As a poker player develops, he realizes that tilt, also known as steaming, can be a terrible trap. A tough beat or two can cause the normally disciplined player to come unglued. He'll play hands, call raises, and try bluffs that he wouldn't have considered at the start of the session. He may switch to a game with higher stakes in his attempt to get even. On some occasions, maniacal play will lead to getting even or perhaps winning. Most of the time, however, he will lose more. Sometimes the loss is much more money and at a much faster rate than he would have imagined possible. Now what could be worse than that?
A player who goes on tilt almost always recognizes it later. He goes home and thinks about the crazy things he did in the heat of the moment. He vows never to let it happen again, and usually manages to stay disciplined for the next few sessions. In fact, a lot of pros manage to bounce back from occasional bouts of going on tilt by playing a series of long, tough sessions. For that reason, I believe that as bad as tilt is, there is something worse. To lead up to what it is, I'll share one of my favorite sports quotes of all times.
At one time, the Columbia University football team lost about 30 games in a row. Finally, they got lucky and won a game. Naturally, they lost their next game. A reporter interviewing the coach asked, "To what do you attribute today's loss?"
The coach responded, "Overconfidence!"
Strangely enough, overconfidence is almost certainly a bigger bankroll destroyer than tilt. The causes of overconfidence are the opposite of the causes of steaming, since it comes from winning instead of losing. But it has many of the same results; the overconfident player starts to play more hands, call more raises, attempt more bluffs, and move into bigger games.
Winning streaks result from a combination of skill and luck. In the short run, luck is a much more influential factor than skill, and the short run may be a lot longer than you think. A player who only rates to break even can have a winning streak of several months' duration without anything unusual happening. He just ran lucky for a while. If overconfidence sets in and leads him to play more hands, call more raises, attempt more bluffs, and move into bigger games, he is heading toward disaster.
In any one session, a disaster caused by tilt will lead to a bigger loss than one caused by overconfidence. Disasters caused by overconfidence are worse than those caused by tilt because it is harder to recover your equilibrium. A player on tilt realizes it pretty quickly, vows to stop, and almost always starts the next session playing his best game. An overconfident player will think his recent losses are due to bad luck. He will continue to play poorly against players who are better than he is. And he will often do it in games that are too big for his bankroll. The more he loses, the more he will blame his bad luck. Will he start to play better? Will he move down to a small game? Never! He knows he's better than these guys and he will keep on trying to beat them forever. Every cardroom has some of these guys wandering around. They usually are trying to get someone to stake them and are talking about how bad the other players are.
Tilt is temporary, overconfidence is terminal. 
Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bar, Nice Guy Eddie's on Houston and Avenue A in New York City.
