Poker on my XBOX, and just go online and play recreationally. There are some decent players online, and I figure it is better to work my way out of a slump playing for free than to spend money, sometimes.